Book
Astrid & Veronika / Linda Olsson.
Summary:
New_January_2008 SPL_AdultFiction
Record details
- ISBN: 9780143038078 (pbk.) :
- ISBN: 0143038079 (pbk.) :
- Physical Description: 259, 11 p. ; 20 cm.
- Publisher: New York : Penguin Books, 2007.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "First published in New Zealand under the title Let me sing you gentle songs by Penguin Books (NZ) 2005"--T.p. verso. "A Penguin original"--P. [4] of cover. Includes readers guide. |
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-259). |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Female friendship > Fiction. Sweden > Fiction. |
Available copies
- 2 of 3 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Radium Hot Springs Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 3 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radium Hot Springs Public Library | FIC OLS (Text) | 35130000074215 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
More information
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2007 January #1
Veronika, a 30-year-old Swedish writer, rents a home in a remote village to finish work on her second novel. Her only neighbor for miles is Astrid, a reclusive octogenarian who has earned a reputation (perhaps undeserved) as the village witch. Veronika and Astrid gradually become friends, taking long walks and sipping wine made from the wild strawberries in Astrid's garden. Each shares painful secrets along the way. Veronika abandoned a devoted boyfriend to take up with a bartender from New Zealand. They fell passionately in love, then tragedy befell him, leaving Veronika incapacitated by grief. Astrid endured sexual abuse from her father and a long loveless marriage to a man chosen by him. Until now, she has never told anyone the truth about her infant daughter's death. This is the first novel for Olsson, a native of Stockholm who now lives in New Zealand. Though the pace of her narrative lags at times, readers of Anne Tyler and Jodi Picoult will appreciate the lyrical prose and expert rendering of the themes of heartbreak and loss. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2006 December #2
Two women, four decades apart in age, share their emotional scars while living next door to each other in a small Swedish town.Olsson's restrained debut has the hallmarks of an Ingmar Bergman film: a leisurely pace, a chilly Scandinavian setting leavened by rich observations of nature and characters whose prim, polite facades eventually disappear, exposing years of anger and hurt. Veronika, a 30-year-old writer, arrives in a tiny village looking for a solitary place where she can work on the follow-up to her successful first novel. The house next to the one she rents is owned by Astrid, a septuagenarian shut-in whose husband is slowly dying in a nursing home miles away. Veronika is sad and embittered, Astrid is so closed-off she has a reputation as the village witch, but as their routines increasingly intersect, their relationship thaws, and they become close friends. Over dinners, hikes and trips into town, they discuss the things that prompted them to seclude themselves. By and large, those things are men: Astrid was cruelly rejected by her grandfather as a child, her true love died when she was a teen, and she spent years in a loveless marriage to a domineering man; Veronika left her boyfriend in Stockholm to live with another man in New Zealand, but that relationship had a tragic ending. It's a story with lots of potential to become overwrought, three-hanky fare, but Olsson refuses to give in to that temptation. Her prose is empathetic while remaining steely and unadorned, never overselling the amount of psychic damage that either character has sustained or glossing over the women's flaws. While the plot demands that the conclusion offer some familiar statements about our capacity to heal, Olsson's observations about breakups and dysfunctional families are carefully thought out and free of cliché. The slow pace is sometimes maddening, but it places the women's personal dramas in strong relief.An appealing, if oddly stoic, meditation on friendship. Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2007 January #4
In Swedish novelist Olsson's somber debut, Veronika Bergman returns to Sweden after a childhood following her diplomat father around the world (her mother abandoned the family), and after publishing her first novel titled Single, One Way, No Luggage . She rents a small house in a rural town to work on her second, but in solitude finds herself seized by feverish dreams and paralyzed by the "stillness" of the landscape and the memories of her recently dead fianc. Reclusive septuagenarian Astrid Mattson, thought by the village to be a witch, takes an interest in Veronika, and the two strike up a friendship based on loss. Against the backdrop of the changing seasons and their small, plangent houses, the two women slowly tell each other their most closely guarded secrets (which concern their mothers and lovers), and venture, tentatively, out of the safety of their routines. Olsson has a clear feel for the emotional wellsprings of both characters, but can't convert her terse lyricism into a fully realized story. (Mar.)
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