Achter het mondaine toeristenleven gaat een hele andere wereld schuil, tradities en ongeluk gaan hand in hand.

RELEASE NOTES:

Gaat naar Oehoeboeroe als winnaar van de wedstrijd: "Wanneer de 10.000 bookcrosser in Nederland"

ik was er van overtuigd dat ik dit boek al lang had gemeld, naar nu blijkt dus nog niet. Sorry hema-verf. Bedankt nog en ook voor de mooie kaart die erin zat. Ik heb het al ongeveer anderhalve maand in huis en inmiddels heb ik het ook gelezen. Een mooi maar vreemd boek. De liefde doet een hoop met mensen. Godsdienst ook. Helaas maakt godsdienst de liefde hier kapot.

RELEASE NOTES:

gaat op weg naar aaltsje, omdat dit een eilandboek is.

Vandaag in de bus gevonden.
Dank je!!

Na bijna een jaar op 'de te lezen stapel' heb ik dit boek vandaag gelezen.
Ik vond het een mooi boek.
Je kunt de gedachtegang van de hoofdpersoon helemaal volgen, ook als je het zelf nooit zo zou doen.

Bij mooi weer gaat het morgen mee met een release wandeling.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

op een bankje bij het zeeaquarium

Many thanks to Aaltsje for providing me with the BCID although I hadn't found this book. So I'd like to explain the reason. There's a group of about 50 German bookcrossers in a special (lifetime) reading challenge. We're trying to read five books from one country per each year of our life. To make sure that the reading is trackable for all participants, only 10 % non-BC books per person are allowed. So I'm always looking out for BCIDs of books I've read for the challenge but can't register (e.g. library books) and this was one of them.


Maya grew up in Blue Bay, a remote village on the island of Mauritus. As most of the villagers she's working in the luxury hotel Paradise. Accidentally she meets the restaurant manager of the hotel at the village fair one day, and they fall in love with each other. Despite of Dave's discretion in choosing the hotel suites for their amorous tête-à-têtes, all employees know about this affair. And they know before Maya that Dave's going to wed a rich girl which fits his hinduistic caste. He doesn't dare to object his parents on this, but doesn't like to loose Maya either. So the affair keeps going on after his wedding in a much less pleasant ambience. Maya suffers from the situation physically and only feels better when calling Dave's wife and insulting her badly. One day she walks up to Dave's and his family's house, hoping to see his wife, to check if she matches the picture of Maya's nightmares. There she meets Julien, the gardener of the family ...

It's quite obvious that Mauritius although located closer to Africa than to India belongs more to the latter regarding its culture. I've read several novels by African authors over the last two to three years, and I hardly can imagine the story like this in one of these countries, because of the initial situation with the consciousness of caste - to say the least. And I assume Maya's self-destruction would be untypical there as well. In fact I shook my head all the time about Maya. Sure, lovesickness (especially the first one) is a bitter experience, but Mayas getting too far in her coping with it. I was able to understand what's going on with her and Julien, although I would say that her revenge or hatred is more aimed at herself than towards Dave. Anyway, I really liked the story as it is somehow inevitable, and the shortness and concentration was impressive. I was a little bit surprised by form and content of the end, but it was well chosen.