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Summary: Don't believe it, this book is NOT a Tedious Read
Review: I could not put this book down. The story was so intriguing, I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the characters, especially Trudi. Hegi has brilliantly captured Trudi's essence. I feel as though I am personally acquainted with her. I hated that the book ended. I want to know about the rest of Trudi's life, and look forward to a sequel. Yes, it explores human cruelty and depressing, repressive times and events, but is also a testament to survival.
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Summary: Slow, Depressing
Review: Doggedly kept reading this book waiting for something uplifting to happen. Couldn't ALL be dark and depressing, right? Wrong. Cleaning my garage would have been more enjoyable and productive. I will never buy a book just because it is a big seller again. Leah Kantor.
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Summary: observations of german life before the war
Review: I have been reading books about germany both before and after my trip there in may 1997. After the Ipswich Files which also took place before the war and was an observation of german life , from an englishman's point of view, I have been having comparing thoughts. I visited Dachau when in germany, and still find it so hard to believe that the regular people allowed their friends and neighbors to be taken without outbursts. I also wondered how the dwarf lady survived with hitler eliminating all those who are not perfect
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Summary: Stones From The River: Important but depressing literature
Review: The main character, Trudi, is brilliantly molded into a complex, troubled, yet kind person. It isn't always easy for her to be kind, there are forces in her life that would make a less strong person spiteful and hateful; and indeed she is tempted these ways. But her overall reaction to the terrible things going on around her during Hitler's insane rule show realistically how an individual might react with both self preservation and dignity at the same time. Other characters are spun from Hegi's craft that make up the rest of the town, complete with fear, hatred, weakness and strength. The book is an important read, especially for those who did not live the era. It is NOT a delightful merry romp, it is quite depressing... but it should not be passed by either. My next read will have to be a bit lighter in content. I need a lift now.
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Summary: A little kindness can change the world.
Review: The old adage "Don't let the teacher get in the way of the teaching" comes to mind... I first read Ursula Hegi's book six months ago and it is still with me. Yes, there were times it was downright tedious. There were times my eyes simply flowed over her prose. And there were many times I just had to put it down in order to shut my eyes and cry. However, for all the ambivalent feelings this book has stirred, I think it is one of the best books I have ever read. It is not so much because of literary experience itself, but of the basic lesson one can learn from reading it: be kind to other people. Very simple, very direct. How unfortunate that something so basic is not understood and practiced every day by every ONE. Make yourself read "Stones From the River." You will be rewarded with the grace of kindness.
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Summary: Haven't You Ever Wondered How it Happened?
Review: How did an entire country get sucked down into the prejudice and hatred of Hitler's Nazis? Ursula Hegi has given us an entirely believable scenerio of how it happened to one small town, through the eyes of one who is different enough (a dwarf) to see it happening. This was one of those unusual books that stayed with me between readings, causing me to wonder what each character would say or do in the situations to come. The characters were not unlike people I know. There were no evil monsters, just people caught up in the evil that was easier and safer than the good. I truly enjoyed this book and continue to be reminded of it in my daily life.
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Summary: The struggle for happiness and survival in Hitler's Germany.
Review: No family is without its mysteries - the whisper of scandal that disappears behind the closed faces of grownups when children ask questions. Picture such concealment on a national scale and you glimpse the world into which Ursula Hegi was born in postwar Germany and which she has tried to bring into such harsh daylight as her researches and her imagination can summon. The struggle between secrets concealed and secrets revealed has informed all Hegi's published works. In Stones from the River, she reaches back to the magic realism of 1950's German fiction to create the dwarf Trudi Montag, an omniscient, prescient, strangely powerful character periodically inhabiting the misshapen body of a small-town girl, whose life from her birth in 1915 to the time of two Germanies in 1952 is the vehicle for Hegi's interpretation of what happened to Germany. From her earliest years the magical Trudi's heightened senses let her see both past and future, near and distant; she reads people's thoughts in their eyes; she draws out their most intimate stories, and her soprano songs give them strange fantasies. At times, however, we see a very human Trudi who yearns to give and receive love, struggles for independence, is violated and rejected, seeks retribution against life's cruelties by becoming the town gossip, and finally tastes redemption through her compassionate efforts to help and hide escaping Jews. The river of the title is the Rhein, and Hegi makes liberal use of its symbolism as a life-force both sustaining and dangerous, sweeping over hidden stones that can wound or kill but that can also be grasped and used to build walls and foundations for human existence. Stones from the River is a compelling and closely-plotted work readable for its story as well as for its political implications
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Summary: Toughest book I never finished.
Review: This was the most tedious book I havd ever started to read. Oprah said to give it time, but no matter how far I got into it, it didn't get better. Maybe you have to read it in Europe to enjoy it. Dark, doom and misery. Yuck!
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Summary: Must Read
Review: This is the book I always wanted to write but could never put down on paper. I just didn't want it to end, that was how wrapped up I was in the lives of the characters of that story. I would definitely recommend it.
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Summary: Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi-I couldn't put it down!
Review: When I first started to read this book I thought "Oh no, not another book about Germany in the second world war". I loved Trudi she was so honest and yet such a trouble maker. Maybe her way of punishing people because of the way they treated her out of kindness or thoughtlessness. She was a very determined person. Being a dwarf would be difficult at the best of times. But to be a dwarf in pre war Germany would be terrible. How Trudi handled people was so interesting.
It really was a good read!
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