Annie goes to Europe with Novels

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Annie goes to Europe with Novels

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1AnnieMod
Modifié : Déc 10, 2012, 2:55 am

A few years back I started a thread and pretty much abandoned it fast enough. So time for another attempt.

Novels only qualify; 2-part challenge:
- A book set in the country
- A book from an author that is accepted as an author from that country

More than one book for a country is allowed

2AnnieMod
Modifié : Déc 10, 2012, 2:55 am

The countries:

Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan

Belgium
Belarus
Bosnia/Herzegovina
Bulgaria

Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic

Denmark

England
Estonia

Finland

France
1. The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay

Georgia
Germany
Greece

Hungary

Iceland
Ireland
Italy

Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg

Macedonia
Malta
Moldavia
Monaco

The Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Norway

Poland
Portugal

Romania
Russia

San Marino
Scotland
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland

Turkey

Ukraine

The Vatican

Wales

Others (regions, dependent territories and so on):
Faeroe Islands
Greenland
Kosovo
Montenegro

The ones that do not exist anymore or had changed too much to be considered the same country(will fill them in as I read them):
The Rome Empire
The Ottoman Empire
Byzantium
The Old Macedonia
Czechoslovakia
USSR
Yugoslavia (the old one..)
East Germany (GDR)
West Germany (FRG)

3thornton37814
Déc 7, 2012, 10:59 pm

Hope this attempt is more successful for you, Annie. I completed my challenge recently, but I'm hanging around to get some good ideas of books I might want to read!

4Ameise1
Déc 8, 2012, 7:08 am

Great, that you give it a new start. I'll be watching your thread I hope it'll give me some ideas for my one.
Happy reading :-)

5cyderry
Déc 9, 2012, 5:30 pm

Hi, Annie, I'm still working on my travels... wishing you an enjoyable journeys!

6AnnieMod
Déc 10, 2012, 2:51 am

1. France

The House I loved is Tatiana de Rosnay's love letter to the Paris that ceased to exist when Haussmann renovated Paris in the mid-19th century. Epistolary novels had been out of style for more than a century and yet de Rosnay choose that style to tell her story. But it is a twist on the old style - because the letters are one-sided, to a husband that had died; and the are not meant to be read. The letters repeat the same story more than once occasionally, backtracking and coming back to what was already said - but always with a new tidbit or with a reason - bringing up a new story or simply tying together two pieces of the story.

It's a bittersweet story - full of impressions of the old Paris and trying to get into the mind of people that are loosing everything that meant something for them for the better of Paris. And because of the way the story is told, there is very little number of characters that are fully fleshed - which adds to the story. Because despite the fact that Rose and Alexandrine seem to be the main characters, it is Paris and its small streets that are in the heart of the story. The people are there to add something and to be witnesses but it is the old world and old Paris that share the center story.

But even if it is the story of the end of old Paris, it is also the story of Rose - filled with the usual happiness and sorrows and with the big secret that is almost mandatory for novels these days. By the time the secret is revealed, anyone had guessed it but it does not take away from the emotional power of the story or from the fact that this story ties into the bigger story. Add to all this the newly discovered love for reading and a new passion for flowers, and this story has a lot more substories than you would expect.

It's not a happy story - it cannot be. And some of the imaginary will be lingering in my memory at least for a while. But in showing the love of an old lady to her dying world, it showcases what a home is for people. And paints a picture of a Paris in the middle of change, transforming from the world of history to the city we all know.