Describe Books During History (La Storia #1-2)
| Original Title: | La storia |
| ISBN: | 1586420046 (ISBN13: 9781586420048) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | La Storia #1-2 |
| Characters: | Ida Mancuso |
| Setting: | Italy |
| Literary Awards: | National Book Award Finalist for Translation (1978) |
Elsa Morante
Paperback | Pages: 754 pages Rating: 4.24 | 3839 Users | 287 Reviews
Mention Based On Books History (La Storia #1-2)
| Title | : | History (La Storia #1-2) |
| Author | : | Elsa Morante |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 754 pages |
| Published | : | February 8th 2000 by Steerforth (first published 1974) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Italy. European Literature. Italian Literature. Historical. Historical Fiction. Classics |
Ilustration As Books History (La Storia #1-2)
History was written nearly thirty years after Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia spent a year in hiding among remote farming villages in the mountains south of Rome. There she witnessed the full impact of the war and first formed the ambition to write an account of what history - the great political events driven by men of power, wealth, and ambition - does when it reaches the realm of ordinary people struggling for life and bread.The central character in this powerful and unforgiving novel is Ida Mancuso, a schoolteacher whose husband has died and whose feckless teenage son treats the war as his playground. A German soldier on his way to North Africa rapes her, falls in love with her, and leaves her pregnant with a boy whose survival becomes Ida's passion.
Around these two other characters come and go, each caught up by the war which is like a river in flood. We catch glimpses of bombing raids, street crimes, a cattle car from which human cries emerge, an Italian soldier succumbing to frostbite on the Russian front, the dumb endurance of peasants who have lived their whole lives with nothing and now must get by with less than nothing.
Rating Based On Books History (La Storia #1-2)
Ratings: 4.24 From 3839 Users | 287 ReviewsWrite Up Based On Books History (La Storia #1-2)
A magnificent work of art, which goes straight into my Top Ten 10 All Time Books Ever (which numbers, now, around 50 or 60 titles). Morante writes beautifully and more or less every other page I found myself sitting back from the act of reading and thinking "wow!"What she achieves in this necessarily long dissertation on the life of a soul too simple, too fragile and too ingenuous for the brutality of the C20th, in general, and the lunacy of Hitler's war years, in particular, is an essentialHistory continues'With the present book, I who was born at a time of certain horror (in our 20th Century), I wanted to leave a documented testimony of my direct experience of the Second World War, exposing it as an extreme and bloody example of the total body of history through time. Here is History to you. Just the way it is and just the way we contributed to make it.' As I was on the verge of embarking on my first foray into Natalia Ginzburgs work All Our Yesterdays, a family novel in the
There are few books that I don't finish within one week. This one took me almost six weeks. It is excellent and brutal. The writing is very good, but also dense and demands a careful reader. This is not a novel to read while sipping wine. Additionally, the story is one of struggle and pain. At the opening, Ida, a young Italian widow, is raped by a German soldier. The child of the rape, Useppe, along with her older child, Nino, are the focus of Ida's existence. During the war, Nino is nearly an
A tragic and incredible tale which only someone of Morante's mastery could pen. A perfect contrast of the personal (her)story against the backdrop of World War II. While the Great Powers are busy divvying up the world in violent conflict, a woman's life intersects with a soldier who rapes her and creates a child. This is a novel of the poor and dispossessed writ large in juxtaposition to the happenings of the war; a personalization of the lives of the masses who are the social and moral
It is a difficult book to rate. May be that four star is that Stockalm syndrome showing up it is a big book. And it feels big; big and slow. Sometimes it appears to be badly edited. There are whole passages that only repeat the things. The prose isnt the best thing but then I read only translation.Still, it presents a very original worldview. The narrator is like normal omniscient narrators except that she is not omniscient since she is often pointing out things she doesnt know about. Also, she
There is no word in the human language capable of consoling the guinea pigs who do not knowthe reason for their death.....A survivor of HiroshimaAll the seeds failed, except one.I don't know what it is, but it isprobably a flower and not a weed.....Prisoner no. 7047 in the Penitentiary of Turi
History continues'With the present book, I who was born at a time of certain horror (in our 20th Century), I wanted to leave a documented testimony of my direct experience of the Second World War, exposing it as an extreme and bloody example of the total body of history through time. Here is History to you. Just the way it is and just the way we contributed to make it.' As I was on the verge of embarking on my first foray into Natalia Ginzburgs work All Our Yesterdays, a family novel in the
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