- Paperback
- Publisher: Vintage Books (1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679776591
- ISBN-13: 978-0679776598
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
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Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
something to think about,
By
This review is from: Fugitive Pieces (Audio CD)
I am a teenager and I understand this book so I'm sure the people that call it boring or "flawed" didn't really think about it very hard. I have heard many accusations that this book was flawed or sloppy in the plotline. First of all, how can a book, especially one so poetic and deep, be flawed? It's like saying Picasso made a mistake in one of his paintings. If you see the plotline as being broken then you missed the point of the book. It takes you beyond the story, or at least it is supposed to in my opinion. The poetry of the book is a window to the deep meanings of the book. For example, the relationship between death and memory. The characters and storyline are only there to display the meaning. If you read this book, it is for the meaning, not the story, though the story is very moving. The best thing about Fugitive Pieces is that it is NOT TYPICAL. It's creative, emotional, and original; the ingredients for a true classic.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just a Little Too Poetic for This Reader's Taste,
By
This review is from: Fugitive Pieces (Audio CD)
The book opens with Jakob Beer as a seven-year-old child hiding in the bog in order to escape the Nazis. His family did not escape and were killed. Jakob was found by Athos Roussos, who smuggled him out of Poland and brought young Jakob to live with him in Greece. After the war, they immigrated to Canada. Jakob later becomes a poet and translator. The story is told by Ben, who discovered Jakob's diaries, a man whose parents are Holocaust survivors.This is primarily a story about memory, love, and loss. Anne Michaels is an accomplished poet, which is really demonstrated in this, her first novel. Every sentence is carefully crafted poetry. Her descriptions have great depth and make the reader see the great beauty and great horror. This book is not a fast read. I found myself having to stop and ponder a lot. This was both negative and positive for me. I am not a huge fan of poetry, so in that sense this book was too lyrical for me. However, by being forced to stop and ponder I found some wonderful pearls. I saw the movie version, which is what prompted me to read this book. The movie was a gem and I loved it. Sometimes it takes an overly lyrical novel to make a great film. It is very rare that I like the film version better than a book, but this is one of those cases. I'm glad I read the book. I got to explore the characters more deeply. Now I want to see the movie again.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
the weight and lightness of being,
By Ben Orlove (Davis, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fugitive Pieces (Paperback)
When poets try to write novels, they sometimes fail, since the ability of poets to find deep meaning in words and phrases cannot always be sustained for greater length of novels. When they succeed, the result can be utterly engrossing. Michaels writes of a possible situation--a Greek poet who rescues Jakob, a Jewish boy, hiding in Poland during World War II after his parents and older sister were taken by the Nazis--and a possible place, the Greek poet's island home where the boy grows up and the poet grows old. Jakob himself becomes a poet, and moves to Canada. The book traces a second story as well, one of Jakob's readers, who meets Jakob and eventually travels to the island.Woven into the story are reflections on memory and knowledge: and many concrete references. Perhaps that is the great link between poetry and the novel, that both can turn to concrete things--lemons on a Greek island, a river in Canada in flood, objects that are real in themselves, that can be metaphors, and that reveal the fragile precious quality of human existence and human connection. And this concreteness, like the immediacy of Jakob and the poet and the other characters, has remained with me since I've read this book, making me in some small but significant way more tender and appreciative, more alive.
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