Particularize Books In Favor Of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Original Title: | A Constellation of Vital Phenomena |
ISBN: | 0770436420 (ISBN13: 9780770436421) |
Edition Language: | English |
Setting: | Chechnya(Russian Federation) |
Literary Awards: | National Book Award Nominee for Fiction (2013), New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Nominee (2014), Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction (2014), California Book Award for First Fiction (Gold) (2013), PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize Nominee for Shortlist (2014) Dayton Literary Peace Prize Nominee for Fiction (2014), National Book Critics Circle Award for John Leonard Prize (2013), The Athens Prize for Literature - Περιοδικό (δέ)κατα (2014), Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Fiction (2014), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2013) |
Anthony Marra
Paperback | Pages: 416 pages Rating: 4.13 | 44517 Users | 6577 Reviews
Rendition Concering Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate. With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.Define Out Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Title | : | A Constellation of Vital Phenomena |
Author | : | Anthony Marra |
Book Format | : | Paperback |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 416 pages |
Published | : | February 4th 2014 by Hogarth (first published May 7th 2013) |
Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. War. Cultural. Russia. Literary Fiction |
Rating Out Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Ratings: 4.13 From 44517 Users | 6577 ReviewsComment On Out Of Books A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Upon starting this book I had heard of Chechnya. I couldn't point it out on a map though. Or even have told you what part of the world it was in. This book takes you there. Not just in mind..but in spirit also. The author states he chose to write about this area after hearing about the death of journalist Anna Polikovskaya from her reporting she did from Chechnya. He read up on the non-fiction reports he could find from the area. I'm glad he did it. My eyes would have glazed over from theAnthony Marras first novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, is a flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles.Go ahead and sneer at the thin atmosphere of Americas MFA programs, but this Washington-born graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop is a testament to the vibrancy of contemporary fiction. Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly, a story about desperate lives in a remote land that will quickly seem
We all know, as William Tecumseh Sherman once noted, that War is Hell! Later, Jean-Paul Sartre concluded that Hell is other people. It therefore stands to reason that war is other people. Good thing for me that it's about others because what Marra described in this book sounded awful. We got chopped off fingers, burned down houses, torture-induced ratting, and a whole host of other atrocities. It was set in Chechnya in 2004 with much of the story backfilled from the prior decade of war. Russian
I started off lost in a coulee reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena with seven of my Traveling Sisters and some of us really got lost in this story. We all found our comfy spot to read this and were drawn into this densely vivid heavy in-depth plot that demanded our full attention. As life pulled some of the sisters away from the story they became really lost with their focus and had to leave the coulee and return back to read this at another time. Leaving three sisters and myself in a
Verbose and mundane in tone butsomewhat?enlightening to a reader unfamiliar with Chechen history. Recently mesmerized by a stunning debut, one that made me step back and look at the people in my life a little more appreciatively, I found myself craving something along the same linesa story with a deep and resounding message. Having seen a few comparisons made between A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and A Place for Us, in weight of the story, not necessarily style, I thought this would be a
I'm not saying I didn't like the beginning of this novel, but when I arrived at page 139, I became hooked, absolutely hooked. The passage (actually one long sentence) is about a younger brother along with his family (whom the readers never see again) at the village doctor's (a better artist than he is a doctor) to describe his 'disappeared' older brother in order for the doctor to draw his portrait. The lyricism of the long sentence is what captivated me at the time, but it also encapsulates
For a young American writer to choose Chechnya as the subject for a first novel shows commendable ambition, and for the most part he gets away with it. I had high expectations of this book after seeing a few recommendations from friends here. I do have some reservations. When dealing with such unpleasant subject matter, the tone must be a tricky balancing act, particularly given the amount of humour that pervades it. I found the frequent asides about the futures of the surviving characters
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