1999 Santi

I didn't really get into this book, which made me sad because I love [b:The Elephant Keepers' Children|13367230|The Elephant Keepers' Children|Peter Høeg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333580746s/13367230.jpg|15110716]. I didn't really like the writing style, so I must check if the translator is the same. I wonder if it makes more sense if you're Danish? ( )

I think I would need to read some Danish history, let this book simmer a bit in my subconscious, and then read it again, before I could say I really understood all of it. And, I get the impression that part of the point of this novel is that things, especially national dreams, don't make sense so much as they just are. Our world views and fears and past experiences (which we perceive imperfectly and thus may not fully understand) construct our perceptions of the present and build up our expectations and wishes. The resulting dream, one's own personal dream or a nation's dream, is a surreal amalgamation of logic, absurdity and the results of particular circumstances that may or may not seem at all significant to outside observers.

If you want an easy read, this book may be a bit annoying, but if you want the sort of book that makes your brain feel like it is working overtime trying to keep up, and that continues to make you think about it afterward, you may like this book. ( )

My bookshelves were missing a Danish flavour, so I purchased this volume to fill that rather glaring hole. Rather like Denmark itself, I was left somewhat ambivalent after finishing this...not sure if it was really great magical realism or just too much northern depression.

Hoeg sketches a family representing the Danish transition from medieval times (and charm) to modern society (20th-century conformity). I was completely absorbed in the story of the aristocrat who seals off his estate and makes time stop. Magical yet symbolic of the upper class losing their sway as Denmark became one of the most modern of modern societies. The strange family also includes a domineering old woman who uses the newspapers to control the lives of the residents to the point that they only do what the paper tells them to do.

All well and good...but then past history is weaved into the story and the magic disappears at times. Still, it's a keeper as I had dreams about the home and the clocks that stopped ticking. If a book can make me think about it weeks later, it must have something. That something was not enough to get it a higher rating, so to each reader their own.

Book Season = Autumn (when time goes backward) ( )

This novel has a really intriguing set of stories that all connect in the later half and with those stories come bizarre and wonderful characters. At times it is subtly fantastical and at other times quite realistic. The concepts are quite interesting-a Count who wants to stop time and believes he is living at the center of the Earth, an illiterate newspaper heiress who is able to predict the future, a family of carnival thieves, the daughter of a religious man who can separate herself into several different beings, and more. At the same time, I really thought the ending was a bit of a cop out..though I don't want to say anything more about that for those who haven't read it. I also thought the narrator was too inconsistent with whether this was truly a book of dreams or based on reality. I think the novel would have been much stronger if he had chosen one. ( )