The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian

Author: Chi Zijian
Original title: Erguna he you an
Pages: 311
Edition Language: English
Series: no
Format: Paperback
Genres: Historical Fiction
Goodreads

Blurb:    
    At the end of the twentieth-century an old woman sits among the birch trees and thinks back over her life, her loves, and the joys and tragedies that have befallen her family and her people. She is a member of the Evenki tribe who wander the remote forests of north-eastern China with their herds of reindeer, living in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel.
     In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of her tribe but also to the transformation of China.
My thoughts: 

        I can't express how much I've loved this book. It has taken me to a lost world I know very little about and made it vivid. I loved getting to know the characters but was heartbroken as each one came to a tragic end. It was a very slow story, but I did enjoy it, thought I was reading it for a couple of months. It was great to learn about the Evinki tribe and culture, and how it interacted with the world  from its isolation. I had little knowledge of the Evinkis prior to this reading and it is a good opportunity to learn something new. 

        Frankly speaking, I found this book rather slow at the beginning and I put it down for a week or so. Then I took it up again, and I'm so glad I did. It draws you in until you feel immersed in a different way of life, one which is wholly human, but completely foreign to most of us.  What I found very moving was their stoicism, and that was quite different from fatalism. There is a great deal of shamanism in the story and it is very important for the Evenki; it reveals a way of thinking and believing; there are lots of spiritual events happening. People in the story constantly see omens or have forebodings (mostly about deaths); so their views on nature and balance with it are quite unique and refreshing.

       What impressed me the most was the emotional detachment of the narrator. Tragedies happen frequently (as they do in life) but the emotional turmoil that must have accompanied life was completely omitted from the narrative, with events (big and small, happy and distressing) being reported in a calm manner with very little reflection on the emotions of the narrator. That makes the story twice more dramatic and tragic as we have to fill in the emotions missing and guess what the people were going through at this or that particular time of their lives.

       The book can be called a saga as it covers multiple generations of one particular tribe and how its story is going to an end. As this way of life cannot be truly preserved and “civilization” is taking over dissolving particular ways of life that were maintained by multiple generations.

Rating:  

    5/5 

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

Author: Daphne du Maurier
Original title: The Birds and Other Stories
Pages: 336
Edition Language: Russian
Series: no
Format: e-book
Genres: Contemporary,
Goodreads

Blurb:    
    The idea for this famous story came to du Maurier one day when she was walking across to Menabilly Barton farm from the house. She saw a farmer busily ploughing a field whilst above him the seagulls were diving and wheeling. She developed an idea about the birds becoming hostile and attacking him. In her story, the birds become hostile after a harsh winter with little food -- first the seagulls, then birds of prey, and finally even small birds -- all turn against mankind. The nightmarish vision appealed to Hitchcock who turned it into the celebrated film.
     Stories in the collection:
The Birds
Monte Verità
The Apple Tree
The Little Photographer
Kiss Me Again, Stranger
The Old Man

My thoughts: 
     I am not a great short story reader, but loved this book. The most favorite is Apple Tree, I loved how the paranoia of the main character was escalating. Least favorite is Monte Verita: the story was developing beautifully, but I hated the ending... it was so lifeless and perfect.

Rating:  

    4/5 

Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Author: Megan Mayhew Bergman
Original title: Almost Famous Women: Stories
Pages: 256
Edition Language: English
Series: no
Format: Paperback
Genres: Short Stories
Goodreads

Blurb:    
    Twelve of the 13 stories in this collection take up the lives of historical women who are either virtually unknown or only known through association with more famous figures. As Bergman puts it in her author’s note, the stories “are born of fascination with real women whose remarkable lives were reduced to footnotes.”

My thoughts: 
      This is the book we read in Tales & Co. book club during January 2018.
I loved the whole collection. I enjoyed reading up on all of these women afterward to get more information about their lives.
 
 Stories
The Pretty, Grown-Together Children
    Truly sad story about two conjoined twins whose life turned out to be a constant fight with difficulties and humiliation.
The Siege at Whale Cay
    This story I liked a lot for its atmosphere. Though the story is not that captivating, I could feel the tension in the air and all the suppressed emotions.
Norma Millay’s Film Noir Period
   That story did not captivate me at all.
Romaine Remains
   This one was quite an interesting read, though I did not like the character too much.
Hazel Eaton and the Wall of Death
    This one is rather short and I literally couldn’t care about anything in it. It felt a bit flat. But as I have never heard about this woman it was a nice acquaintance.
The Autobiography of Allegra Byron
     It was quite a touching story. I read later about the relationship of Byron to his daughter, but it was interesting and moving to see how the child goes with that drastic change in her life and find someone ready to perceive Allegra first as a little girl but not a daughter of a great figure.
Expression Theory
    I had to read about Lucia Joyce otherwise I could not understand what was it all about.
Saving Butterfly McQueen
    This was such an unusual introduction of this "almost famous" woman. There is almost no participation of Butterfly McQueen in the story development and still it is story about her.
Who Killed Dolly Wilde?
      This is again a sad story and shows what bottom can reach a person touched by fame and does anything to stay at the top. This is also the joining point for two other persons from this collection: Joe and Romaine.
A High-Grade Bitch Sits Down for Lunch
The Internees
The Lottery, Redux
Hell-Diving Women 
These last stories I liked the least.

Rating:  

    4/5 

Unit by Ninni Holmqvist

Author: Ninni Holmqvist
Original title: Enhet
Pages: 268
Edition Language: English
Series: no
Format: Paperback
Genres: Dystopia
Goodreads

Blurb:    
     One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised a nicely furnished apartment inside the Unit, where she will make new friends, enjoy the state of the art recreation facilities, and live the few remaining days of her life in comfort with people who are just like her. Here, women over the age of fifty and men over sixty-single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries--are sequestered for their final few years.
    In the Unit they are expected to contribute themselves for drug and psychological testing, and ultimately donate their organs, little by little, until the final donation.

My thoughts: 
      This is the book we read in Tales & Co. book club during November 2017 and mostly the impression was negative. 
     I would not say I particularly liked the story, but I have enjoyed it. It is a slow first person narration with frequent reminiscence of the past and mood changed from healthy indifference to deep depression. The book does not explain anything, does not bring reasons for such society, does not have evaluation stand, it just gives you the picture how it is now and leaves you to deal with the facts. And you do not have much, only bits and bobs that Dorrit gives in her narration. The book has such a grayish tone: there is no tragedy nor hope - it is something that all residents of the unit feel silent meekness. Even the perception of the characters is vague - I cannot picture anybody, even though they were described in details - all of them is a gray mass of submissiveness. Only Elsa I can see clearly in my mind, the rest are people with blurred mass instead of faces.
      But anyway, in all this grayness the difficult topics come out and make you think. For me the most striking was the indifference of youth to matters of the old. Only a couple of lines where Dorrit tells about the deliberation about "dispensable" when she was young and how she did not see it possible, made me think about the perception of time. It was quite thought provoking read and, though, it has a similar topic to Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, it is still captivating and unique book.
    Despite of all above, I had my difficulties with the book. Mainly with the narration itself: the language seems dry and unemotional, which made it difficult to enjoy the prose. Another quite disturbing feature was the detailed description of everything the characters eat, drink or do. It was like rewinding narration: first we have a quick section of events of several months and then paragraphs of character dress, room and sandwich description.

Rating: 

    2/5