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Bezig met laden... This Other Eden: Shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2023 (editie 2023)door Paul Harding (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkThis Other Eden door Paul Harding
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![]() Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. ![]() ![]() I listened to this in audiobook format. This novel presents a fictionalized account of the last inhabitants of Malaga Island off the coast of Maine. They were a mixed-race fully integrated society that lived a rustic, communal lifestyle until the government evicted them to build a resort. I was not aware of this horrific part of American History and the details are deeply disturbing, especially since they happened here in the 20th century. The writing was pastoral and full of Biblical imagery and Edoardo Ballerina (the narrator) is wonderful. I did have trouble keeping the characters and their relationships to other another straight, but it hardly matters for the plot. A good, short read. This beautifully written book is an homage to the people of Apple Island, a fictitious place based on the true story of Malaga Island. This small island, settled in 1792, by a mixed-race couple was in existence until 1912 when its inhabitants were forcibly evacuated. The study of eugenics by those in power in Maine determined that they should be relocated, some to the Maine School for the "Feeble Minded." These were multi-racial people who had lived on the island for generations surviving through sheer tenacity, a love of the island and their community. I couldn't help thinking about the indigenous people who were deemed better off living as the Caucasian invaders took their land and relocated many. It is a sad fact that our history demonstrates this bigotry and prejudice. I love the history of the people of Apple Island, who neither harmed nor judged each other. Paul Harding's writing is exquisite. NR -- DNF (did not finish, just skimmed after awhile). I just couldn't. I felt manipulated and damned. I've read plenty about eugenics shenanigans of this time period -- my own village here in New England suffered the attentions of the local university and terrorized some members of the local population back when. The people on Apple Island are presented as being in dire straits but also, somehow, quaint. Seriously? What happened to the people was cruel, but would any Social Services organization tolerate people living in these conditions nowadays? They would be just as bad, probably, although differently, and let us hope they would not dig up the bones of the dead. That was the last straw. Harding is relentless and so depressing -- he did not structure the book to offer one iota of . . . optimisn? forgiveness? for human beings. I should have guessed, for whenever I see the word 'lyrical' in a description of a novel I know it will be a) tragic and b) I will hate the overflowing puddle of pitifulness and sentiment I'll have to wade through. My book group chose this, so I gave it my best, not that that is saying much. Yes yes yes, the writing is quite beautiful in places, I have no issue with that so you might love it. So NR, no rating.
In his latest novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding reimagines the history of a small mixed-race community’s devastating eviction from their homes...It’s 10 pages into Paul Harding’s new novel, “This Other Eden,” when I must surrender to the author’s lyric....I was unsure as I entered “This Other Eden”; the story opens with images of apples, the raging white of winter and tattered flags, which all felt grossly American....Yet the passages that put me on guard are the same ones that disarmed me. Harding’s prose is mesmerizing...Not without complication, not without terror, “This Other Eden” is ultimately a testament of love: love of kin, love of nature, love of art, love of self, love of home. This Other Eden by Paul Harding review – a novel that impresses time and again...Harding’s gifts have found their fullest expression in This Other Eden. Pick any excerpt from these 200 pages and you will find that each sentence contains multitudes and works well by itself, and yet the chapters, the paragraphs, have also been sewn together into a numinous whole.... The novel impresses time and again because of the depth of Harding’s sentences, their breathless angelic light. PrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast. In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys' descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland. During the tumultuous summer of 1912, Matthew Diamond, a retired, idealistic but prejudiced schoolteacher-turned-missionary, disrupts the community's fragile balance through his efforts to educate its children. His presence attracts the attention of authorities on the mainland who, under the influence of the eugenics-thinking popular among progressives of the day, decide to forcibly evacuate the island, institutionalize its residents, and develop the island as a vacation destination. Beginning with a hurricane flood reminiscent of the story of Noah's Ark, the novel ends with yet another Ark. In prose of breathtaking beauty and power, Paul Harding brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters: Iris and Violet McDermott, sisters raising three orphaned Penobscot children; Theophilus and Candace Larks and their brood of vagabond children; the prophetic Zachary Hand to God Proverbs, a Civil War veteran who lives in a hollow tree; and more. A spellbinding story of resistance and survival, This Other Eden is an enduring testament to the struggle to preserve human dignity in the face of intolerance and injustice"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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![]() GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:![]()
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