Customer Reviews

The Wooden Tongue Speaks: Romanians: Contradictions And Realities

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About a paragraph in, I knew I had found something worth reading...savoring...sharing. The Wooden Tongue Speaks is a superb collection of short stories and poems that gave me a glimpse into a people and country I rarely have the opportunity to read or learn about. Romania is one of those countries and cultures that most still consider very foreign, but just like everywhere else, there are people, colorful people, that are doing what they can to survive and lead the lives that they want for themselves. This is what I read, in an unabashedly honest and unfiltered collection of stories and poems that fit right in.

I honestly think the literary world needs more of this, a lot more of this. I would be excited to read a full length novel by this talented writer, but for now I can settle for savoring each of the snippets that are offered in this read. I highly recommend this for any nonfiction fans, those who enjoy memoirs, poetry, anyone interested in learning more about the Romanian culture, history or post Communism life-- it really fits into the tastes of so many genres.

Bogdan's short stories and poems here struck a chord with me in a way that few do. I was taken to a land I knew absolutely nothing about. Reading about first-hand accounts, the good and the bad, the melancholy and the joy, was a gentle but unexpectedly honest ride through Romania, especially Bogdan's home town named Br'ila.

His home country and community had and still has its share of ups and downs. The reason I wanted to write this review for you was to encourage others like me, an American who has traveled only a little, to "travel" to a land such as Romania here in The Wooden Tongue Speaks and learn how life can be so incredibly different from ours... and at the same time people are remarkably similar in so many ways.

In a day and age when many authors churn out books that are shallow pools of fluff, Bogdan Tiganoy offers a tome that will take your breath away with its sheer honesty and depth. On the one hand we get to witness a time in Romania that was harsh and callous, yet on the other we experience hope and freedom. It's a reminder to never forget where you came from because it makes you who you are today. You can become stronger for it or weaker, the choice is yours.

The author's poems and stories will touch every part of your mind and soul. Rather than stringing words together for the sake of entertainment, he gives us a gift that lasts long after the book is closed, food for thought that we can use in our own lives.

This volume of short stories and poems deserves its place in any library. Bogdan Tiganov distills emotion and offers frank descriptions to illuminate our vision. His composites of people, joys, scars, and of the ordinary are almost too lovely, too painful, and too eternal in their pure timelessness. With tranquil urgency Tiganov allows us to be with him in two places simultaneously as he captures images processed with blunt reality, composed of simple truths. We are shown glimpses into a heartless time that should not have been but was. These intriguing, profound, and significant portrayals are offered like a cool cup of water, they are not forced upon us. Be thirsty, swallow without gulping, and do not allow the sound of a car backfiring or a neighbor's barking dog to distract you.

Tiganov reminds us to remember what should not be forgotten in our own lives. His pen is specifically aimed at the hearts of readers who are still brave and still awake enough to feel. His vibrant hope contrasts the bleakness of life, his, mine, and yours. We all have stumbled in darkness. We all need a bridge across the senselessly raging river of lost freedom.

These pages weave remnants of the past into the fabric of today. The glitter of sun and stars of tomorrow are threaded in as well. This young talented, exiled Romanian writer is committed to exposing injustices, and he does so with stories and poems drenched in light. Do not pass the opportunity to own this book. It is more than a book. You will want to drink every word.

The Wooden Tongue Speaks by Bogdan Tiganov is a gutsy, realistic look at life in communist Romania. Tiganov takes you through a colorful world where the residents are both proud and horrified by the place they call home. Happiness is stolen sometimes amid the iron fist rule of the communists. An orange is gold. Watching a kitten play is two weeks on the Riviera. In the story, "The Fight," Tiganov cuts through all the emotion and gives it to you straight: "But the Communists bludgeoned our humanity for their idea of communal 24 living. They came with guns and papers and rules and relocated people to newly built flats. The Communists took Nicu's house, land, chickens and pigs. They took the horses, and he loved the horses, especially Cezar, the one with the white mark down the left side of his face."

There is a loneliness sewn underneath the covers throughout The Wooden Tongue Speaks. People fall in love; they betray each other. People leave Romania, they escape, and then its all they can think about when they're not there. The poor tell you that they are indeed not content. Children are born and then their beaming parents realize that these children will have the same fate as them.

The Wooden Tongue Speaks is dedicated to half short fiction and half poetry. It is haunting, gut wrenching, and real. But ultimately it is about loss. Loss of humanity. Loss of one's self. Loss of one's self of place. A book that you will certainly remember.

The subtitle, "Romanians: Contradictions & Realities," is so accurate. The writings inside reveal telling accounts of the author's life in Romania putting that life against the backdrop of historical perspective such as what living in Braila after the Cold War years. Life was harder in ways and easier in ways during the Cold War it appears. The fall of the wall rippled throughout the entire hemisphere and this is a microscopic look at one author's life in a country few of us really know about today. Parts are bleak and parts of joyful but if you react the way we did, you will be grateful to learn more about the Romanian people and the land they share.