Dreams and Stones

Title: Dreams and Stones
Author: Magdalena Tulli
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Pages: 110
Yearly Count: 27

Architecture, dreams, life, lines and asphalt is where Magdalena Tulli takes the readers of Dreams and Stones. Along for the ride of a city, where the stones of reality will fall, but only the dreams survive. Life will always be imperfect, but dreams they can be what you make of them.

Magdalena Tulli could take the most hideously boring subject and write beautiful sentences. I adore her writing, it is deep, intense and ambiguous. She dares to go places that her readers may not be able to follow, yet she fear not as she takes them there. Dreams and Stones is a balance between the mystical dream world and the harsh reality of life. Life is too real, dreams are too far gone. I could drool over this book, there are certain key sentences which I will share, that might as well be screaming "I CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE HAS WRITTEN ME YET!!!!", but she does, and does it with ease and a tenderness that willingly ushers the reader into a new place.

In saying all that, I can come clean and say that a lot of her writing was very deep for me, or just too hard for me to grasp. I love strange and weird and unsettling, however I am not fully able to comprehend what was hard for me about this book. Tulli's writing is incredible, yet many times I just had no idea where she had taken me and what she was writing about. I felt as though it were poetry in form of prose, which would make sense because so much of poetry is how it speaks to the individual, therefore making poetry on the hard-to-understand side sometimes. Throughout the book I was rocked out of my seat with her writing, others I was only holding on by a molecule. It could be that it was too philosophical for me, I am not sure.

The writing, it is heaven though, here are two quotes from the book:

Eventually the day came when the sofas were chopped up for firewood; a stray shell released the letters from their drawers. Paper turned to ashes, windowpanes shattered, door frames and tiled stoves were smashed to pieces. But this too failed to stop the pain. For pain does not belong to those who experience it but rather they belong to it (p. 71).

But their brightness always arises from darkness and their beauty from horror. The tangle of dreams, untouched by pruning shears, fills the whole world; it can even be said that it is the world and that the inhabitants of the city - along with their houses, their beds, their blankets, their recollections and their unanswerable questions- are only necessary for the dreams to be dreamed.
Only for dreams to be dreamed? What about maintaining order in the world? What about polishing floors, making repairs? Surely the reason why people sleep at night is to gather strength for the labors of the day? (p. 78).

If you have read this book, leave a comment with the link to your review...I'd love to link to it!

Moving Parts

Title: Moving Parts
Author: Magdalena Tulli
Publisher: archipelago books
Pages: 133
Finished Reading: 13th, April, 2008
Yearly Count:16


Moving Parts is an incredible, truly insightful novel in which the narrator looses control of his story. What? Yes! He becomes a character and cannot get out of the view of the reader. This is not a book to breeze though, it is jam packed full of brilliant quotes and stunning writing. The concept of this novel, and the storyline are completely unlike anything that I have read before. The depth in language use and parts of speech was over my head many times, but a lover of grammar would fall in love with the way words such as "predicate" and "parts of speech" are woven into regular everyday language, which the author does with ease.

While reading the word choice and use of certain phrases I could not help but to feel that I was missing out, that it was incredibly vast and I was only drinking from the surface. If you are a person who loves to think, who loves incredible well-thought deep quotes and an intense knowledge of language captivates you, this is your book. Read it and you will love it. It will speak to you and drive you to a deeper understanding about the other books that you love to read. It will guide you through the feelings characters suffer in being written about, and those that narrators must endure in order to tell their story (even if they don't want to), it will help you know more about the concept of a novel, in which all is created...but by whom? Who is in charge of these books that we read, who leads the reader? How would it be if things were not the way they should be in a novel, if the characters did not follow what the narrator asked of them, if past and future were slowly blurred and confusion was the key theme of the story? Read Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli and you will surely be submersed in this fictional chaos of writing and will be taken to a deeper understanding of our current idea: a fictional novel, in which nothing really exists, except in our minds, our desires and on the paper.

Quotes from Moving Parts:

"All he can do, and that only to a certain degree, is to govern grammatical forms, an essential element, especially as open space, of their own accord taking on the forms of the future tense, without any obligations" (p.26).

"The parts, always the same ones, wait like traps into which new characters will continue to fall, irrespective of their own wishes, promises, and misgivings" (p. 62).

"They even tried to joke about this process, but their jokes were not entirely successful; they were not funny enough for them to convince themselves that they were sagely beyond the reach of grammar. And so in the end, exhausted by the anticipation of leaving and by visions of an uncertain future, they changed the subject, returning to a certain betrayal, because betrayal was at least something they were capable of understanding" (p. 95).

" Hardly anything is possible any longer. And no truth will appear until the secure forms of the past tense impose order" (p. 132).

Sunday Salon- Sunday 13th. April, 2008

YAY for Sunday Salon!!! Happy Sunday to all!

This was a good bookie week for me! ( I really hope it was for you as well). I read Town House by Tish Cohen for my book club (well, our meeting is next month...but whatever. It seems I am always done early). I really enjoyed Town House, I am going to write a review today during the eventful Sunday Salon.

Last night I started a book that I have been wanting to read for a while, Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli which is (so far) unlike anything I have ever read...and I mean that in a good way. However it is one of those books that does require concentration!

I wrote a post: "to underline or not to underline" if you are a strong believer either way, let me know. I am interested to hear your perspective on why you should, or why you shouldn't underline a book that you own. I must be honest and say I am of the underlining crowd, but I have recently upgraded to pencil instead of pen (oh, yes I know some of you thin this is horrible). It is interesting though, because I lend tons of books, I constantly get compliments on how people enjoy reading another person's thoughts...what do you think? Do you?

Oh, and one of my most exciting things is that I FINALLY got a LibraryThing Early Review book, well I still need to wait for it to arrive in the post...but I GOT ONE!! Because of that I finally feel it is okay for me to place the LibraryThing Early Reviewer logo on my sidebar!!!! I am thrilled.