The Slowworm's Song
Autor Andrew Milleren Limba Engleză Paperback – 11 oct 2022
Aplicabilitatea practică a acestui roman rezidă în analiza sa psihologică profundă asupra modului în care traumele istorice și secretele personale erodează prezentul, oferind un studiu de caz literar despre reconciliere. În The Slowworm's Song, remarcăm o schimbare de ton față de lucrările anterioare ale lui Andrew Miller; dacă în Now We Shall Be Entirely Free autorul explora tensiunea istorică prin prisma unui thriller de epocă, aici el alege o abordare mult mai intimă și minimalistă. Structura sub formă de scrisoare-confesiune îi permite lui Miller să dozeze suspansul nu prin acțiune externă, ci prin dezvăluirea treptată a adevărului moral. Merită menționat că ritmul narațiunii este expert controlat, alternând între viața fragilă a protagonistului în Somerset și ecourile violente ale verii anului 1982. Credem că forța cărții stă în refuzul de a oferi soluții facile pentru vinovăție. Comparabil cu Spies in Canaan de David Park în rigurozitate și în explorarea bătrâneții bântuite de greșelile tinereții, romanul lui Miller este actualizat pentru contextul specific al „The Troubles” și al moștenirii acestui conflict în memoria colectivă britanică. De asemenea, deși abordează suferința umană cu aceeași delicatețe ca în Oxygen, The Slowworm's Song se distinge printr-o simplitate a limbajului care accentuează vulnerabilitatea personajului principal. Este o lucrare despre efortul incert de a iubi atunci când propriul trecut te condamnă.
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Specificații
ISBN-10: 1609458001
Pagini: 320
Dimensiuni: 135 x 208 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: Europa Editions
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De ce să citești această carte
Această carte se adresează cititorilor care apreciază proza psihologică rafinată și romanele care explorează consecințele morale ale conflictelor armate. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă nuanțată asupra impactului pe termen lung al violenței asupra individului. Este un motiv concret de lectură pentru cei interesați de istoria recentă a Irlandei de Nord, oferită aici nu prin statistici, ci printr-o poveste personală despre iertare și reconstrucția legăturii tată-fiică.
Despre autor
Andrew Miller este un romancier britanic de prestigiu, a cărui carieră a fost marcată de numeroase distincții literare. Primul său roman, Ingenious Pain, a câștigat premiile James Tait Black Memorial și International IMPAC Award, stabilindu-l ca o voce importantă în literatura contemporană. Miller a fost nominalizat la Booker Prize și Whitbread Award pentru romanul Oxygen și a câștigat prestigiosul Costa Book of the Year pentru Pure. Stilul său este recunoscut pentru precizia istorică și capacitatea de a locui convingător în diverse momente ale trecutului, adaptându-și tehnica narativă pentru a explora profunzimile inimii și minții umane.
Recenzii
I spent the first half of The Slowworm's Song in a sort of ecstasy, marvelling at Miller's masterful characterisation; his confident evocation of army life and sensitive depiction of the Troubles; the nuanced exploration of alcoholism; the clean, well-made prose style studded with moments of descriptive beauty . . . Stephen is an unforgettable character, and Miller has pulled off the miraculous feat of sketching a full human life in a few hundred pages
A beautiful, lambent, timely novel that admits our worst capacities while insisting on accountability and our ability to improve. Andrew Miller is among those brave male writers steering a progressive course. Yet he remains, as ever, unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity
Gorgeously written . . . it approaches the Troubles from a unique angle . . . Since his debut, Ingenious Pain, Miller has shown a knack for historical immersion, and he continues to excel in it here
The focused interiority of Stephen's narration, together with the slowburning fuse of a plot, make for a quiet intensity that stretches the nerves . . . this empathic and artful novel is about both the mysteries we are to ourselves, and the power of speech
A painful yet beautiful novel . . . Miller is a wonderful storyteller, as comfortable writing about the Napoleonic wars as the Troubles . . . In this novel, Stephen's reckoning may be extreme but his message is universal
The multiple award-winning author of Pure returns with a tender, compelling and exquisitely written novel of extraordinary power . . . Exploring a brutal chapter in the unhappy and sometimes shameful history of Northern Ireland, this wonderful novel is also a story of atonement and redemption
Miller tackles big themes and weaves a profound and poignant tale about shame, trauma and the possibility of redemption
Andrew Miller's gentle, beautifully crafted sentences belie the often brutal truths behind the narrative. The image of the slowworm, silent and sinister, finding its way into the precious earth, is set against a song of light and life that won't be silenced
Andrew Miller is one of our finest writers. Few can match his sensitivity of touch, eye for telling detail and acute feel for setting . . . The passages describing Rose's military duty are impeccably researched and viscerally real
The sections detailing Stephen's army life, and particularly those covering his tour of duty in Belfast, are excellent: immersive in their detail and atmosphere . . . [Miller] has sufficient decorum, talent and sensitivity to do justice to his delicate subject matter
His evocation of squaddie life rings absolutely true . . . It's deeply moving to see how this self-torturing individual gradually learns that he's surrounded by helpers, often in the unlikeliest of guises, while tiny flowers of grace spring up in stony places
There is no easy resolution, and that is why The Slowworm's Song . . . is so affecting. It is about truth, objective or otherwise, and about the attempts of flawed human beings to live with it
A poignant and profound tale of a man seeking atonement
A stunning work of fiction, a beautifully written tale of conflict and family fracture . . . The Slowworm's Song is a sublime reminder of how a great novel can have such a deep impact
Moving and compassionate
It's difficult not to be moved by Stephen's heartfelt words as he comes face to face with what happened in that 1982 summer
It reads truer than memoir . . . A state-of-the-nation novel, in elegiac prose
Expertly paced . . . as taut as a thriller . . . Miller, with his acute eye for detail and his practiced sense of timing, describes these Belfast streets and this soldier's experience so plainly and yet so evocatively that both become new again
Few novelists are as virtuosic and as varied as Andrew Miller . . . Meticulous research, reinforcing the narrative, never swamping it, is another Miller trademark, so it's no surprise that his evocation of squaddie life rings absolutely true . . . It's deeply moving to see how this self-torturing individual gradually learns that he's surrounded by helpers, often in the unlikeliest of guises, while tiny flowers of grace spring up in stony places.
Miller - a much-awarded writer stepping out of his comfort zone of omnisciently narrated historical fiction - has sufficient decorum, talent and sensitivity to do justice to his delicate subject matter.
A tender, compelling and exquisitely written novel of extraordinary power . . . Written with searing honesty, [Stephen's story] is a confession but, above all, it is a letter of love.
Descriere
⭐ Out now: The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 ⭐
The Slowworm's Song: a tender tale of guilt, a search for atonement and the hard, uncertain work of loving
'Sublime'
Independent
'Masterful'
Sunday Times
'Beautiful'
Spectator
An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with Maggie, the daughter he barely knows, when he receives a summons - to an inquiry in Belfast about an incident during the Troubles, which he hoped he had long outdistanced.
Now, to testify about it could wreck his fragile relationship with Maggie. And if he loses her, he loses everything.
He decides instead to write her an account of his life - a confession, a defence, a love letter. Also a means of buying time. But as time runs out, the day comes when he must face again what happened in that distant summer of 1982.
Praise for Andrew Miller
'Andrew Miller's writing is a source of wonder and delight' Hilary Mantel
'One of our most skilful chroniclers of the human heart and mind' Sunday Times
'One of the best writers at work today' Telegraph
'A wonderful storyteller' Spectator
'One of those rare novelists who can rock up in any time and place and convincingly inhabit that particular historical moment' The Times
Descriere scurtă
'The writing is near perfect. But the novel's excellence goes far beyond this . . . You read [it] . . . with your pulse racing, all your senses awake' Guardian
'A beautiful, lambent, timely novel' - Sarah Hall
An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
It is the return of what Stephen hoped he had outdistanced. Above all, to testify would jeopardise the fragile relationship with his daughter. And if he loses her, he loses everything.
Instead, he decides to write her an account of his life; a confession, a defence, a love letter. Also a means of buying time. But time is running out, and the day comes when he must face again what happened in that faraway summer of 1982.
Notă biografică
Andrew Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, was published by Sceptre in 1997. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for the best foreign novel published in Italy. It has been followed by Casanova, Oxygen, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 2001, The Optimists, One Morning Like A Bird, Pure, which won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2011, The Crossing and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free.
Andrew Miller's novels have been published in translation in twenty countries. Born in Bristol in 1960, he currently lives in Somerset.