Scan barcode
A review by czytatnik
Gratitude by Delphine de Vigan
3.0
3 stars
Writing about the end is always difficult. And I'm not very much convinced that this book added any real value to this topic. I have a feeling that there was too much put in too little space. Author wanted to tell us about Mishka and her struggles, about war's nightmares, about how life changes when someone inserts themselves into it unexpectedly. Many difficult topic of which, in my opinion, only a very surface was mentioned.
The book starts with rather dramatic scene: Mishka is home alone and unable to move. As much a start for us, it is also an end for her. From this point on she's going to live in an nursing home. But there are things that bother her far more than that: at the dawn of her life she's loosing more and more of her words everyday. Even an intensive speech therapy seems to be to no avail. And Mishka has an unpaid debt haunting her since she was a little girl. Some brave couple hidden her for the time of war in their own home. She never had a chance to see them after that, nor to thank them properly for all they did to make sure she survived that uneasy time. But is she really still indebted? Didn't she repaid that when she's gotten herself a little girl who needed a safe space and lots of love when her own mother wasn't able to provided that? As much as I can see why this is constantly on Mishka's mind, I didn't really get why she wasn't able? didn't want to? find the couple herself when she became adult. Other than writing to a various nationwide newspapers she did nothing to search for them. If that was so important to her why did she not do more? I still don't know.
Even though this book didn't really move anything in me I have to admit that there were two things I really admire in it: the fact that it was focused on Mishka but told through two other characters rather than herself and the translation. Starting with the first, everything that happens in this book is told either by Marie or Jérôme. And still there's no escape from the fact that it is all about Mishka. To be honest, I very much like that approach. Instead of having a all-knowing narration which would reveal too much too quickly, we, as readers, are observing Mishka through others eyes. They're our judges, influencing somewhat our own opinion of her. It's much helping with getting attached to the central character of this book.
Now, about the translation. I have to say that even as person that doesn't speak french, I was able to see how much work the translator put into this book. All those scenes when Mishka is trying to speak but her escaping words are rendering it almost impossible to understand her are just brilliant. It was pure pleasure to see this high level of translation. Impressive!
As a word of summary I just wanted to say that maybe it just wasn't book for me. Or maybe I read it at wrong stage of my life. I don't know. Therefore, I don't want to say it was a bad book or discourage anybody for reading it. It just didn't have as much of an impact on me as I anticipated from ratings and opinions.
Writing about the end is always difficult. And I'm not very much convinced that this book added any real value to this topic. I have a feeling that there was too much put in too little space. Author wanted to tell us about Mishka and her struggles, about war's nightmares, about how life changes when someone inserts themselves into it unexpectedly. Many difficult topic of which, in my opinion, only a very surface was mentioned.
The book starts with rather dramatic scene: Mishka is home alone and unable to move. As much a start for us, it is also an end for her. From this point on she's going to live in an nursing home. But there are things that bother her far more than that: at the dawn of her life she's loosing more and more of her words everyday. Even an intensive speech therapy seems to be to no avail. And Mishka has an unpaid debt haunting her since she was a little girl. Some brave couple hidden her for the time of war in their own home. She never had a chance to see them after that, nor to thank them properly for all they did to make sure she survived that uneasy time. But is she really still indebted? Didn't she repaid that when she's gotten herself a little girl who needed a safe space and lots of love when her own mother wasn't able to provided that? As much as I can see why this is constantly on Mishka's mind, I didn't really get why she wasn't able? didn't want to? find the couple herself when she became adult. Other than writing to a various nationwide newspapers she did nothing to search for them. If that was so important to her why did she not do more? I still don't know.
Even though this book didn't really move anything in me I have to admit that there were two things I really admire in it: the fact that it was focused on Mishka but told through two other characters rather than herself and the translation. Starting with the first, everything that happens in this book is told either by Marie or Jérôme. And still there's no escape from the fact that it is all about Mishka. To be honest, I very much like that approach. Instead of having a all-knowing narration which would reveal too much too quickly, we, as readers, are observing Mishka through others eyes. They're our judges, influencing somewhat our own opinion of her. It's much helping with getting attached to the central character of this book.
Now, about the translation. I have to say that even as person that doesn't speak french, I was able to see how much work the translator put into this book. All those scenes when Mishka is trying to speak but her escaping words are rendering it almost impossible to understand her are just brilliant. It was pure pleasure to see this high level of translation. Impressive!
As a word of summary I just wanted to say that maybe it just wasn't book for me. Or maybe I read it at wrong stage of my life. I don't know. Therefore, I don't want to say it was a bad book or discourage anybody for reading it. It just didn't have as much of an impact on me as I anticipated from ratings and opinions.