Silk
Registered by beckys on 10/30/2003
8 journalers for this copy...
France, 1861. When an epidemic threatens to wipe up out the silk trade in France, Hervé Joncour, a young silk breeder, has to travel overland to distand Japan, out of bounds to foreigners, to smuggle out healthy silkworms. In the course of his secret negotiations with the local baron, Joncour's attention is arrested by the man's concubine, a girl who doesn't have oriental eyes. Although they're unable to exchange so much as a word, love blossoms between them, a love that is conveyed in a number of recondite messages. How their secret affair develops is told in this remarkable love story. As haunting as a strain of passionate music, Silk is an enchantment, an exquisite narrative and stylistic tour de force...
This book is going to travel around the world as a bookring. Here are the participants:¤ YowlYY(UK) ¤
¤ tho(Portugal - ship in Europe) ¤
¤ PreciousArwen(Portugal - ship in Europe) ¤
¤ Dani75 (Germany)
¤ WarEagle78(Alabama)
¤ bookmaniac70 (Bulgaria)
¤ Kernow8 (UK)
¤ Caracas(Germany - ship in Europe)
¤ Hero (Ireland)
¤ hathyia (Malaysia - ship to Asia/Australia)
¤ jawin (Australia)
¤ vicki9170(Florida)
¤ kymberlie
¤ arugh48187(Minnesota - ship in USA)
¤ cobaltcat (California)
The book will leave Italy tomorrow morning...I wish it a nice journey and you all a very happy reading!
SILK arrived this morning... and it made my day (and my weekend)!! The booklet accompanying the novel is also here, and all the extras ;-) Many thanks to Beckys for starting this bookring and a huge THANK YOU for the Italian version you sent my way...now what shall I read....the Italian version or the English translation? ;-)
My comments on the novel will appear here in a short while....
[...] he was one of those men who like to be observers at their own lives, any ambition actually to participate in them being considered inappropriate. It will have been noted that such people observe their destiny much as most people tend to observe a rainy day. [...]This book is like a piece of music, it's magic!
The structure, 65 short chapters, is a sequence of colourful pictures, almost standstills, in which the air seems to hang around the protagonists like in summer, hot and thick and with complete absence of breeze, and then again seems to lack completely, creating motion as slow as in absence of gravity. This dreamworld is the story of a passion, almost entirely located in the mind only of Herve' Joncour, a French silk breeder, and the concubine of a rich Japanese baron...a very unusual story, with a surprise ending. I loved it, and I'll be surely reading more by Baricco.
This book is leaving the UK today to go and visit tho in Portugal.... happy reading!
The book arrived today at my mailbox ... thanks Beckys for organizing another Baricco ring, and YowlYY for the nice London postcard !! I can't wait to read it, so I'll be posting my review very, very soon :-)
What can I say ? Baricco is a magical storyteller, and once again he delivers a most passionate tale .... reading this book is like being inside someone's dream .. it's a beautiful love story, although maybe not the one that you're expecting :-) I loved the ending most of all ... and, like YowlYY, I'll be looking for more Baricco novels to read.The book will be passed to PreciousArwen this Friday.
Photo: Shirakawa silk houses
It's with me now. Tho gave it to me last Friday during a fantastic Portuguese BookCrossers' dinner.After I read it, it will procede his journey to Germany.
Herve Joncour makes four difficult journeys from France to Japan to obtain eggs for breeding silkworms. Japan is closed to the world, but he manages to negotiate with a local baron to obtain the eggs. While there, he notices a young woman who does not have oriental eyes.
What is really amazing is how much information is packed into this beautiful, quiet, slim, little book. We learn about 19th century travel; we learn about the dependence of a small French village on a small Japanese one; we learn about the secret longings of the heart that can never be fulfilled and we learn about the communication that can exist between a man and wife, a communication born of many years of marriage and one that needs no words.
Beautiful, beautiful book (but also heartbreaking).
What is really amazing is how much information is packed into this beautiful, quiet, slim, little book. We learn about 19th century travel; we learn about the dependence of a small French village on a small Japanese one; we learn about the secret longings of the heart that can never be fulfilled and we learn about the communication that can exist between a man and wife, a communication born of many years of marriage and one that needs no words.
Beautiful, beautiful book (but also heartbreaking).
Don't worry...the book is travelling to Germany in these days. Fingers crossed ;)
Journal Entry 12 by Dani75 from -- irgendwo in Baden-Württemberg, Baden-Württemberg Germany on Saturday, March 13, 2004
The book is safe and sound in my hands now - it was in the mail today! Looking forward to reading it.
17/4/2004:
Alessandro Barrico is such an amazing storyteller! SILK was the first of his books that I´ve read and I was hooked from the first page. A very beautifully written story, it is poetry. I´m looking forward to reading more of his books.
Mailed to WarEagle78.
17/4/2004:
Alessandro Barrico is such an amazing storyteller! SILK was the first of his books that I´ve read and I was hooked from the first page. A very beautifully written story, it is poetry. I´m looking forward to reading more of his books.
Mailed to WarEagle78.
This lovely slender volume was waiting in Alabama (USA) when I came back from a trip this evening. Will get to it as soon as I can. Thanks for sharing, beckys!
Simple exquisite little tale. Beautifully written, a graceful story of the life of a man in the silk trade. I'm glad to have read it. Thank you, beckys! It will be out on Saturday.
It took longer than I expected to get this book out -- but it left for Bulgaria on Friday, July 2. Air mail was actually very reasonable for this small volume so perhaps it will arrive quickly.
I returned yesterday from one month trip to Italy.I hope I didn`t hold the bookring too long.Now I will try to read it ASAP.
Sent to Kernow8 on Monday,9th.
I`m sorry,I thought I journaled my thoughts about the book!
It is a very fine,delicate prose,as a jewel.I liked it much more than "Ocean Sea".It was a pleasure to read.
It is a very fine,delicate prose,as a jewel.I liked it much more than "Ocean Sea".It was a pleasure to read.
Arrived with today's post - thanks beckys and Bookmaniac70, and all those in between. I'll read this next and send on soon after.
I have to agree, a 10-rating is really merited here. Baricco says so much in so few words, especially when you consider the amount of repetition. I loved the small details: the way that the name the locals gave to the Siberian lake he crossed changed each year, for example.
Wonderful writing. I will be thinking of this for a long time. Off to Caracas this morning.
Wonderful writing. I will be thinking of this for a long time. Off to Caracas this morning.
