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Cargando... Emotional Arithmetic: A Novelpor Matt Cohen
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. This book was originally published in 1990 but was re-issued in 2007 when it was made into a movie staring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Plummer. It's a good read and not overly long, moving from a Nazi camp in France duing WWII to the present day. Three people, an English boy, an American girl and their protector, an older Polish man, who were in the camp together are re-united later in life. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Melanie is a mother and a lover, middle-aged, eccentric, courageous, and often hilariously unpredictable. She's also deeply scarred by her internment as a child in Drancy, a Nazi detention camp. Through the humanity and friendship of an English boy, Christopher Lewis, and her self-appointed protector, Jakob Bronski, Melanie managed to survive. Forty years later, Jakob, now a frail, well-known Soviet dissident, and Christopher, a writer who's never forgotten the young Melanie, reenter her life. Memories of the past, coupled with her husband's infidelity, upset Melanie's precarious emotional stability, forcing her to confront the absurdity of trying to balance good and evil, guilt and love, duty and desire. With its finely drawn characters, rich humanity, and rare wit, Emotional Arithmetic is a novel of memory and hope, offering an unforgettable look at how the shadows of the past illuminate the present. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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I didn't like this book quite as much as Elizabeth and After. This book was published in 1990 so maybe Cohen polished his craft a bit more in the ensuing 9 years. I just never felt emotionally involved with any of the characters in this book and I did with the Elizabeth and After crew.
Simply put this is a story of 3 people who survived the Holocaust. Melanie and Christopher were children who ended up in the Drancy concentration camp without their parents. Jakob Bronski took them under his wing and Melanie and Christopher were never transported to the death camp at Auschwitz. After the war Melanie went back to the US and Christopher returned to England. They thought Jakob, who had been sent to Auschwitz, had perished but years later some of his poetry was smuggled from Russia to the Western world and Melanie started corresponding with him. Melanie is married to Professor David Winters, a history professor who was once her teacher. Christopher is a fairly famous novelist. Melanie has suffered many mental breakdowns, maybe a result of her traumatic childhood or maybe a result of her husband's philandering. At the start of the novel she is in a mental institution but she is about to be released because Jakob is coming to Canada to live with her and David. Christopher will escort him to Canada so the three survivors will all be together again.
The title of the book comes from this paragraph in the first chapter:
My mother once said about my father--Professor Doctor David Winters, the eminent or at least emeritus historian--that he passed jugement the way other people passed wind. For her, with her files, her dossiers, her records of humanity's crimes, judgement was a matter of arithmetic. Emotional arithmetic.
There's a good story here and some great writing. It's not a bad piece of work; I guess I was expecting more after reading Elizabeth and After. I think I'll have to try him again and see how another book strikes me. ( )