european

Alegria's poems are emotionally raw, and graced with lyrical beauty and stunning imagery. Many of the poems in this collection revisit figures from Greek mythology: Ariadne, Circe, Sisyphus, and more. Particularly powerful is "The Reflections of Icarus," which re-imagines this character as a metaphor for poets. A number of other poems are short, haiku-like creations that examine both nature and the human world.

In the poem "This Is a Night of Shadows," Alegria writes, "My heart wishes / to burst with rage / but it sprouts wings." This memorable image is characteristic of her work. Alegria moves from tragedy to transcendence, and her work is rich in insight. This is an important volume by one of the great writers of Central America.

Inklings of the storm,

of the heavy trembling,

are surely what drive

us together.

Inklings of loneliness,

of a creeping frost,

an imminent fall,

a futile cry.--

[The formatting of the poetry might be lost. I have double spaced the lines hoping that they maintain the proper format. When I didn't double space them, they flowed together as one long line.]

This final stanza of "Outside the Wind Whispers" seems to me to describe the sensation of much of Vesaas's poetry. He often describes awesome and magnificent aspects of nature and contrasts these with a sensation of emptiness or spaciousness. He attributes human characteristics to nature and creates a feeling of humanity overwhelmed, or humanity buffeted by forces it cannot control.

I would like to quote the poetry to show you the grace and power of the language, but I am not sure if that is permitted.

I too enjoyed the poem entitled "The Small Rodents," but I was more impressed by such poems as "The Loon Heads North" and "The Horse." The poetry is mysterious, moving and quite varied in theme.

Bravo to Miss Haversham for reviewing this book first and pointing out its many interesting aspects!

My children and I all loved these stories, and we recommend them to you.

Buy this to read to others and yourself. It is a modern classic!

Just want to say THANK YOU Tomie de Paola. And Kids Read Read Read. His books are great....

Opening of the novel brings readers to Ekelund, England, in the present, to Wilhelm Bolt's coffin where the old man experienced the final moments of life: he had breathed his last breath and his spirit had yet departed. Bolt saw ethereal visions; images he had not seen before, things the living could not see like swirls of moisture and pollens in the air. He began to hear music behind the music, the whisper of ghosts and vibration of air. Bolt reminisced his life in an old estate in which his butler Andersen, an ape Jacob, and colonies of bees in hives kept his company. The retired engineer had an eccentric passion of keeping systematic records and journals of incidents of coincidence through networking correspondences and limited available literature. Events deeply affecting an individual's life had seemed the most significant and precious to Bolt. Lea Bolt, the grandniece, intruded the old man's sequestered life as she arrived in Ekelund by a fortuity.

A spark piercing through the gloomy Ekelund sky took the readers back a century to Sandon Lighthouse Station off the Norwegian coast in 1898. Once a junior lieutenant, Bernard Enberg arrived at the island where Kalle Jacobssen kept watch at the lighthouse by some circuitous fortuities (Enberg was the only option to fill the position after his predecessors had appendicitis and fell off a sea cliff respectively). A shipwreck had crushed his larynx and permanently rendered his voice hoarse. Had it not been Enberg, who had a penchant for music and reading, the organ in the chapel on the island should never have its voice restored. Josefa, Kalle's daughter, who suffered from occasional epileptic fits, shall never find a mentor in the ex-lieutenant who taught her to sing and to appreciate literature. Out of gratitude and friendship, Kalle took the brunt for Enberg after Enberg missed spotting a shipwreck in time.

As the lighthouse faithfully and indefatigably performed its duty ashore, dawn settled into Lord Lorenzo del Vitro's veranda and crept into his bed beneath the magnificent luminous ceiling paintings. The year was 1497 in Rome, Italy. Renaissance was in full force. Fiorello attended Lorenzo and took punctilious care of his scab-infested master who was fastidious about his living, and would not tolerate the least additional pain and the least irritation in his surroundings. When the miraculous power of a painting of Mary the Virgin of unknown authorship healed Lorenzo of his scabs and many others, Lorenzo researched the origin of the painting. Fiorello set out and met Giuseppe, a faithful apprentice who would have gone through fire for his master. Giuseppe reminisced his apprenticeship with Giralamo and divulged how his master painted the Virgin out of a shocking coincidence.

Darkness descended onto a World War II research camp in 1937. A mining engineer who was oblivious of danger warning ventured into a mine and fell off a drift and landed precariously on a hanging beam some 150 meters above a hallow cavity. His life was changed by this fall over the edge.

The tales are enthralling and stand independently but are ingeniously woven together. The key to the correlation between these tales whimsically hinges on readers' memory. Readers must read meticulously and scrupulously for the overlapping elements. The writing is nothing more scarcely than a nuanced, deft, in-depth portrait of the characters that breathe life into their existence through their professions (and their steadfast devotion), whether it was painting, beekeeping, lighthouse watching, mining or serving and attending a master in household duties. These tales also hinge on the coincidental change of life directions, of various personalities from diverse social strata, over a vast interval of time (at least 500 years).

Notion of protection sifts through the novel. Bolt sought to protect anecdotal accounts of coincidences as a true value to humanity. Kalle Jacobssen took the brunt to protect Enberg. Kalle's wife Rakel sought to protect secret of Enberg's fixing the organ as secret she knew that on the island there were not so many secrets on the long run. The tale regarding Lord Lorenzo and Fiorello in Italy, however, should require some patience as readers might themselves trudging through the religious overtones and debate over blasphemy and sin.

Tales of Protection is ingeniously written (though the overall translation could employ some pruning) and challenges readers' intellect and undivided attention to the subtlest details. A lack of punctiliousness will compromise the reading pleasure. 4.0 stars.

Fosnes Hansen's writing is crystalline and detailed, but it never ventures into 'boring'. The copious elements involved in each tale are there because they need to be - and they give each tale a stunning degree of depth, illuminating the richness of the characters' passions for the reader to an extent that allows them to experience how these passions consume the characters themselves. What makes a mining engineer love his work, what breathes life into his existence - or a lighthouse keeper, or a painter, or, for that matter, anyone? The author goes deeply into the anatomy of various subjects - geology, beekeeping, the history and function of lighthouses, painting - each time in order to more vividly illuminate the lives and souls of his characters.

He writes also of love, in each of the stories. They span time from approximately the present day in the first, to the 19th century in the second, to Renaissance Italy in the third, and back to the 20th century in the fourth - and through them all are spun precious threads, like silver and gold running through a rich tapestry, linking the lives and stories together through space and time.

I'm afraid if I go into any more detail I'll give too much of the experience of this masterpiece away - if you enjoy writing of the highest caliber that challenges both your intellect and your memory, you owe it to yourself to devote the necessary time to this novel - it's 500 pages long, and it deserves your complete attention. I don't think you'll be disappointed...

Themes of coincidence and seriality weave through stories rich in detail. It could be considered a book of 4 novellas if it weren't for the subtle and beautiful way they intertwine. Fosnes-Hansen's storytelling ability and attention to detail had me reading far past my bedtime each night. (An example: His descriptions of the labor-intensive and obsessive nature of painting technique from the sixteenth century.) How does a writer know these things? Research...And I greatly appreciate Fosnes Hansen for doing SO MUCH of that.

A thoroughly engrossing novel. One of my favorites of all time!