A Word About Awards

THE LAND OF GREEN PLUMS by Herta Muller   Awards: Dublin Winner 1998, Nobel Winner 1998   Date Read: November 15, 2023   In The Land of Green Plums, Muller explores the fates of four young people as they begin their adult lives and how those lives are shaped by living under a corrupt and brutal dictator. All of them are moderate in their political views with undertones of dissidence but those leanings are not overt. Having all come from the countryside, they believe their prospects will be improved if they move to the city. All of their futures are compromised, though.   As another wrote, “…we see the way the totalitarian state comes to inhabit every human realm and how everyone, even the strongest, must either bend to the oppressors or resist them and thereby perish. ” And perish they do. Almost as soon as they can feel the warm embrace of freedom do two of the four come to mysterious ends, both of which are labeled suicides. The state has the power to corrupt their...

OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson   Award: Dublin Winner 2007   Nominations: LA Times Finalist 2007, NY Times Finalist 2007   Date Read: August 28, 2023   Out Stealing Horses somewhat reminds me of Tinkers: that calming and quiet cold encompassing humans surviving how humans do. Kindnesses are extended. Violence comes to visit. Human error is forever costly.    Towards the end of his life, Trond returns alone to the idyllic lakeside cabin where one summer with his father changed his entire life. Having lost his wife and his daughters now grown, Trond buys the cabin his father once owned. Yet this cabin also has the distinction of being the last time Trond was with his father.   Trond’s closest friend is Jon, who is brother to twins Lars and Odd. Jon randomly appears on Trond’s doorstep to propose all sorts of mischief. One day in particular, Jon proposes they go out stealing horses, a sort of horse joy ride rather than ownership change. Trond doesn’...

THE MASTER by Colm Toibin   Awards: Dublin Winner 2006, LA Times Winner 2004   Nominations: Booker Finalist 2004, NY Times Finalist 2004   Date Read: March 19, 2023   In The Master, Toibin embarks on a fictionalized version of Henry James’ life, focusing primarily on his mid-life. Having been born and raised in America, James makes his home in England, traveling through Europe in search of new experiences and material for his novels. At the outset of the novel, we see James mortified by the flop of one his novels turned into a play.   James has dedicated his life to his craft. He never marries and his relationships are squeezed in around the love of his life – writing. This is true for family and for friendships. After the flop of his play, when he was literally booed off the stage, James escapes London to avoid running into anyone he may know. In his travels, he falls in love with Rye, a small town in England and sets his heart on residing there.   James m...

A GENERAL THEORY OF OBLIVION by Jose Eduardo Agualusa   Award: Dublin Winner 2017   Nomination: Booker Finalist 2016   Date Read: February 15, 2023   Ludo, a reclusive woman, lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Angola, a long way from their native Brazil. She rarely leaves their two-story apartment. When the country embarks on a chaotic political revolution and her sister and brother-in-law go missing, she is terrified of the thugs that arrive on her doorstep in search of non-existent diamonds, she vows to never be threatened like that again.   She builds a wall with some remaining building materials and seals herself off from the world and the political upheaval outside her door. For the next 30 years, her only contact with people are a child who steals from her but then saves her life. She reads, busies herself with the tasks of daily living and as the food diminishes, she eats fruit and vegetables from her garden, the occasionally caught pigeon and eg...

THE LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE by Valeria Luiselli   Awards: Carnegie Winner 2020, Dublin Winner 2021, Rathbones Folio Winner 2020   Nominations: Aspen Words Finalist 2020, Booker Longlist 2019, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2020, Kirkus Finalist 2019, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2019, NY Times Finalist 2019, Women's Prize Longlist 2019   Date Read: July 11, 2022   The Lost Children Archive is truly one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. Luiselli has confronted a tragic and ongoing tragedy with beauty, humanity and awareness, while also liking in the struggles of blended families and the obligations of documentarians to archive current and past experiences and voices. I am truly in awe.   The husband brought to the relationship a son and the mother, a daughter, blending the two households with the best of intentions. Everything does mesh together well until differing career paths and interests bring the couple apart and, consequently, thei...

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN by Colum McCann   Awards: Dublin Winner 2011, National Book Winner 2009 Nominations: Dayton Literary Peace Longlist 2010   Date Read: May 12, 2011   From Kirkus Reviews: “The famous 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers is a central motif in this unwieldy paean to the adopted city of Dublin-born McCann (Zoli, 2007, etc.).   Told by a succession of narrators representing diverse social strata, the novel recalls Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), except that where Bonfire was deeply cynical about Reagan-era New York, McCann’s take on the grittier, 1970s city is deadly earnest. On the day that “the tightrope walker” (never named, but obviously modeled on Philippe Petit) strolls between the Twin Towers, other New Yorkers are performing quieter acts of courage. Ciaran has come from Dublin to the Bronx to rescue his brother Corrigan, a monk whose ministry involves providing shelter and respite to...