When the doves disappeared by Sofi Oksanen
Finnish fiction
Original title – Kun kyyhkyset katosivat
Translator – Lola M Rogers
source – review copy
Dig if you will a picture
Of you and I engaged in a kiss
The sweat of your body covers me
Can you my darling
Can you picture this?
Dream if you can a courtyard
An ocean of violets in bloom
Animals strike curious poses
They feel the heat
The heat between me and youHow can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that’s so cold (So cold)
Maybe I’m just too demanding
Maybe I’m just like my father too bold
Maybe you’re just like my mother
She’s never satisfied (She’s never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like
When doves cryI choose this as when I read the book I kept calling it when doves cry not when the doves disappeared .I although you can read more into the prince lyrics like you can read more into this book .
Sofi first book in English was one of those rare books in translation that breaks out of the circle of translated readers and gets to a wider audience ,so how to follow-up that success ,well When the doves disappeared was for a me good choice it is based in a similar era to the first book Purge and also is a story of two people like the first book .But that is where the similarity end . Sofi Oksanen is fast become a huge star of Nordic fiction ,winning the finlandia , nordic prize and the first finnish women to win the Swedish Nordic prize , she has also been women of the year in \Estonia which is part of her shared heritage finnish Estonian .So my fourth women in translation month read sees us going to Finland .
I knew that once Estonia was free again , people of good conscience would want to examine these years , and that would have to be evidence that we acted according to the law , But such thorough record keeping was a risk we couldn’t afford ,The acts of the bolsheviks had already proved that pur country and our homes where under the control of barbarians .
they look at 1941 at what they are doing now how it will be looked at in years to come .
The book is set in the Baltic state of Estonia and is the tale of two cousins Roland a freedom fighter and man of principal and his cousin Edgar a slippery man who when the German comes joins them and leaves both his cousin and his wife Juudit .The story is told in two eras 1941 just as Estonia is about to fall to the russians and 1963 as the country is no under the stranglehold of the Soviet regime .The first era follows the fall then the Germans taking control of Estonia and Edgar rise as he sees a new Estonia under the Germans , but this is the frontline and this brief time of German rule is about to be wiped out by Stalin . The second era in the book shows how twenty years of Stalin and post Stalin rule has had on the country and the three main character in this book .
Comrade Part’s instinct was correct .In the list from 1944 he found a familiar name .Just a name , no date of death or indication of transfer to another camp or evacuation to germany ,A name he wished had been someone else’s .Anyone else’s .He had been searching for any name he recognized , but this was the very name he didn’t want to find , a name that felt like if he pronounced it out loud his tongue would be covered in blisters ,A name that shouldn’t even be on the list .Roland Simson.
Who is Part’s ? and is Roland really dead ?
I actually enjoyed this more than Purge , for me Edgar and Roland reflect two human characters the brave man and the coward . It shows how easy it is to get on if you try to be something you’re not when Edgar does when he joins the Nazis . But it also shows the cost of being brave and sticking to your guns . But most of all it shows how hopeless both sides are under the soviet regime years ago .The book is told at a fast pace jumping between the forties and sixties as we see the story of the three characters and the greater story of Estonia .This book is a worthy follow-up to purge from a rising star of Nordic fiction .
Have you read this or Purge ?
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