domingo, janeiro 19, 2014

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

A very interesting book. At first I didn't like it much, maybe because I read it in a Portuguese translation, and I'm growing to dislike translations, they seem so faulty, I sometimes wonder if translations were better when I was young or if it's just I'm more aware of the faults since I got used to read in English. But then it grew on me as the plot unfold, and I came to like it very much. I like History and historical novels, and the Tudor period is very interesting. I particularly liked the way the Author conveyed great historical changes in a progressive, almost imperceptible way, like things do happen in reality - in this case, the ascension of Cromwell to power and the separation from Rome. I still find it a little hard to understand the long time it took for Henry VIII to have Anne Boleyn - how did he wait years to take her to bed? Historical mysteries, I guess. I'm looking forward to read Bring Up the Bodies, and I think I'll read it in English, then I'll have a notion of how Mantel's writing is really like.

domingo, janeiro 05, 2014

The Last Letter Home, by Vilhelm Moberg


A beautiful ending to the Emigrants saga. Bittersweet, with some very sad scenes, always convincing and real. A true hymn to life, endurance, resourcefulness and change - and a kind of permanence too.