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Bezig met laden... De ballade van 'besmette' Mary (1982)door J. F. Federspiel
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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. a presentazione e le recensioni di La ballata di Typhoid Mary, opera di Jurg Federspiel edita da Marcos Y Marcos. Questo libro narra la vita e la morte di una stupenda creatura, Mary Mallon alias Typhoid Mary, che per tutta la vita ebbe un'unica passione e un unico desiderio: cucinare.Mary era arrivata a New York nel 1868, a bordo di una nave di emigrati europei falcidiati durante la traversata da una violenta epidemia di tifo, ma riguardo alla mitica cuoca che avrebbe diffuso la malattia rimangono solo le poche notizie pubblicate su alcune riviste mediche di quarant'anni fa.Sullo sfondo della narrazione l'America degli immigrati, l'America delle grandi differenze sociali, dell'estrema povertà e della ricchezza sfacciata.Una storia di quarantacinque episodi drammatici ma ricchi di humour, come le strofe di una ballata, movimentata e affascinante. This was an interesting and quick read. I actually felt sorry for Mary in the beginning because she honestly seemed to be ignorant about the fact that she was causing so many deaths. Toward the end I wasn't so sure of her ignorance about the fact that she was killing people. I might be interested in reading more about Mary after reading this book. While I found Mary's story to be interesting, the alternating story about the narrator was a bit boring. Thankfully, his parts of the story were short. I kept thinking that his story would be connected to Mary's in some way later in the book, but this never happened -- unless I misses something. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
"An odd arrival from Switzerland: with philosophical and sociological asides, a dying New York City pediatrician narrates the grisly life story -- roughly factual, trimmed in fictional invention -- of Maria Caduff, a.k.a. Mary Mallon, a.k.a. "Typhoid Mary." (Supposedly, the narrator's grandfather, also a doctor, did original research on the case before Mary died in 1938; furthermore, she came from the same German/Swiss region as did this family of doctors.) The "ballad" -- with short, plain, episodic chapters -- begins in 1868, as the 13-year-old, just-orphaned Mary arrives in N.Y., one of the few healthy souls to come off the plague-ridden immigrant ship Leibnitz. But, "as chronicler of Maria's life, I have to admit it would have been better if she died then." Because, though herself unaffected, Mary is a carrier of typhus -- which she (at first unknowingly, later with a kind of pristine vengeance) transmits to one New Yorker after another. Her first victim: the pathetic, kinky doctor who rescues her from the immigration station. Next: a paralyzed man whom Mary is hired to feed. And the death toil mounts quickly -- especially since Mary, who had become the concubine of the Leibnitz's doomed cook, is single-minded in her determination to be a chef. ("I can cook" are her first, oft-repeated English words.) Most of Mary's victims are embodiments of greedy, selfish, capitalist America. Her true, unconsummated love -- who doesn't share Mary's own matter-of-fact approach to sex -- is a soulful, shack-dwelling anarchist named Chris Cramer. So, with the narrator musing on Mary's "ability to bring about a truly equalizing justice," there's a Brecht-like attempt to cast Mary's story as a Marxist, deterministic parable. ("I hereby proclaim Mary Mallon, alias Maria Caduff, a hero. She had no choice. That's why.") But only one of the tiny sequences here is truly haunting: before Mary has learned her own secret, someone else has guessed it -- and hires her to care for an unwanted mongoloid child, hoping (in vain, as it happens) that Mary's cooking will prove, as usual, fatal. And this short, spare recitation is finally more curious than powerful: a bit arch in its quasi-documentary manner, but effectively distanced (Mary's feelings and motives remain enigmatic) and -- allowing for losses in translation -- starkly stylish."--Kirkus Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)833.914Literature German literature and literatures of related languages German fiction Modern period (1900-) 1900-1990 1945-1990LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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