...
Show More
This book is near and dear to me, as it was the one that convinced me to write the book I had always wanted to write. Beyond that, this is a beautifully written book that makes me cry, every damn time.
Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book
Burgdorf Cycle #1
Stones from the River
...
Show More
Ursula Hegi draws parallels between groups of outsiders in this dramatic audiobook set in Germany. Trudi Montag, the town librarian, feels dissociated from society because she is a dwarf. In her role as librarian, Trudi meticulously archives secrets, stories, and history, all of which become her source of power when the townspeople allow Jews to be mistreated during World War II. (Oprah's Book Club)
507 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,1994
This edition
- Format
-
507 pages, Hardcover
- Published
-
January 1, 1994 by Poseidon Press
- ISBN
-
9780671780753
- ASIN
-
B0027W8PK6
- Language
-
English
About the author
...
Show More
Ursula Hegi is a German-born American writer. She is currently an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
She was born Ursula Koch in 1946 in Düsseldorf, Germany, a city that was heavily bombed during World War II. Her perception growing up was that the war was avoided as a topic of discussion despite its evidence everywhere, and The Holocaust was a particularly taboo topic. This had a strong effect on her later writing and her feelings about her German identity.
She left West Germany in 1964, at the age of 18. She moved to the United States in 1965, where she married (becoming Ursula Hegi) in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen the same year. In 1979, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire with both a bachelor's and master's degree. She was divorced in 1984. The same year, she was hired at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, Washington, near Spokane, Washington, where she became an Associate Professor and taught creative writing and contemporary literature.
Hegi's first books were set in the United States. She set her third, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in the fictional German town of "Burgdorf," using her writing to explore her conflicted feelings about her German heritage. She used the setting for three more books, including her best selling novel Stones from the River, which was chosen for Oprah's Book Club in 1997. Hegi appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 8, and her publisher reprinted 1.5 million hardcover copies and 500,000 paperbacks. She subsequently moved from Spokane to New York City.
Hegi's many awards include an NEA Fellowship and five PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards. She won a book award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) in 1991 for Floating in My Mother's Palm. She has also had two New York Times Notable Book mentions. She has written many book reviews for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.
She was born Ursula Koch in 1946 in Düsseldorf, Germany, a city that was heavily bombed during World War II. Her perception growing up was that the war was avoided as a topic of discussion despite its evidence everywhere, and The Holocaust was a particularly taboo topic. This had a strong effect on her later writing and her feelings about her German identity.
She left West Germany in 1964, at the age of 18. She moved to the United States in 1965, where she married (becoming Ursula Hegi) in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen the same year. In 1979, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire with both a bachelor's and master's degree. She was divorced in 1984. The same year, she was hired at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, Washington, near Spokane, Washington, where she became an Associate Professor and taught creative writing and contemporary literature.
Hegi's first books were set in the United States. She set her third, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in the fictional German town of "Burgdorf," using her writing to explore her conflicted feelings about her German heritage. She used the setting for three more books, including her best selling novel Stones from the River, which was chosen for Oprah's Book Club in 1997. Hegi appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 8, and her publisher reprinted 1.5 million hardcover copies and 500,000 paperbacks. She subsequently moved from Spokane to New York City.
Hegi's many awards include an NEA Fellowship and five PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards. She won a book award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) in 1991 for Floating in My Mother's Palm. She has also had two New York Times Notable Book mentions. She has written many book reviews for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.
Readers also enjoyed
Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
28(28%)
4 stars
42(42%)
3 stars
29(29%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
99 reviews All reviews
...
Show More
great book...interesting main charater
...
Show More
This is a very dense book, with many characters and spanning many years. I had a hard time reading it because it is set in Germany between 1915 and 1952. There is a strong emotional impact, enough that I had to put the book down at one point and read something light-hearted before I could come back to it.
The story starts in 1915 when Trudi, a dwarf, is born to Mr. and Mrs. Montag. Mrs. Montag is mentally unbalanced but her husband is very patient and loving, both with his wife who dies when Trudi is 3, and with his daughter. The community is brought to life for us through the eyes of Trudi as she struggles to grow, to fit in, to be like others. But we see as she gets older that she is a questioning child and not weak willed. She has a knack for seeing into people and teasing out their secrets. Her father runs the lending library in town and sells tobacco as well, they have a lot of contact with nearly everyone in town.
As I read all this pre-war story I had such a strong sense of terror. The birds were singing, the children were playing, people were going about their daily lives; but from the vantage point of history I knew bloody murder on a grand scale was about to happen. I found myself twisted up with fear and dread, and this is the point where I had to take a break from the book.
When I went back to it I was determined to stick it out. I already knew what happened in WWII in Germany, I am at a distance of a number of years, I would read at a remove. I would accept the pain and keep slogging through. It is kind of a long book, I stayed up two entire nights in my determination to finish it.
The author was good at creating some sympathy for the citizens caught up in the war, those who tried to resist and were shunned, imprisoned, killed. Those who believed the regime was good for the country, those who came home from the war, destroyed by what they had seen, what they had done. How allegiances were demanded, and remanded. Many of people were extremely frightened and just tried to keep their heads down and do what they were told. Some people were brave and hid their Jewish neighbors, some people informed, others kept secrets. I think one of the saddest aspects of this book was seeing the destruction of the boys we watched grow up in the earlier part of the book, whether they actually died in battle or came home physically or mentally or emotionally damaged.
We can see how the early religious education was polarizing, the instruction in obedience, the emotional appeal to patriotism, the turning of family members against each other by the Hitler Youth movement, and the turning of neighbor against neighbor through fear. It is really frightening to see how many, many lives were lost because of this one man's success in building his empire. It took the weight of the world to topple it and try to save everyone who had survived from the madness. Why does this happen, why do we love to have causes, follow leaders, join groups, make armies? Trudi is not a quiet character during this section of the book; she becomes a young woman, in love; she hides Jews in her basement as one of the safe bases to smuggle people out of the country.
The end of the book follows the community through the aftermath of the war, a difficult time as well.
I did not actually understand the last few pages, but was so tired of reading the book that I did not make a serious effort to really nail it down. It is a very exhausting book to read.
I'll end this review with a quote from the book, picked because it is really what I want to be the future of the human race, that we can and will be different but that those differences won't matter.
"And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more--differences in size and race and belief--differences that had become justification for destruction."
The story starts in 1915 when Trudi, a dwarf, is born to Mr. and Mrs. Montag. Mrs. Montag is mentally unbalanced but her husband is very patient and loving, both with his wife who dies when Trudi is 3, and with his daughter. The community is brought to life for us through the eyes of Trudi as she struggles to grow, to fit in, to be like others. But we see as she gets older that she is a questioning child and not weak willed. She has a knack for seeing into people and teasing out their secrets. Her father runs the lending library in town and sells tobacco as well, they have a lot of contact with nearly everyone in town.
As I read all this pre-war story I had such a strong sense of terror. The birds were singing, the children were playing, people were going about their daily lives; but from the vantage point of history I knew bloody murder on a grand scale was about to happen. I found myself twisted up with fear and dread, and this is the point where I had to take a break from the book.
When I went back to it I was determined to stick it out. I already knew what happened in WWII in Germany, I am at a distance of a number of years, I would read at a remove. I would accept the pain and keep slogging through. It is kind of a long book, I stayed up two entire nights in my determination to finish it.
The author was good at creating some sympathy for the citizens caught up in the war, those who tried to resist and were shunned, imprisoned, killed. Those who believed the regime was good for the country, those who came home from the war, destroyed by what they had seen, what they had done. How allegiances were demanded, and remanded. Many of people were extremely frightened and just tried to keep their heads down and do what they were told. Some people were brave and hid their Jewish neighbors, some people informed, others kept secrets. I think one of the saddest aspects of this book was seeing the destruction of the boys we watched grow up in the earlier part of the book, whether they actually died in battle or came home physically or mentally or emotionally damaged.
We can see how the early religious education was polarizing, the instruction in obedience, the emotional appeal to patriotism, the turning of family members against each other by the Hitler Youth movement, and the turning of neighbor against neighbor through fear. It is really frightening to see how many, many lives were lost because of this one man's success in building his empire. It took the weight of the world to topple it and try to save everyone who had survived from the madness. Why does this happen, why do we love to have causes, follow leaders, join groups, make armies? Trudi is not a quiet character during this section of the book; she becomes a young woman, in love; she hides Jews in her basement as one of the safe bases to smuggle people out of the country.
The end of the book follows the community through the aftermath of the war, a difficult time as well.
I did not actually understand the last few pages, but was so tired of reading the book that I did not make a serious effort to really nail it down. It is a very exhausting book to read.
I'll end this review with a quote from the book, picked because it is really what I want to be the future of the human race, that we can and will be different but that those differences won't matter.
"And what she wanted more than anything that moment was for all the differences between people to matter no more--differences in size and race and belief--differences that had become justification for destruction."
...
Show More
Trudi Montag, a manipulative, resentful, nosy dwarf uses the secrets she gathers to extract her revenge on the townspeople who consider themselves superior and shun her, during the period from the First to Second World Wars in Burgdorf, Germany. As far as synopses go, that would be pretty accurate but it wouldn't make you want to read the book. The main character may be less than sympathetic, but she is sharp and observant, and paints finely tuned, sensitive, and insightful pictures of her fellow citizens and the German psyche, as they are sucked into the tragic spiral of WWII. Inexplicably, Trudi herself is saved from being sent to the death camps, because although she is arrested, the German officer handling her case lets her go because she saves her life by charming him with her storytelling (à la Scheherazade), plus the fact that he is having an existential sturm und drang crisis that will eventually cost him his life, so we are told.
At the end of the story, Trudi reveals that the reason she has told this story is to honor the boy who was once her best friend Georg, and to tell each person's story. She also expounds on the imagery of the river, drawing comparisons to herself and the accumulation of experiences of her life. As a pretext, it is pretty flimsy. In terms of storytelling, it is a reasonable effort, but it does tend to meander and get lost in different eddies and currents that might make you think that they are leading somewhere as part of a directed narrative with deliberate construction, when in fact the end result is a sequence of tangentially linked incidents. That is the problem that historical novels often face: they are driven by the necessities of telling the story to fit the historical facts as they unfolded, as opposed to having a literary and narrative structure. Author Ursula Hegi also has a bit of trouble handling the large number of characters. Because there are so many characters, she ends up having to provide contextual information each time they reappear. The result is that the writing becomes over expository. The reader is given all of the information, interpretations, and explanations; there is nothing subtle, nothing that goes unstated. It is a reasonably good story, but not a great novel.
At the end of the story, Trudi reveals that the reason she has told this story is to honor the boy who was once her best friend Georg, and to tell each person's story. She also expounds on the imagery of the river, drawing comparisons to herself and the accumulation of experiences of her life. As a pretext, it is pretty flimsy. In terms of storytelling, it is a reasonable effort, but it does tend to meander and get lost in different eddies and currents that might make you think that they are leading somewhere as part of a directed narrative with deliberate construction, when in fact the end result is a sequence of tangentially linked incidents. That is the problem that historical novels often face: they are driven by the necessities of telling the story to fit the historical facts as they unfolded, as opposed to having a literary and narrative structure. Author Ursula Hegi also has a bit of trouble handling the large number of characters. Because there are so many characters, she ends up having to provide contextual information each time they reappear. The result is that the writing becomes over expository. The reader is given all of the information, interpretations, and explanations; there is nothing subtle, nothing that goes unstated. It is a reasonably good story, but not a great novel.
...
Show More
This is one of the books that I recognize as being objectively wonderful in spite of my own ambivalence about it. It's about a young dwarf named Trudi Montag, and her life in a small fictional German town during the rise and fall of the Holocaust.
All throughout her childhood, Trudi yearns to belong, and when she finally does—being German rather than Jewish—the irony is that she no longer wants to. Trudi recognizes from the very beginning that what's going on around her isn't right, and eventually she and her father begin harboring Jews in their home.
One of the ways this book is so successful is in illustrating the steady rise of the horrific. The people in Trudi's town—decent people she has known her whole life—become complicit with the Nazi regime, either out of fear or misguided conviction that Hitler is doing what's best for their country. This insight felt eerily timely given current events—a warning of how easy it is for seemingly decent people to gradually come to abide unacceptable cruelty.
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and the writing was good, but at 525 pages, it was too detailed and drawn out for my liking—with a wide cast of characters. I appreciated Trudi's personal journey toward self-acceptance and her gradual realization that we each must create a sense of meaning and belonging for ourselves, but much of the supporting characters' stories felt tedious.
I think many readers would love and appreciate this book more than I did, and while I'm glad to be finished with it, I also don't regret reading it.
All throughout her childhood, Trudi yearns to belong, and when she finally does—being German rather than Jewish—the irony is that she no longer wants to. Trudi recognizes from the very beginning that what's going on around her isn't right, and eventually she and her father begin harboring Jews in their home.
One of the ways this book is so successful is in illustrating the steady rise of the horrific. The people in Trudi's town—decent people she has known her whole life—become complicit with the Nazi regime, either out of fear or misguided conviction that Hitler is doing what's best for their country. This insight felt eerily timely given current events—a warning of how easy it is for seemingly decent people to gradually come to abide unacceptable cruelty.
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed and the writing was good, but at 525 pages, it was too detailed and drawn out for my liking—with a wide cast of characters. I appreciated Trudi's personal journey toward self-acceptance and her gradual realization that we each must create a sense of meaning and belonging for ourselves, but much of the supporting characters' stories felt tedious.
I think many readers would love and appreciate this book more than I did, and while I'm glad to be finished with it, I also don't regret reading it.
...
Show More
What I learned from this book- just because it's on a popular book list does not necessarily make it a must read book. By the end I was sighing a lot and wishing it were over. I don't even remember why it was so bad- that in itself is a testament to how awful it was.
...
Show More
Right from the start I need to preface this review with the fact that I know my review will not do this story justice. It is a most eloquent story told through Trudi, a dwarf born in a small German town during WWI. This story actual begins during the first World War and continues through the second World War.
Trudi struggles with being a dwarf and hangs from her hands to stretch her body and tightly ties scarves around her head to keep it from getting any bigger. She yearns for love and believes that she will not find love as a dwarf. She supplements her desire by learning others secrets and using them to be somewhat of a storyteller. Trudi endures teasing and general shunning by people all her life, but manages to come through WWII, even though The Reich is know to use such anomalies as test subjects.
As the story moves nearer to WWII, the sense of doom was so overwhelming to me, I nearly found myself screeching out loud. I had not previously read a book that included Hitler's promises to the people nor did I completely understand why they went along with the terrible things he did, but I do now. I really felt the gradual control shift as Hitler started his programs and recruited the young-it was just eerie.
Trudi is sort of a tough cookie and may annoy the reader at times with her fierce independence and stubborn behavior, but don't let that throw you off her trail because you would miss out on one of the most moving pieces of literature out there. A truly moving and interesting story with a hint of folklore, I highly recommend this read.
Trudi struggles with being a dwarf and hangs from her hands to stretch her body and tightly ties scarves around her head to keep it from getting any bigger. She yearns for love and believes that she will not find love as a dwarf. She supplements her desire by learning others secrets and using them to be somewhat of a storyteller. Trudi endures teasing and general shunning by people all her life, but manages to come through WWII, even though The Reich is know to use such anomalies as test subjects.
As the story moves nearer to WWII, the sense of doom was so overwhelming to me, I nearly found myself screeching out loud. I had not previously read a book that included Hitler's promises to the people nor did I completely understand why they went along with the terrible things he did, but I do now. I really felt the gradual control shift as Hitler started his programs and recruited the young-it was just eerie.
Trudi is sort of a tough cookie and may annoy the reader at times with her fierce independence and stubborn behavior, but don't let that throw you off her trail because you would miss out on one of the most moving pieces of literature out there. A truly moving and interesting story with a hint of folklore, I highly recommend this read.
...
Show More
Fairly certain this would have been in the five star range if I hadn't had to take a break from it due to a concussion...Had a tough time with keeping track of the characters after a two week hiatus. Loved the story...loved the perspective...
Leave a Review