The Vision of Emma Blau : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Slooooow reading
Review: After reading "Stone from the River", I too was very disappointed by this book. Although the writing is lyrical, the characters are pale, uninsightful shadows compared to those of "Stones". This book, which is largely set within the walls of a luxury apartment building called the "Water Fortress", rambles through stories of the generations of the Blau family without any particular purpose or point. All the characters in the book seemed to be so ridiculously dysfunctional that at one point I wondered if Hegi was going to introduce a resident therapist to help cure them of their afflictions.

Rating:
Summary: Fairly realistic
Review: First book by Hegi, and it wet my appetite for more.
The approach of the german emigrant life is interesting and not overwhelming - after all this is not a sociology study, and the portrait of life in the "home country" is reasonably realistic.

The fulfillement of a lifetime dream, and its turning into a disaster for the next generation, its concept of fate as a complement of willpower - are the themes that make the book.

Rating:
Summary: Like March, came in like a lion but went out like a lamb!
Review: i loved Stones From the River. Compared to that, this book is a disappointment. The characters did not move me at all, although the story itself wasn't too bad. I would not read it again, and only finished it b/c I like to finish what I start.

Rating:
Summary: A Maze.....
Review: I read this book after reading "Stones from the River" and was a little disappointed. Hegi is a wonderful storyteller and she has a gift of writing poetically sensible sentences which strike at your heart and make you see things in her characters which you recognise in yourself. However, I can't help but feel that this was an over-ambitious work. The parts where it deals with Stefan Blau's attempt to adapt to life in America as an immigrant are not well explored, and when the novel unfolds, the introduction of the various characters becomes a tad confusing and you get the feeling that you're reading alot more about characters you don't care about only because they fall into the correct time frame. I would rather she had concentrated on characters from the first and second generation, as their lives were neglected towards the last third of the novel, leaving a sense of dissatisfaction in the reader. The writing of "Stones of the River" was much more in-depth and the fact that the story was seen through the eyes of a main protagonist managed to give the novel a degree of centrality which was severely lacking in "The Vision of Emma Blau". At the end of the novel, there is a sense that you have read everything, but have escaped the pertinent points. This was an average novel, but its resources, setting, people and themes could have been worked into something much more powerful. I still look forward to Hegi's other offerings.

Rating:
Summary: Too long and too dry.
Review: It took me a long time to get through this book. I bought it because it really sounded like it had promise, but the story just goes on and on and there is too little drama, too little of everything. Stefan Blau is a German immigrant to America at the age of 13. With savings from various waiter jobs and such, he manages to build a hotel (The Wasserburg) and turn it into an elaborate apartment building. He has a vision of a young girl that eventually turns out to be his granddaughter Emma, who will come to love and care for the Wasserburg and preserve it's heritage forever. But it doesn't work because that's all there is. The characters are lively enough and the story is well-written, but it's arid, with little substance. It felt very long to me and I picked it up to read off and on at random only when I was very bored. It started out as a nice idea, but I think Ursula Hegi should have added some excitement or mystery.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic book, you can always count on Ursula Hegi
Review: ONE OF THE MANY GREAT BOOKS URSULA HEGI HAS WRITTEN.
Having previously read, many of Ursula Hegi's books, I was not disappointed with a continuation of some of the characters from her "Stones from the River". This book is also equal to that wonderful book. Here as usual you get in the skin of her characters, from their observations to their priorities and justifications.

In this book emigrant Stefan Blau comes to the US and eventually settles in a small town in New Hampshire. He has picked up the skill for French cooking and does well for himself in a small restaurant he creates. However, this is not his dream. His dream is an apartment building he is inspired to build: The Wasserburg. In a daydream while boating, he is inspired not only by the building he imagines creating, but a child he imagines playing in its courtyard.

Stefan's financial adventures go well, but his personal life is troubled. Things go on that bring one misfortune to the other to his doorstep. I don't want to go into too much detail and ruin the book, but this book isn't all doom and gloom. This is a not-so-typical families saga, with both good and bad. However, there are forces in Stefan Blau's life that eventually steer him to lead his life in a particular fashion. This book chronicles Stefan Blau's family over 3 generations and 2 continents. An excellent tale of a family, the ties that contrict, bind, bond and break one.

SOLID SENSE OF EACH CHARACTER AND WHO THEY ARE:

As always Ursula Hegi fleshes out her characters. You understand the motivation of Stefan and his family right down to the youngest grandchild Emma. Not till the end of the book do you understand the meaning of the name... At least I didn't.

YOU CAN PICTURE THE WASSERBURG:
What I particularly liked is the description of the house. You can see it through the author's eyes. I love houses so this was pleasant. Also, you see the basis for all the characters, but not in a descriptive way. You get in their skin. This story centers around a community and a family living in this one building.

YOU CAN IMAGINE BEING GERMAN AND IN AMERICAN DURING WWII LEFT YOU FEELING DIVIDED.
One other point, I imagine dear to Ursula Hegi's heart is the portrayal of a German family in American when Germany was the enemy. She describes how the immagrant family feels out of place in both country, but beholden to both.

An excellent read, hard to put down.

Rating:
Summary: Kudos to Ms Hegi..
Review: She is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. This book is filled with so many emotions and events my mind is still going over everything. Def a book that stays with you for awhile. I wanted to comfort the characters and felt as if I was myself living at the Wasserburg. I do agree that the characters had a sad tone to them, but none the less, made for a book I couldn't put down!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing after Stones from the River
Review: The start of this book about Stefan Blau and his wives is very intriguing -- I would have liked the book to be all about them. The characters of his children were boring and his grandchildren even more so. There were just too many characters over such a long period of time that I stopped caring about any of them -- especially the house, which was much too central for my tastes. I was actually rooting for its collapse by the time Emma was around (my least favorite character). The beautiful style of Heigi's prose is about the only thing that kept me going to the end. A big disappointment since "Stones from the River" is one of my all time favorites -- one I recommend to all my friends. I would never recommend this one to any of them. I gave it three stars because it was not terrible, and like stated above, her prose is wonderful to read. I just had really high hopes for it after "Stones" -- compared only to it, this is a 2 or less.

Rating:
Summary: Like March, came in like a lion but went out like a lamb!
Review: Ursula Hegi is a truly gifted writer with a magical ability to bring a story to life vividly. STONES FROM THE RIVER, my first literary encounter with Ms. Hegi's work, was one of my favorite books so naturally I was looking forward to reading THE VISION OF EMMA BLAU, which is a spin-off of the previously mentioned novel. Stefan Blau was the son of 2 of the villagers in Trudi Montag's hometown in Germany who ran away to America when he was 13 years old - this is the story of his American legacy.

The consistent "character" throughout the century spanned in this novel was not a person but a place...actually a hotel known as the Wasserburg, which Stefan Blau built in New Hampshire in the early-20th century. The hotel became representative of human growth, opulence and deterioration as it reflected the lives of those who made it their home. I couldn't help but think of several other literary works in which a place played such a major role in plot development ...Our Town by Thornton Wilder and Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg, for example. I also couldn't help compare Emma's attachment to the Wasserburg to that of Scarlet O'Hara's to Tara ...land/property, in both cases, is what endured and remained important as time marched on.

I really like the beginning of this book better than the end. I enjoyed reading about the German-American immigrant experiences of both Stefan Blau and Helene Montag Blau and I also happily revisited Trudi and Leo when Helene visited with her son Robert (I remember that whole sequence of events in STONES FROM THE RIVER from Trudi's perspective). I found their 2nd - 4th generation American descendants, however, somewhat depressing to read about. So many of the main characters were unable to find happiness within themselves and it sort of made me wonder what type of legacy Stefan ended up leaving his progeny after all!

Anyway, I still enjoy Ursula Hegi and am planning to read some of her other works.

Rating:
Summary: A Vision of Desire
Review: Ursula Hegi uses her poetic prose and emotional insight once again to create a world in which by exploring the lives of others we learn more about our own. Hegi's previous book, Stones from the River, used the dramatic backdrop of Hitler's Germany and the life of a young dwarf to explore themes of belonging, exclusion, alienation, and "status in the tribe". In The Vision of Emma Blau, Hegi creates five generations of characters through which she explores human desire, how desire manifests"~ itself in our lives, and the impact of those manifestations on those around us. to provide a means to explore our humanity, then this book is fine art indeed.