I had never heard about Olga Tokarczuk until she won the Nobel last year; I was curious when a friend said she was reading Viagens and that it was a "strange" book; she lent it to me after she finished, and I'm glad to have read it. I didn't find it strange at all, I found it fabulous, and was happy to discover such a great writer.
I absolutely love this kind of book. It's a collection of short stories, essays and random thought, all connected by a common theme - travelling, both around the world and inside the mind, an insatiably curious mind, gifted with a keen sense of observation and always haunted by the eternal questions "what am I doing here?", "what's on people's minds?", "what / who are we really?". It reminded me of Chatwin for the love of travelling and details like the wunderkammers (thinking of The Songlines and many of his essays); it reminded me of Marguerite Yourcenar's Zénon, for his endless curiosity about the outer and inner world.
The writing is beautiful and elegant - at least it looks so in the translation, which reconciled me with translating after a terrible experience with a Donna Tartt book; the stories succeed each other smoothly like a modern Sherazade telling engaging tales.
So I highly recommend this book to all my friends, I'm sure they will love it.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário