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Das Leben Kleben (2009)

by Marina Lewycka(Favorite Author)

3.49 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

3423247800 (ISBN13: 9783423247801)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

dtv

review 1: Absoluut geen slecht boek, leest gemakkelijk en brengt je soms aan het lachen. Er komen allerlei interessante thema's aan bod die jammer genoeg op een oppervlakkige manier behandeld worden: echtscheiding (of niet), tienerzoon die met religieuze end-of-the-world ideeën speelt, de soms niet zo kosher onroerendgoedmarkt in Londen, zelfs Israël en Palestina ... Leuk is dat het verhaal zich in Noord Londen, tussen Stoke Newington,Islington en Dalston, afspeelt! Georgie ontmoet de excentrieke bejaarde en joodse Naomi en haar katten op het moment dat haar man na ruzie het huis verlaat.
review 2: Dear Ms. Lewycka,Please stop trying so hard to be entertaining. Just have a cup of tea and try to calm down. Sincerely,Your ReadersThe plot: Georgie is in the middle of the ... morebreakup of her marriage when she meets an old woman who lives in her neighborhood. The old woman, Mrs. Shapiro, is seemingly a crazy old cat lady/hoarder. But she has some sort of secret that Georgie really wants to figure out. Meanwhile, Georgie's teenage son has become convinced it's the end of the world, causing problems of his own.My issues with this book (and I had many): It was way too descriptive about the disgusting sights, smells and foods in Mrs. Shapiro's house. If it makes my stomach turn on every page, I'm probably not having a good time reading your "comic novel." The word "gunge" doesn't need to appear on every page. Also, if it's supposed to be funny, you may want to consider that describing this woman wearing old, dirty clothes in her filthy home eating spoiled food and having her cats urinating on everything is not actually going to be funny to a lot of people, just sad. Georgie reads like someone who has recently arrived on planet Earth. She doesn't know anything about anything; it's a major revelation for her when she realizes that a revenge scenario wouldn't work because *gasp* she completely forgot that men don't sit down to pee. (Seriously.) It's a running "joke" in the book that she mishears everything. Fine, but she accepts whatever she originally hears as though it must be fact. Yes, I'm sure the woman's name is Mrs. Goodknee, and the nursing home is called Nightmare House. In return, people keep getting her name wrong, calling her Georgia, Georgiana, Georgina, etc. (oh, the hilarity). But when someone who thinks her name is Georgia asks her teasingly, "The US state or the country?" about her name, she can only mumble "I'm not good with geography." This is because Georgie is an idiot.Georgie is also a budding writer, so we're treated to bits and pieces from her romance novel. They are intentionally terrible, I guess, although it's never made clear that Georgie should have all her fingers broken to keep her from continuing her writing aspirations. The problem with including fictional bad writing in your book is that it has to be appreciably more terrible than the book we're actually reading. In this case, I think it's a draw.Oh, and hey, among all this other nonsense, the book is about World War II, and Jews and Palestinians and the conflicts over a homeland for both of them. If you're thinking "Uh, I'm not sure how that could fit in with everything else previously described in any sort of way that's not either shoehorned in or completely inappropriate," you're getting the idea. It's both.Recommended for: people who like watching comedians struggling to be funny and failing, people who watch Hoarders and laugh though it.Quote: "In the bottom of the fridge I found three black, wizened human fingers. It took me a moment to realise they were carrots." less

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