alcyon_alcyon's review
5.0
What a wonderful book. Gentle, deep, devoid of self-pity, specific and detailed and real. One of the few authors of whom I would read all of their work - another is Rabih Alameddine, whose whole vibe and style is quite different - but the depth and sincerity is similar.
jocedun's review
3.0
I went into this book almost clueless besides reading the synopsis a few weeks ago. Since this is a translated work, I was surprised when it was set entirely in the US (between Washington DC and Arizona), following a main character who moved to the US as a refugee from Bosnia almost 20 years earlier. The timelines/flashbacks in the book are fuzzy, besides the most recent scenes at the end where we are clearly moving into Trump’s America. Our main character shares his name with the author but I think I am correct in understanding this is auto-fiction, or a fictionalized memoir, or an autobiography with creative flourishes. Either way, it was a really interesting character study!
Mehmedinovic explores immigration and feeling permanently like a foreigner in that new country. As our main character ages and experiences health problems of his own and within his family, the pain of aging becomes very clear. “My Heart” deeply explores how memory influences our current reality, bringing up nostalgia over and over. We see past trauma recurring for the characters, who are always thinking about parts of their past.
While this novel was really interesting, I found myself struggling to get through it because it lacked plot and I just never felt curious to see where it was heading next. I kept forcing myself to pick it up. There are also some places where the author switches between 1st tense and 2nd tense, sometimes within the same paragraph, which was confusing. I’d suggest this to anyone who wants to think about mortality, getting older, and the very unique life of an ex-Yugoslavian’s experience in America.
Mehmedinovic explores immigration and feeling permanently like a foreigner in that new country. As our main character ages and experiences health problems of his own and within his family, the pain of aging becomes very clear. “My Heart” deeply explores how memory influences our current reality, bringing up nostalgia over and over. We see past trauma recurring for the characters, who are always thinking about parts of their past.
While this novel was really interesting, I found myself struggling to get through it because it lacked plot and I just never felt curious to see where it was heading next. I kept forcing myself to pick it up. There are also some places where the author switches between 1st tense and 2nd tense, sometimes within the same paragraph, which was confusing. I’d suggest this to anyone who wants to think about mortality, getting older, and the very unique life of an ex-Yugoslavian’s experience in America.
naddie_reads's review
4.0
"My Heart" is a beautiful meditative read on the loss and nostalgia experienced by a war refugee who has fled his hometown in Bosnia to immigrate to the US. After the narrator suffers from a heart attack, he reminisces over his past as he spends his remaining life with his wife and grown-up son.
This autobiographical book focuses on the relationship between husband and wife & father and son, and Mehmedinovic talks about their differences and similarities and how they have been shaped and remolded by the Bosnian war. While one may choose to remember the atrocities of the war, another would seek to erase the traumatizing incidents from their mind. In this novel, the author examines the dichotomy of these two tendencies and how human beings seek to reconcile the memories of their past lives into who they are today. It also touches upon the author's experience as a refugee who finds himself welcomed and alienated by his adopted country at the same time, which I think most of the displaced diaspora community can relate to.
Honestly, I picked this one up on a whim, but I'm glad I did because it's so beautifully written (and translated by Celia Hawkesworth) and heartrending, especially when it talks about the author's loving relationship with his family and the effects of aging on our memories and outlook. This is one of those understated gems that fills me with nostalgia for a past that I can empathize with, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it.
This autobiographical book focuses on the relationship between husband and wife & father and son, and Mehmedinovic talks about their differences and similarities and how they have been shaped and remolded by the Bosnian war. While one may choose to remember the atrocities of the war, another would seek to erase the traumatizing incidents from their mind. In this novel, the author examines the dichotomy of these two tendencies and how human beings seek to reconcile the memories of their past lives into who they are today. It also touches upon the author's experience as a refugee who finds himself welcomed and alienated by his adopted country at the same time, which I think most of the displaced diaspora community can relate to.
Honestly, I picked this one up on a whim, but I'm glad I did because it's so beautifully written (and translated by Celia Hawkesworth) and heartrending, especially when it talks about the author's loving relationship with his family and the effects of aging on our memories and outlook. This is one of those understated gems that fills me with nostalgia for a past that I can empathize with, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it.
matryoshka7's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.5
annieinthearchives's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
cais's review
4.0
An autobiographical work that is moving and poetic, written in very straightforward, no-frills prose. When Mehmedinović writes about a heart, his heart, it is both physical, as when he recounts a heart attack, and emotional, his son, his wife, his great love for them. He reflects on their lives as refugees, language, memory, how the banalities of life rub up against personally profound moments. A sincere, wise, ruminative read.
“The two of us weren’t made for this world because there’s nothing in it we want to possess.”
“It’s enough for her to straighten the collar of my shirt, and that touch calms everything in the universe. Misfortune has reduced us to our essence. And nothing is left of us, apart from love.”
“We both have frequent attacks of melancholy. Our gloom is a consequence of the war. Or else, in my case, the war deepened that emotion, for melancholy was not unknown to me since my earliest childhood. And when I think of my first experiences of unbearable desolation, I see an image of the autumnal dissipation of the world, an October forest smelling of decay.”
“But we ought to ask ourselves again and constantly: Why fill our lives with such effort and torment, when we know that we will be here only once and when we have such a brief and unrepeatable time in this indescribably beautiful world?”
“The two of us weren’t made for this world because there’s nothing in it we want to possess.”
“It’s enough for her to straighten the collar of my shirt, and that touch calms everything in the universe. Misfortune has reduced us to our essence. And nothing is left of us, apart from love.”
“We both have frequent attacks of melancholy. Our gloom is a consequence of the war. Or else, in my case, the war deepened that emotion, for melancholy was not unknown to me since my earliest childhood. And when I think of my first experiences of unbearable desolation, I see an image of the autumnal dissipation of the world, an October forest smelling of decay.”
“But we ought to ask ourselves again and constantly: Why fill our lives with such effort and torment, when we know that we will be here only once and when we have such a brief and unrepeatable time in this indescribably beautiful world?”
dianna_reads's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Medical content
Minor: War, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry