Customer Reviews

Sonata for Miriam: A Novel

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4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

'Sonata for Miriam' is a wonderful lyrical book, which uses multiple styles of writing (changing first-person narrative, letters) to convey the story of dealing with loss, finding ones past and unclosed love (is it ever?). Adam Anker is the main protagonist who accidentally discovers a picture in a museum which leads him to question his past which leads him to Poland although he lives in New Zealand and grew up in Sweden. In addition to this momentous event he has to deal with great personal loss and re-evaluate the priorities in his life. As the book evolves one learns of his loss, his discovery of his past, his past loves, his childhood. There are sections where one understands the behavior and responses of those who were close to him, through their own voices. While the story is a very touching beautiful story leading one back to the WW2 Krakow, it is more than anything a wonderful book exploring solitude, emotions and love. I have not read 'Astrid & Veronika' so I am not sure if the writing styles compare or even if it is a similar exploration, but I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered about the lives of those past, as well as tried to understand love and loss. A word of caution is that this deals with a lot of emotions and I had to take a break from it and ponder and linger on some of the feelings created during reading this book.

Sometimes coincidences can be immensely fruitful in generating a novel. On the same bright Saturday morning in Auckland, New Zealand, composer Adam Anker both finds the key to his lost childhood and loses his own child. The first is a metaphor, the second a reality. For Adam's teenage daughter Miriam is killed in a random accident; this intricate book is the verbal equivalent of the violin sonata that Adam writes in an attempt to exorcise her death. But that same Saturday morning has planted a seed. Adam has come upon a piece of information that will eventually take him back to his birthplace in Krakow, in a quest to learn about his family and reconnect with his estranged lover Cecilia, who does not yet know of her daughter's death.

Sometimes, though, coincidences can be taken too far. Even if you grant that first link in a chain -- that an old Polish woman with an intimate connection to Adam's family should also turn up in distant New Zealand -- the remaining fragments join up a little too neatly to be plausible after the Holocaust had shattered most such connections. And it is a complicated story, involving two families, pairs of siblings, and a silver box of conveniently-never-opened letters. Told as it is, in a time-shifting texture a memories within memories, the story is certainly mesmerizing, but also difficult to keep straight on a factual level. Linda Olsson, a Swedish author now living in New Zealand, writes like a poet: "Should I have known that this scene, in its everyday triviality, would become the shimmering crescendo of the memories on which I now sustain a life?" But she also takes a poet's licence in creating parallels between characters -- for example those involving music, speech, and silence -- that, while beautiful, also seem a little too contrived.

Contrived. It is Olsson's own word. Early in the novel, Adam says: "Simplicity is underrated. It is possible to consciously create the complex, the contrived, but it is impossible to manufacture simplicity." All through the book, you can see Olsson aiming for the one and achieving only the other. Only in the final sections, where Cecilia takes over as the narrative voice and we go to her lonely island off the coast of Sweden, does the author begin to approach simplicity. But she does so in a psychic inner monologue -- involving more silences, other deaths, and another sibling -- that makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy. I did find myself moved by the end of the book -- but I would be hard put to say exactly what happens.

Written by Linda Olsson, whose debut novel ASTRID AND VERONIKA is one of the most beautifully written books I've read in ages and made me an instant fan of hers.

I wanted to like this book as well but it fell short. Yes, Linda Olsson shows the same talent to write beautiful, contemplative prose as her debut, yet this novel lacked the passion I felt in the first. As a result the novel felt flat, the characters never came to life. I want to say that perhaps her heart wasn't in the story, but in reading the author's interview at the back of the book, it seems that this story actually captivated her and left her feeling drained by its completion. So I'm not sure what went in the translation of her dedication to the story to its translation to the page.

Still, Linda Olsson is one of my favorite authors, and I believe one of the most talented writers writing today, and I can't wait to read what she writes next.

This book follows Adam as he seeks answers to his past and find out who his parents were as well as how he came to be a single parent of his daughter Miriam. This book was a pleasure to read as you slowly peel back the layers of Adam's history but at certain transitions I was a little confused as to what was going on.

For the most part the book works its way backwards through Adam's memories until the very end when Adam's journey concludes. You know that Adam's daughter, Miriam, dies but not how. That is actually not revealed almost to the end of the book. You also do not find out who the mother of Miriam is until a good while into the book. There were several surprises. I was shocked by the ultimatum that Adam's true love issues him and who Adam's real mother was and how he ended up with the woman he had thought was his birth mother. If you want to know the truth you have to pick up the book!

I had read Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson and enjoyed that very much. This one had more story, more emotion, more mystery and history. I found it fascinating! I loved the way the author painted pictures in my mind of the islands, Prague, and the people involved. I know it is a novel, but it could have happened. Desperate times make for desperate measures.

I am savoring the book ,the well crafted writing. And to have it being an autographed copy, a true gift.

This text presents us for two impossible choices. And the search for the solution drives the story forward .The solution is the framing that give credibility to the two choices. The first choice is imbedded in Adams mother's last words: I have nothing to say... (p. 74). The second choice is posed by Cecilia, the mother of Adams daughter Mimi. As the story moves we are given clues, but no certainty. As we are moved forward, first to Krakow, thereafter to New Zealand, Krakow again, Stockholm, the landscapes and people are formed in Adams picture, but still recognizable as places with history, culture and scenery that belong to their names: Krakov, etc. This is a beautiful text and a beautiful story. I believe that all readers that sometimes become too silent will recognize the dilemma Adam experiences, but hopefully not with Adams 20 years of consequences.

Quotes: "Sound is not always the opposite of silence.." (p. 17). "what had been a small, but surprisingly beautiful body, was now only a will that attached to bones" (p.74). " they had dreams, but they did not all share the same dream" (p. 171). "your eyes held my eyes fixed, but they were like glass - you could see out through them, but I could not see in."( p. 191).

Composer Adam Anker's life is about to be changed after two events occur. These events ultimately lead him to Krakow, Poland where he finally learns the fate of his parents' life during World War II and to Sweden where for the first time in twenty years, he meets the mother of his child.

Adam must find the courage to face the impossible choice the woman once forced him to make. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle is a long and arduous journey for Adam and along the way he meets a few characters that will be important in helping him solve the mysteries of his life.

Written with clarity and flowing prose, Ms. Olsson has delivered another vivid and dramatic novel!

This story revolves around AdamAnker, a musician/composer who is a professor in New Zeland. On the day of his daughter's accidental death, he finds an unexpected connection to his past in a photograph at a Holocaust exhibit. After beginning to deal with his grief and the loss of his daughter's future, he works to make the connection to his past and to find understanding of his mother and her behavior. He travels to both Poland and Sweden in search of the truth. The story moves around in time with his recollections of his mother, meeting the mother of his daughter and his current search. He meets people who knew his family and slowly unravels the mystery of his past. While this was obviously an emotional and tragic story, I didn't feel deeply for any of the characters. I also found the switch in point of view to his daughter's mother near the end a little jarring and odd. All in all, I liked it, but wished I had been able to be more moved by the characters and situation.

When his young daughter is killed in an accident on Waiheke Island, New Zealand, the New Zealand professor of Music (who is actually Polish) sets off on a voyage of discovery to find out his roots. Where his life is mirrored in his dead daughters in tragic and uncanny ways.

This book covers New Zealand, and Europe from Poland to Scandanavia, and takes in tragic accidents, music, chess, and the Holocaust, along with rejection and loss of mothers, mother love and island life - and well just about everything. All of which I found really laboured.

The book is over written with pathos being wrung out of every situation. I didn't feel as though the author gave us any opportunity to intelligently observe what was happening, we were told, and then told again, and then the tragedy of the situation was hammered again.

The book was over plotted too - so much was shoe horned into it as though the author had tried to fit every plot device she possibly could into one novel - a story of the holocaust, of musical talent, of rape, of lost loves, of tragic partings, war time, islands, amazing coincidences.

Immediately after finishing this I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's book of short stories The Thing around your Neck - and had a comparison of beautifully observed and nuanced writing compared to this. Adichie can really speak through her characters who, even though they are only in short stories, have full characters and a full range of emotions and depth. In Olssen's work there seems only drudgery of spirit and depression overly laboured.

I realise this is a story of tragic loss, but the plot devices are the authors own making and it is not a good read.