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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Inner Life of Human Relationships,
By
This review is from: Lucca (Hardcover)
Can we ever really know another person? What is human connection--and disconnection--all about? Danish author Jens Christian Grøndahl explores basic--and complex--questions of human relationship in this carefully detailed story of Lucca, a young actress who is blinded in a head-on collision, and Robert, the physician who oversees her recovery. Both characters have been damaged by love. We quickly learn that Lucca has a son and a husband from whom she is estranged. Robert is a divorced father with a young daughter who sometimes visits. We learn their stories as they come together through platonic self reflection and recall memories of past relationships to understand and heal. With the same emotionally disciplined style of Silence in October, Grøndahl lets us deep into the minds and souls of these characters, but never lets us feel pity for them, only respect. His writing is brutally honest, intellectual and definitely European in genre. Grøndahl lays bare the innermost thoughts of his characters using a process that is slow and ponderous at times, but very effective for exploring the delicate path to redemption. Like a Bergman film, Lucca is not an action tale and can be dreary and grey in its realism. But it is well worth the read to experience Grøndahl's unique depiction of his characters and his masterful literary style.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite poetry,
This review is from: Lucca (Hardcover)
After I finished this book I though that for a long time I could never read another book by any other author - I thought no other book could be so beautifully written - exquisite detail and character description. A melancholy searching beautiful soul! I read the first book which was translated and liked that very much as well. I am eagerly waiting for another book to be translated into English. Perhaps because I was born in Riga Latvia (neighbor) I identify with his characters more.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
No wonder they call Hamlet the gloomy Dane,
By Chaussee St. Pierre (Etterbeek) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lucca (Hardcover)
Hats off to the translator; the book reads as if it were written in English. Grondahl has an interesting style; you could take his descriptions and dialogue and repeat them verbatim in a movie script. I felt I was watching a bleak Scandinavian film with Ikea-like furniture rather than reading a book. The novel is very well constructed with parallels and flashbacks and all that good stuff.Okay, he can write. Unfortunately, after starting out interested in Lucca and Robert's search for identity, I found myself, halfway through, not caring. The wounded-by-sex-and-relationships theme, wears thin pretty quickly. If there's an Oprah equivalent in Denmark, this book has gotta be on her list. If that's not your cup of "te" be warned.
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