A woman abandons her native country at the age of 55 to settle in Brittany, and one day she promises to write about her beloved “bit of paradise.” Malmsten’s passion and humour offer the reader a window into a solitary life at once touching, and thought-provoking.
The Price Of Water In Finistère
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From Publishers Weekly
In 2000, poet and writer Malmsten left the false promises, small-mindedness and cold weather of her native Sweden for the remote seaside French village of Finistère, "where the land comes to an end in Europe—fin des terres, finis terrae." If not engrossing, this memoir—about trying, unsuccessfully, to get away from the world—has a quiet and honest charm. At her new Brittany home, Malmsten putters in her garden and enjoys her solitude, but the project of writing a book about her time in Finistère forces her to express what she previously only had to live through. While commenting on petty but humorous annoyances like the high-priced resource of the title, her botanical struggles and her few ventures into friendship, Malmsten dwells on her happiness in the face of her leftist despair about the state of the world. The book moves with an episodic, sluggish pace but might appeal to both lovers of a quiet book about the garden and the more socially minded who struggle with "the guilt of the privileged." (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
'Lively, enhanting and deeply serious...Abounds in wonderful descriptions of her intimate relationships with plat-life, and in seascapes...Extremely funny' - Guardian. 'Hilarious, heartwarming and movingly honest. This is a book about self-exile and creation that only a poet could write' - Adam Thorpe. 'I loved the comments about English gardening as preposterous, and her ability to conjure so much out of so little without ever leaving her garden...truly wonderful' - Gerard Woodward. 'Lyrical and pithy, full of wry humour, yet weightier than most fat tomes, The Price of Water in Finistere is a book about the past and the state of the world we have created...I adored it' - Lisa Appignanesi.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
cultivating one's garden
May 13 2006
By Beckett
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The price of water in Finistere is a book with dimensions from here to paradise. It can be read or eaten, or both.
I have read it as a manifest for breaking up, as an inspirig script for gardening, as an historical book and what not.
Bodil Malmsten has the gift of putting a glimpse of eternity in the everyday life. The language itself is a glimpse of eternity - the way she spellbounds the reader by using no other word but that which is just perfect. Her way of making a sentence by putting together the words you never thought you would see in the same context simply makes every second of reading an adventure.
Bodil M invites the reader into her private room without getting sentimental. She will laugh with you, cry with you - she even yells at you but never without blaming herself first and foremost. This is a book about what it is to be human, but without the scholarcrap. Read and proceed, cultivate your garden with The price of water in Finistere.
I have read it as a manifest for breaking up, as an inspirig script for gardening, as an historical book and what not.
Bodil Malmsten has the gift of putting a glimpse of eternity in the everyday life. The language itself is a glimpse of eternity - the way she spellbounds the reader by using no other word but that which is just perfect. Her way of making a sentence by putting together the words you never thought you would see in the same context simply makes every second of reading an adventure.
Bodil M invites the reader into her private room without getting sentimental. She will laugh with you, cry with you - she even yells at you but never without blaming herself first and foremost. This is a book about what it is to be human, but without the scholarcrap. Read and proceed, cultivate your garden with The price of water in Finistere.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A welcome new voice to these shores
May 11 2006
By Stuart Klipper
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is a lovely piece of work. A wise and lively book filled with both verve and insight. The writer is a mature woman with an idiosyncratic ?lan who retains a girlish vivacity and whimsy. Her insights and observations are both fine and fun, serious and serendipitous. She tells about her two homes; the one she hails, and the one where she's staked a new claim -- one that made her who she is, and the other she is making her own. Her mounting passion for gardening and how she recounts her progress -- or lack thereof -- offers a full dollop of wonderful lagniappe. Her politics are honestly rendered; she is not out to preach or proselytize, they are just part and parcel of all her other wherewithal.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
If one is good, two is better
Jan 5 2007
By A. Bingham
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
It must be pretty good, my wife liked it so much she got a couple more for friends.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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