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crypticmeg's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
libkatem's review against another edition
3.0
I read this book as it had been a nominee for the Orange prize for fiction. It was pretty, but honestly, the characters seemed so distant from me. The language was really pretty, but it was like there was a fog between the characters and the reader.
schiefgelesen's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
hanblu's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
wordnerdy's review against another edition
3.0
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2012/07/2012-book-202.html
dawncox's review against another edition
1.0
I hate abandoning books. I wanted to abandon this so badly. It was so slow and so uninteresting for what is actually potentially an interesting story. It's not exactly badly written, some parts are rather well written. However, it travels at snail's pace and I felt the details were mostly dull. As though the events were important to the characters but not for anyone outside of their lives.
A couple of parts I liked.
I didn't abandon the book. I plowed on in the hope that it would grow on me or that I would somehow feel more invested in the characters as the tale moved on. Believe me I am a reader with some serious staying power. After all, some people really liked this book.
I was wrong. I should have abandoned it and moved on with my life. Still, I suppose it adds to my reading challenge score.
A couple of parts I liked.
I didn't abandon the book. I plowed on in the hope that it would grow on me or that I would somehow feel more invested in the characters as the tale moved on. Believe me I am a reader with some serious staying power. After all, some people really liked this book.
I was wrong. I should have abandoned it and moved on with my life. Still, I suppose it adds to my reading challenge score.
gh7's review against another edition
3.0
I began to enjoy this book more once I started to read it as a fable. Only then did I cease to be irritated by its relentless whispered pretensions of oracular wisdom. It begins brilliantly. The first chapter is fabulously crafted, inspired writing and had me eagerly looking forward to reading all Georgina Hardy’s novels. Almost as if I had discovered a new Michael Ondaatje. Not sure what happened then. The tension of the first chapter punctured, almost as if an apprentice took over, and the writing began to drift off into a self-conscious lyrical anonymity. It’s a narrative of whispers and evasions. Sustaining the implication something very profound is buried beneath its soil. But ultimately I was disappointed to discover it provides only rather clichéd truths about heritage, deracination and war. You won’t get an insightful or even a particularly convincing portrayal of a deaf mute (his lack of speech remained for me little more than a narrative device to sustain the novel’s tactic of evasion), you never quite believe in the mystic revelatory nature of the boy’s drawings – give a child some crayons and they all draw houses and figures that aspire to harmony and security - and you won’t get a convincing portrayal of wartime or post-war Rumania ( the novel could have been set in virtually any European country). Sad to say you won’t even get a poignant ill-starred love story because once again convenient plot devices tyrannise over credible psychological ebb and flow when the girl’s mother takes it upon herself to belligerently intercept the boy’s letters, acting on a primitive kind of reasoning that she will remain mute about. It might be clever if the gesture didn’t seem so forced and out of character. These plot devices begin to grate as if beneath the often fine and evocative prose we’re being duped into following a rudimentary join the dots drawing. Read it as a fable though and you can just about accept the implausible sorcery of the denouement and overlook its pretensions as an insight into the speechless disenfranchisements of war.
sophronisba's review against another edition
4.0
I thought this book was slow and obvious and self-consciously arty. But maybe it's just me.
samstillreading's review against another edition
4.0
Painter of Silence has been floating around the edges of my radar for some time – I’d read some good reviews on blogs, then it was listed for this year’s Orange Prize. Then thanks to the lovely people at Bloomsbury, I received a review copy. And now I’ve read it and I feel guilty. Why? Because this book should have been on the centre of my radar – it’s one of those books that you thoroughly enjoy, then curse yourself for not reading the instant it landed in your hands.
Painter of Silence has a gentle tone that builds and sways until you become completely enthralled with it. It does take a little while to get into – sorting out exactly who the characters are, the different time periods (before and after the second World War) and where they fit in relation to each other. You’ll find that everything does fit perfectly and each character and their actions have a reason.
The novel brings together two disparate characters – a mute, deaf homeless man who is brought into a hospital suffering from what sounds like a respiratory infection (possibly TB, I like to try to diagnose my characters) and a nurse from another ward who shows him kindness. These two people are the main characters – Augustin (Tinu) and Safta. They grew up together, Safta in the big house and Tinu as the child of one of the workers. Tinu was born deaf (Safta born to make noise) but they complement each other. Tinu has come to the city to tell Safta something she needs to know. By chance, Safta hears of the mute man and comes to see that it is Tinu. She gives him some paper and pencils and he begins to do what he has always done – draw.
Through Tinu’s drawings and flashbacks to their childhoods, we begin to see how this pair and their families have been damaged during the war and the subsequent change in politics within Romania to a communist state. Harding paints exquisite pictures, making the simple sound beautiful and extraordinary. The writing is out of this world – it’s lyrical, vivid and gives the whole novel a sort of nostalgia that’s not tainted by time. Harding also gets deeply into the minds of her characters – Safta, frustrated at the turn of events that changed her life, and Tinu, whose life the war tears apart. The supporting characters are endearing (particularly the nurse Adriana, who looks after Tinu in the hospital and eventually takes him home, naming him Ioan after her dead son).
I found this book beautiful and I’ll definitely read more by this author.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
Painter of Silence has a gentle tone that builds and sways until you become completely enthralled with it. It does take a little while to get into – sorting out exactly who the characters are, the different time periods (before and after the second World War) and where they fit in relation to each other. You’ll find that everything does fit perfectly and each character and their actions have a reason.
The novel brings together two disparate characters – a mute, deaf homeless man who is brought into a hospital suffering from what sounds like a respiratory infection (possibly TB, I like to try to diagnose my characters) and a nurse from another ward who shows him kindness. These two people are the main characters – Augustin (Tinu) and Safta. They grew up together, Safta in the big house and Tinu as the child of one of the workers. Tinu was born deaf (Safta born to make noise) but they complement each other. Tinu has come to the city to tell Safta something she needs to know. By chance, Safta hears of the mute man and comes to see that it is Tinu. She gives him some paper and pencils and he begins to do what he has always done – draw.
Through Tinu’s drawings and flashbacks to their childhoods, we begin to see how this pair and their families have been damaged during the war and the subsequent change in politics within Romania to a communist state. Harding paints exquisite pictures, making the simple sound beautiful and extraordinary. The writing is out of this world – it’s lyrical, vivid and gives the whole novel a sort of nostalgia that’s not tainted by time. Harding also gets deeply into the minds of her characters – Safta, frustrated at the turn of events that changed her life, and Tinu, whose life the war tears apart. The supporting characters are endearing (particularly the nurse Adriana, who looks after Tinu in the hospital and eventually takes him home, naming him Ioan after her dead son).
I found this book beautiful and I’ll definitely read more by this author.
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com