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Chargement... Under This Unbroken Sky (édition 2009)par Shandi Mitchell
Information sur l'oeuvreUnder This Unbroken Sky: A Novel par Shandi Mitchell
Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. Got half way through & couldn't stand the endless bad luck & hardship any longer, since it showed no signs of changing. A harrowing story of a Ukrainian family who escaped Stalin’s regime to live as homesteading farmers in northern Alberta in 1938. Life was so difficult it’s hard to imagine that it could have been an improvement on what went before. It’s a mesmerizing story written so tenderly that the reader comes to know each of the family closely. I have to hand it to the immigrants who farmed in this part of Alberta. By identifying the area from towns Mitchell mentioned, I can say I know the area well and can testify to the ground filled with rocks and bogs, and of the fire hazard and unbelievably harsh winters. Some of those log cabins are still standing, empty and forlorn, yet creating a picture in the imagination of life in the past. I've read half of this book, and I have no interest in continuing. Shandi Mitchell is a competent enough writer, but I'm finding this book totally unengaging. I don't care for or about any of the characters, and I can't help but feel I've heard this story many times before (and told much better - think Steinbeck). Everything is just a bit too familiar, too predictable, too cloying. It's a sad story, and that's the kind of book that often draws me in, and mercifully it's not sentimental or pathetic. But something is missing here - that burst of originality, those moments that pull a reader in and won't let him go no matter what, those phrases and breathtaking uses of language that make a reader say: "Wow!" An immigrant Ukrainian family suffers hardship on the tundra of Western Canada. One man was in prison for two years for using some of his own grain. He and his children work the fields owned by his sister, while her absent husband lives a life of depravity. His own wife, Maria, with love for her family, creates a garden that helps feed them all and earns extra money, while she mends every stitch of clothing they wear. Then the absent brother in law returns and wreaks havoc on everyone.
There are undoubted merits to Mitchell's gruelling story of an exiled Ukrainian family, trying to eke out a living on the vast Canadian plains. It is 1938... Despite impressive control of the subject and a stunning depiction of the natural world, the book sinks somewhat under the onerous weight of the appellation "epic". The starkly gorgeous prairie comes alive…Combining the storytelling skills of Ivan Doig with the stunning landscapes in Karen Fisher’s A Sudden Country, Mitchell’s harrowing story delivers an unforgettable literary tribute to an immigrant people and their struggle. The lyrical style, the riveting historical material, and the treatment of prejudice make the novel a great book-club choice.” “Under This Unbroken Sky crushed and inspired me simultaneously, a novel I didn’t want to end. Shandi Mitchell’s prose strikes like a prairie thunder storm, every page building to an intensity that’s simply awing to behold. Brilliant and honest and brutal, this new voice feels as old and right as anything I’ve read in a very long time.” Prix et récompensesDistinctions
Out of prison, Theo Mykolayenkos tirelessly clears his untamed land on the 1938 Canadian prairie and begins to heal himself and his family, but when his sister's rogue husband returns, he stirs up rancor that will end in tragedy. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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