Raamaturiiul

Frances Mayes „Under the Tuscan Sun”
Taas üks raamat „sarjast: ostsin maja võõras riigis ning ehitasin selle uuesti üles”. Mul on järjekorras kolmanda kirjaniku käest samal teemal teos. Eks ma siis anna oma kommentaarid, milline nendest kõige parem oli. Hetkel kaldun arvama, et Carol Goldwater'i lood olid siiramad, kuigi Frances Mayes'i sulg jookseb palju libedamalt. Ehk olen ma pisut eelarvamusega ameeriklaste suhtes...

Vaatasin ka filmi, mis ei ole täpselt raamatu järgi tehtud (ma ei kujuta ette, kuidas seda mängufilmiks üldse muuta saakski). Ainult mõned üksikud seigad on raamatust kaasa toodud. Minu meelest väga armas ilus muinasjutt, ükskõik mis teised sellest arvavad. Oleme Heleniga - mu töökaaslane - täiesti erinevatel arusaamadel, aga mulle meeldib temaga 'vaielda', me ei saa kunagi pahseks teineteise peale ja ma imestan kui palju on minus (temas) joont, mis lubab meil teineteise üle norida ilma et me solvuks. Mina ei vaadanud seda lugu nii palju loo pärast. Nautisin Itaalia maastikku, inimesi. Hiljem lugesin, et pea kõik küla elanikud osalesid filmis. Kui tahad hetkeks kõrvale visata oma argimured, siis sukeldu filmi ning võta seda kui toredat väljamõeldist (muinasjuttu).

Frances Mayes - widely published poet, gourmet cook and travel writer - opens the door on a wondrous new world when she buys and restores an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. She finds faded frescoes beneath the whitewash in the dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles - and even a wayward scorpion under her pillow. And from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, she creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes, all included in this book. In the vibrant local markets and neighbouring hill towns, the author explores the nuances of the Italian landscape, history and cuisine. Each adventure yields delightful surprises - the perfect panettone, an unforgettable wine, or painted Etruscan tombs. Doing for Tuscany what Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes about the tastes and pleasures of a foreign country with gusto and passion. A celebration of the extraordinary quality of life in Tuscany, "Under The Tuscan Sun" is a feast for all the senses.

Jose Saramago „Blindness” (Pimedus)
Vaatasin, et see raamat on tõlgitud ka eesti keelde. Autor on Nobeli preemia laureaat.
Pean tunnistama, et raamatut kätte võttes ning lugedes lühikokkuvõtet, pidin selle peaaaegu käest ära panema. Olen hoidnud eemale liiga tumedate toonidega teostest (kuigi neid satub aegajalt minu öökapile oma järjekorda ootama). „Pimeduse” puhul otsustasin siiski siit sealt mõnda katkendit lugeda ning olin peaaegu valmis lõppu ära vaatama (nii nagu keegi mulle hiljuti rääkis isikust, kes ennast väga süngeks peab ja kes raamatut alustades vaatab alati lõpu ära, sest küll oleks kahju, kui ta ära surres ei tea, kuidas kirjanik oma teose lõpetas... Mina olen end samuti tabanud mõttelt, kui kurb on surra, olles mõne raamatuga poole peal, aga ma ei taha end sugugi väga süngeks pidada ning ma püüan siiski hoiduda lõppude ära vaatamisest - mis sest et aegajalt/harva mitte väga edukalt).

„Pimedus” on absoluutselt ebatavaline. Siin puudub kahekõne selle tavalises mõttes, see on peidetud paragrahvide sisse. Kui saada üle esialgsest tõrkest (nagu mina), siis lugu haarab end täiesti enda võimusesse ja paneb tõsiselt mõtlema, millised me inimestena tegelikult oleme... Tasub lugeda!!!!

In an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a man sitting in his car waiting for a traffic light to change is suddenly struck blind. But instead of being plunged into darkness, this man sees everything white, as if he "were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea." A Good Samaritan offers to drive him home (and later steals his car); his wife takes him by taxi to a nearby eye clinic where they are ushered past other patients into the doctor's office. Within a day the man's wife, the taxi driver, the doctor and his patients, and the car thief have all succumbed to blindness. As the epidemic spreads, the government panics and begins quarantining victims in an abandoned mental asylum--guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who tries to escape. So begins Portuguese author José Saramago's gripping story of humanity under siege, written with a dearth of paragraphs, limited punctuation, and embedded dialogue minus either quotation marks or attribution. At first this may seem challenging, but the style actually contributes to the narrative's building tension, and to the reader's involvement.

In this community of blind people there is still one set of functioning eyes: the doctor's wife has affected blindness in order to accompany her husband to the asylum. As the number of victims grows and the asylum becomes overcrowded, systems begin to break down: toilets back up, food deliveries become sporadic; there is no medical treatment for the sick and no proper way to bury the dead. Inevitably, social conventions begin to crumble as well, with one group of blind inmates taking control of the dwindling food supply and using it to exploit the others. Through it all, the doctor's wife does her best to protect her little band of blind charges, eventually leading them out of the hospital and back into the horribly changed landscape of the city.

Blindness is in many ways a horrific novel, detailing as it does the total breakdown in society that follows upon this most unnatural disaster. Saramago takes his characters to the very edge of humanity and then pushes them over the precipice. His people learn to live in inexpressible filth, they commit acts of both unspeakable violence and amazing generosity that would have been unimaginable to them before the tragedy. The very structure of society itself alters to suit the circumstances as once-civilized, urban dwellers become ragged nomads traveling by touch from building to building in search of food. The devil is in the details, and Saramago has imagined for us in all its devastation a hell where those who went blind in the streets can never find their homes again, where people are reduced to eating chickens raw and packs of dogs roam the excrement-covered sidewalks scavenging from corpses.

And yet in the midst of all this horror Saramago has written passages of unsurpassed beauty. Upon being told she is beautiful by three of her charges, women who have never seen her, "the doctor's wife is reduced to tears because of a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, mere grammatical categories, mere labels, just like the two women, the others, indefinite pronouns, they too are crying, they embrace the woman of the whole sentence, three graces beneath the falling rain." In this one woman Saramago has created an enduring, fully developed character who serves both as the eyes and ears of the reader and as the conscience of the race. And in Blindness he has written a profound, ultimately transcendent meditation on what it means to be human. --Alix Wilber

Stuart MacBride „Dying Light”
Jälle kord laenan Amazon'ilt leitud kokkuvõtet. Minu arvamine? Väga sünge. Hästi kirjutatud, kuid ma ei kavatse otsida üles tema teisi raamatuid... või võib-olla kunagi tulevikus :)
Mind tõmbavad vahel karakterid, mis kirjanikud loonud on ning olen rohkem huvitatud nende käekäigust...

This is a new Logan McRae thriller from the bestselling author of "Cold Granite", set to rival Ian Rankin. It's summertime in the Granite city: the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and people are dying! It starts with Rosie Williams, a prostitute, stripped naked and beaten to death down by the docks - the heart of Aberdeen's red light district. For DS Logan McRae it's a bad start to another bad day. Only a few short months ago, he was the golden boy of Grampian police. But one botched raid later, he's palmed off on a DI everyone knows is a jinx, waiting for the axe to fall with all the other rejects in the 'Screw-up Squad'. Logan's not going to take it lying down. He's determined to escape DI Steel and her unconventional methods, and the best way to do that is to crack the case in double-quick time. But, Rosie Williams won't be the only one making an unscheduled trip to the morgue. Across the city, six people are burning to death in a petrol-soaked squat, the doors and windows screwed shut from the outside. And despite Logan's best efforts, it's not long before another prostitute turns up on the slab! Stuart MacBride's characteristic grittiness, gallows humour and lively characterization make this his second unputdownable novel, confirming his status as the rising star of crime fiction.