Customer Reviews

The Syringa Tree: A Play

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Syringa Tree is a wonderful book. It is a can-not-put-down book. It is written in such a soft, gentle and yet so powerful way. You can really feel the pain and happiness, the hope and despair of the people in South Africa during the Aparthied years.

My South African friends tell me that the story is so true and many of them lived through it.

I highly recommend this book.

I saw Gien's play on Broadway and again three more times with different actresses and finally with Gien herself in the role. I finally decided to teach it to my 11th grade English Class to great success.
This is story that stays with you. Now that it is a novel, Gien's voice resonates even louder, and I am hearing her story all over again with even more strength. The characters bring us to tears and to joy. Tell everyone you know about this book. It will change your life and open your eyes to cycle of opression. Pamela Gien is a gifted actress and writer: a rare gift to all of us.

As another South African expat who lived through the same years Pamela Gien describes, I have to say that this is the most honest description of life in South Africa during the times of apartheid, as experienced by an ordinary white family, and especially through the eyes of a child.

Yes, it is political to a degree. It has to be. They were "political times", whichever side of the divide you lived. Those reviewers who found it "too political" confound me. It was what it was.

But there is another aspect to Gien's book. Page by page I gasped in pleasure at old memories she stirred. Lifebouy soap, the tokoloshe, the maid's bed on high bricks, Springbok radio. Her evocative descriptions of the highveld and all its peoples. How wonderful that these forgotten pieces of a life, gone forever, can be resurrected so skillfully. I loved that part of it.

So many of us lived on the "white side of the divide" almost totally unaware of the undercurrents that were surging in the country at the time. This book brought the two sides together in an honest, sometimes brutal way. The human story on both sides of the divide was riveting, and all these years later deepened much of my own understanding.

Thank you, Pamela Gien, for giving us the best book I have read this summer.

I had heard the author of this book on NPR, reading from the book and discussing it.
I was totally intrigued and purchased the book, here at Amazon.
I was not the least bit dissappointed in reading it.
I thought it was beautifully written.
I was able to conjure up wonderful visuals and feelings from the authors written words.
I was quite suprised to read an unflattering review in the NY Times Book Review, subsequently, giving the book less than an outstanding review.
They felt the play, based on this book, was far superior.
I didn't see the play. I read the book.
I thought the book was beautiful, expressive, touching, sensitive as well as powerful. I throughly enjoyed the read and send a BRAVO to the author, for a job well done.

I saw the play and thought it was great, but the book is even better. In it, the author has gives herself the time and space to luxuriate in beautiful descriptions of her troubled homeland and flesh out the contours of the many wonderful characters who inhabit a little child's world. I read the last 120 pages in one sitting and finished deep into the night. I just sat there for almost an hour thinking about it. The book is complex, filled with layers of fun and sadness, profound thoughts, horrible violence to the body and spirit as well as the innocent musings of a child. I loved the way she captured the mind set of Elizabeth. Gien gives her lots of funny little things to say, but also fills her mind and mouth with wisdom that only children have. I was so moved by the end, not just because of what happens to Elizabeth's friend, but because of what happens to her mother and father. Watching parents get old, demented and lonely is a universal problem, not one confined to the tip of a far away continent.

I suppose you can say that the book is about politics, but I do not agree that the book is too political, as one reviewer here said. So what if there are political undertones in the book. There is no end to the great literature that has been based on, and written against the background of, political turmoil and strife. It is like saying Dr. Zhivago was too political. What was that? A love story or a political drama or a beautiful human story that arose out of, and became tragic because of, the political struggle of the day? The political movement there--communism and the great puge--made the story what it was. The same is true here.

The Syringa Tree is very moving and loving. It is instuctive about all of our lives, not just what life was like in South Africa at the time. Gien is a rarity--sweet and kind in her treatment of her characters, so thoughtful in her expression of their ordeal. Her love of her homeland is exceeded only by her love of the humanity in which she immerses her story.

This book was given to me by a friend, and I will admit to first thinking
"Oh bother, another political novel about South Africa." I put off reading
it for some weeks. But now I'm giving it to everyone I know for Christmas.
It not only is first rate writing- really evocative, almost incantational-
but the story itself is so compelling and so original (the device of having a
child for a narrator works better here than in any other novel I can
remember!)- Gien's is a totally fresh voice, and so empathetic! She weaves
magic in this book, it's just haunting. I kept thinking what a terrific film
it would make, but don't miss this book!

Anyone who has heard Greg Greenway's song "One Man, One Woman, One Vote"
would hear it in the background as they read this book. I gained a lot of
insight into what life was like in South Africa. Insights that certainly
were hard to gather from news reports during that time period. Pamela Gien
portrays the pain and difficult choices that had to be made by all people
living there.

Unlike other reviewers though, I did not particularly like the writing style
in the book. I felt it didn't flow well. That said, "The Syringa Tree" is
well worth reading for insights into the past and maybe lessons that could
be applied to the future as other countries try to change and morph into a
new shape and structure.

This is easily the best book I've ever read. It was amazingly touching, beautifully written, and took my breath away.

I am also shocked to see that someone saw this book as being too political. It tells the story of a childhood in South Africa during apartheid, but the political aspect ends there. This is a story of love, fear, hate, and incredible strength. It is not a story of politics.

This is one of those rare books that reaches in and grabs the readers very soul. It touched me deeply and helped me to see the world a little differently. I thank Ms. Gien for her beautiful gift of words and I eagerly await her next novel

I'm surprised when someone expresses their dismay when a book about South Africa in the 60's and 70's is political. This is a moving account of that period from the perspective of a young white girl who experiences many atrocities in her own family and witnesses pain all around her. I highly recommend this book.

I love this novel and I want to recommend it to anyone on the planet. This book was first a play, the opposite of most novels. Most begin on the page as a novel, then become a movie or play afterwards. The setting of this novel in South Africa, the family strife, the challanges are all amazing. It affected me more than any novel I have read in a long time. I thought that it was gorgeous!
Sincerely,
Robert Vaughan