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Bezig met laden... Must I Go: A Novel (editie 2020)door Yiyun Li (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkMust I Go door Yiyun Li
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"Lilia Liska has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children, and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to the diary of a man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had an affair--the man who was the father of her daughter Lucy. Lilia tells her rather different version of events revealing the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. And she returns inexorably to her daughter, Lucy, who took her own life at the age of twenty-seven. This is a novel about life in all its messy glory--life lived, for the extraordinary Lilia, absolutely on her own terms. With great candor and insight, Yiyun Li writes of a life of resilience, loss and rebirth"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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There are numerous strong women in this novel — Lilia, Sidelle, Hetty, and, possibly also Lucy. Any one of them would have made a captivating focus for a novel. Unfortunately Yiyun Li has us spend most of our time with Roland, a feckless young man who, despite grandiose claims of novelistic ambition, never accomplishes much of anything. Moreover, although he has a wealth of experiences from across America, Asia, and Europe, he never seems to develop or mature. He is as weak and self-interested at the end of his long life as he was back in 1946 when he met Lilia. He makes for a tiresome companion over nearly 350 pages.
Death stalks this novel. Quite apart from Lucy’s suicide, there are numerous others, as well as accidental and untimely deaths aplenty, not to mention the fallout of two world wars. But it is Yiyun Li’s personal history — her own suicide attempts and her son’s successful suicide — that lurk behind my reading of the novel. It was very hard to get past those and treat the suicides in the novel as no more than that, novelistic flotsam. It’s possible that without this background knowledge this novel might have come across very differently to me. But would any reading bring these characters fully to life? Somehow I don’t think so.
Once again I’ve been impressed by Yiyun Li’s care and craft yet I find the result just as disappointing (I won’t say disheartening) as previous efforts. Still, I hold out hope for her next project, whatever that might be.
Not recommended. ( )