A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube

A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube, by Patrick Leigh Fermor

I just finished reading A Time Of Gifts by Patrick Fermor, a 1977 book about the author's travels on foot from coast of Holland to Eszetergom, Hungary over the winter of 1933-34 when he was 19. The book ends with the author standing on this bridge watching the people entering the basilica for Easter services. A second book continues his journey to Constantinople. It is an amazing tale of a journey through Europe between the world wars, told by a man in his sixties about a journey he took over 40 years earlier. His memories of his travels through Holland, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia as a young man, telling of the people he meets and the places he sees at the beginning of the Nazis rise to power and before the destruction of Europe by World War II, is tempered by his mature knowledge of these places and what has happened over the intervening 40 years.

The Vegetarian

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

The Vegetarian by Han Kang is about a young Korean housewife, Kim Yeong-hye, who becomes a vegetarian after having a disturbing dream about walking through a place full of meat and blood. There are three chapters each told from a different point of view: her husband, her brother-in-law, and, finally, her sister. Each tells about their interactions with her, and their stories are sequential, rather than describing the same incidents from three points of view. We watch the destructive effect on Yeong-hye as society and family fail to understand and reject her choice. As a person who has chosen to live with a plant-based diet I was attracted to this story when it was first published and am happy that I have gotten a chance to read it. It is not an upbeat, feel good novel about food choice and many will find it disturbing and even miss the point.

Ghosts

Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier

Really nice graphic novel about a girl whose younger sister has Cystic Fibrosis. They are of Mexican heritage and the novel revolves around the Day of the Dead holiday on November 1. Their family moves to a small town on the Northern California coast where people celebrate the holiday. The Ghosts of the title are the dead who are honored on this day. I am glad to have read this book on November 1 as it helped me to think about the spirits of my mother and father on this day to honor them.