Print List Price:	$17.99
Kindle Price:	$5.99 Save $12.00 (67%)
Sold by:	Hachette Book Group Price set by seller.

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Flesh-Coloured Dominoes by [Zigmunds Skujins, Kaija Straumanis]

Flesh-Coloured Dominoes Kindle Edition

by Zigmunds Skujins (Author), Kaija Straumanis (Translator) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 9 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$5.99

—

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.74

$9.74

$9.01

Kindle
$5.99 Read with Our Free App
Paperback
$13.74

6 Used from $9.01 10 New from $9.74

"Extraordinary and unforgettable characters" WORLD LITERATURE TODAY

"Rich and many layered . . . fascinating" CHRISTOPHER MOSELEY

When Baroness Valtraute von Bruegen's officer husband's body is severed in two she is delighted to find that the lower half has been sewn onto the upper body of the humble local Captain Ulste. She conceives a child only to see the return of her husband in one piece. What happens next is both indescribably funny and darkly painful.

A beautifully written Surrealist novel-cum-political allegory, Flesh-Coloured Dominoes transports the reader between 18th-century Baltic gentry and the narrator's life in the modern world. The connection between the two narratives gradually becomes clear in a mesmerising fantasy of love, lust, and loss as Skijuns creates a work of sublime art that is funny, moving, enlightening and philosophical in equal measure.

Translated from the Latvian by Kaija Straumanis

Print length

322 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Arcadia Books
Publication date

September 15, 2014
File size

1115 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Skujinš is a master at personae and a cosmopolitan writer, filling his landscapes with extraordinary and unforgettable characters’ World Literature Today

‘There are few figures in contemporary Latvian literature as well respected as Zigmunds Skujiņš’ Virginia Quarterly Review --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Zigmunds Skujins, one of the most renowned Latvian writers of the late twentieth century, was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1926. His work has been translated across Europe and several of his books have been made into films. He is the recipient of numerous Latvian and international literature awards, including a lifetime grant from the Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09G2ML7SN
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Arcadia Books (September 15, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 15, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1115 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #3,500,386 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5,538 in Satire
- #8,495 in Satire Fiction
- #30,989 in Fiction Satire

Customer Reviews:
4.2 9 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

9 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

agate

Internationally acclaimed Latvian novel

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

I loved this novel. I saw an overview of the history of Latvia of the past two centuries with characters of a single family.
The feelings and the thoughts it evoked were powerful. This is a fine translation, but I kept thinking that the original Latvian would have been richer.

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2014

Flesh-Coloured Dominoes by Zigmunds Skujins
Translated from the Latvian by Kaija Straumanis
Arcadia Books
9781909807525
$29, 245 pgs

The evolution of mankind depends on its ability to adapt to its own inventions. - Janis

Flesh-Coloured Dominoes by Latvia's Zigmunds Skujins is part surreal farce, part exploration of identity and what it means to possess a collective national identity. The chapters alternate between the eighteenth century misadventures of the Baltic German aristocracy and the Romanovs of Russia and the coming of age of our nameless narrator during the Second World War. Although the two narratives come together - more or less - in the end to answer some of those identity questions, I found the two halves difficult to reconcile.

After his parents disappear with the circus, our narrator is raised by his grandfather, a wise and generous man whose "...old-fashioned ways were tied to exacting precision, his wild imagination to deep-seated knowledge. It's possible his old-fashioned ways weren't really him being old-fashioned, but a display of his disdain for conformity." That disdain for conformity will come in handy - also dangerous - when the Nazis and then the Soviets arrive in Latvia and your identity, and how it is determined, literally means the difference between life and death. The questions of identity raised in this narrative produce a genetic and philosophical knot.

Meanwhile, in the next chapter, Giuseppe Balsamo, alias Count Cagliostro, alias the Great Cophta, is at the height of his occult influence over the European nobility of the late eighteenth century. One of those who falls under his spell is Baroness von Brigen whose husband has reportedly been killed in battle. When the Count, during a séance, tells her otherwise, "Where there were two, now there is one..." in some sort of Frankenstein's monster scenario, the Baroness goes in search of the half of her husband that still exists. Guess which half. The questions of identity raised here are more obvious.

There is much humor to enjoy in Dominoes. Describing a wedding: "There's a mob of clergymen in front of the altar. There's one Orthodox parish priest dressed in gold, like an icon, with a golden mitre on his head. And one Lutheran pastor like a black rooster in a muster of peacocks." On the occasion of our narrator's brother falling in love: "Little is known even now of the nature of love. ... The newest theories about falling in love explain it prosaically - through the effects of dopamine and noradrenaline on the brain's limbic system. ... He [his brother] changed beyond recognition and displayed signs of the limbic system in motion - a person grows wistful, their awareness of the surrounding world decreases, they become particularly stubborn." Skujins is also a master of metaphor. On the impact upon realization of profound truths: "What strange, unbelievable things can happen in a lifetime! Steel structures collapse, the voices of angels are heard between the panting of hate, the adder slinks away with the king's crown on its head, and a newly realised truth slides across your face like a breeze that barely stirs even your eyelashes." On trying to move on after the war ended: "The shadows of our memories still snaked around our ankles, dragged like heavy hems..."

The two halves of Flesh-Coloured Dominoes are so strikingly dissimilar as to cause the metaphorical equivalent of whiplash. One half is an irreverent, bawdy romp reminiscent of Rabelais that began rich in humor and word play but failed to evolve satisfactorily. This lack of development rendered the Baroness's narrative repetitive and the meandering quality became tiresome. Perhaps this was meant to convey the general lassitude of her social class during that time period. If so then I now understand the impetus for the French Revolution on a visceral level. Meanwhile the other half of this novel is a deeply affecting, thought-provoking, melancholy meditation on the nature of identity, both personal and national, that I thoroughly enjoyed. For example, this is a conversation between our narrator as a boy and his grandfather when German Latvians began returning to Germany before World War II (even this sentence is difficult to construct):

"Is nationality determined by what's in your blood?"
The question must have been surprising, because Grandfather picked up his magnifying glass again and peered at me through it.
"Empress Catherine II, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, didn't see Russia once before she turned fifteen. Does that mean that she's not the empress of Russia? Is Hitler not German because Austrian blood, or blood from who knows what other countries, flows through his veins? Around the year 900 the Viking Rollo founded Normandy in northern France. He had a son out of wedlock with some French tanner's daughter; the son became England's William the Conqueror..."
"Then is the concept of nationality non-existent?"
"No, of course not. It's just not one easily explained. The grouping of people into nationalities is a phenomenon in itself...There are often centres of power that crop up in the world that collect and pump up the lesser powers. Until the moment when the totality starts to break up and separate. Connections create devastating tensions."

Indeed. I am left to ponder the possibility that these forcible distinctions will mean the extinction of us all.

www.texasbooklover.com

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

R. Abakuks

It's like no other book I've read before

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2015

Verified Purchase

It's like no other book I've read before. I wanted to read it in Latvian, failed to find a copy, so read it in English. It read very well and not at all like a translated book. Well done to the translator Kaija Straumanis. I am also grateful for the forward by Christopher Moseley, before embarking on the actual novel I suggest you read this, because it helped me a lot with understanding the book. The book jumps back and forth through time from 18th Century Latvia to 2nd World War Latvia to the end of the 20th Century. It made me think about identity, but also informed me about Latvia as the characters in story witness Latvia at different times in history.

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Flesh-Coloured Dominoes Kindle Edition

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries