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Summary: An experience of reflection and a challenge of conscience.
Review: I rarely read novels but saw this one on Oprah Winfrey and decided to try it. For me, this book was an experience. It informed me as to what was occurring in Germany between the wars with the rise of Naziism and Hitler. How could an entire country submit itself to this force? Were they all willing accomplices? How would I have acted in that situation? Would I have hid fugitives at the risk of my own life? I was moved by the reminders to me of the petty jealousies and insecurities of being a child. Trudi's life took the normal unpredictable turns that we all experience as we look back on our lives. This book was more than a novel. It was an experience that caused me to reflect on my life and to help me understand the forces of mankind
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Summary: A great look into history
Review: As a member of generation "x", the Nazi's and their effect on Germany were never covered in any of my history classes. (This includes college classes too) This book has allowed a remarkable insight into a part of history that has never been offered to me. What a better way to see this, than through the eyes of someone living it? While dealing with her own demons, Trudi helped me see what life was like back then. I highly recommend this book to anyone who must rely on books, television, and movies to teach part of history
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Summary: Tiny heroine Trudi tells of German life through her eyes.
Review: The remarkably powerful human nature evident in Stone from the River by Ursula Hegi is what sets it apart from other novels of its time. Such wit, observation, insight, and personal strength are unfortunately not very common among many fast-paced works, but Trudi Montag, the tiny heroine, slowly builds her own fortress of these characteristics and uses them to show her small town that one's size does not necessarily equal one's heart.
The differences which make each human unique are often as common as hair or eye color, race, language, or culture, but in The Stones from the River, Trudi is separated from others by her height. She is a little person, a dwarf, or a Zwerg, as she is quietly called in her pre-World War II hometown of Burgdorf , Germany. Throughout Trudi's life, beginning with her mentally-unstable mother's refusal to parent her in Trudi's first few months of life, she encounters trial after trial in her attempt to establish herself as a real and "regular" human being. She uses all sorts of measures to encourage her growth - stretching her limbs, seeking out miracle cures, wishing. In an attempt to set herself apart from the "freaks" of the small town, the fat boy, the drooling girl, the man who touches his heart, Trudi relies on her gift of storytelling; more importantly, this is her gift of intuition. Her charming, witty, entertaining, and sometimes slightly vengeful stories about and for the people of the town are a concoction of truth and fiction, yet each story rings in it a message important for those involved. The stories come naturally to Trudi as she seeks her first friends, and has to endure acceptance as well as rejection and betrayal. Just as Trudi is regarded as a part of the town, but not included in the mainstream of life, so are the Jews kept at arm's length. The townspeople, of whom most are Catholic, do not openly excluded the Jews, and they are respected, admired, and invited to special occasions. But in an unspoken way, something sets the Jews apart. As Trudi enters her teen years, the Furher, Adolf Hitler, begins his reign, and the people of Burgdorf slowly feel the terror of the nation creep upon them. The deadly faith to the Fatherland sneaks into prominent Burgdorf member's minds and lives, and subtly but swiftly young people with whom Trudi grew up are entering the military and taking part in Hitler's speeches and marches. It seems harmless, at first, and the parents are glad their children have a cause now, but when certain adults begin to report individuals for their lack of loyalty to the Fatherland, when the Catholic church preaches of the Fatherland's importance, and when Jews are being slowly taken into questioning, prison, or work camps - concentration camps (KZ's), Burgdorf has been pushed into the hellish times of the holocaust. Trudi and her father's friends and acquaintances, Jews and non-Jews, are taken away, and, though people still believe the KZ's to be work places, the pressure to fully concede all beliefs to that of the Furher is imminent. When Jews begin escaping and looking for places to hide, Trudi and her father, along with a group of other families, establish a series of hiding places in their houses, with secrecy and silence the only way to keep the hiders and the fugitives alive. Along with this pressure, Trudi must continue to pursue a normal life, looking for romance and believing she will never find it, telling her stories to those who matter to her. Hegi's plot development and imagery give Stones part of its wonderfully unique quality, with its subtle twists and turns. The characters who pop in and out of Trudi's life add to her understanding of herself and her role, and allow her to show who she is in her reactions. Just as real lives include drama, monotony, peace, or violence, so does Trudi's share in these attributes, and she describes them in ways that, at once, allow the reader to see her as a child, a teen, a young woman seeking love, an outsider, an oddity, and all the parts which make her as human as every other person in the world. It is precicely this nature which creates readers' attachment to her, and she and the other characters will not be easily forgotten.
Hegi has created a new world in Stones from the River, or perhaps has recreated the exact world we live in. Through Trudi's realistic life journey, every reader can recognize the trials as well as the subtle rewards which surface in each life.
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Summary: Outstanding, grand story
Review: Ursula Hegi's deft ear for dialogue and the both fascinating and mundane ways of a small town lend tremendous warmth to this tale of pre-WW II Germany. It's absorbing and heartbreaking and her able storyteller's ear mimics that of her lead character Trudi, the dwarf, whose coming of age stories appeals to the "differentness" in each of us. In the hands of a less skilled writer the story would be a mish mash of characters. I count 60 named characters, from the dentist to the taxidermst to the grocer, to the thin priest and the fat priest, and all their children, that you come to recognize, but she is so good at weaving the narrative that the result is more of a tapestry than a jumble. It's also a story of how good hearted people let evil creep into their lives without stopping it and about the tremendous strength many people showed in the face of encroaching prejudice and despair. I highly recommend it. I read it straight through in a weekend..
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Summary: Fresh and moving vFresh,moving novel of Germany between wars
Review: If you thought that everything worth knowing ahout lifein Germany between the wars and through WW II had been said, as I had, you have been mistaken. "Stones From the River" is extraordinary in its revelation of the feelings,hopes, fears, imaginings of people in a small town mear Dusseldorf as revealed through the yearnings, hopes,fears and gossip-momgering of Trudy Montag.a ZWERG, or dwarf,born there just after WWI. Unlike another famous German dwarf, Oscar of "The Tin Drum", Trudy is wholly sympathetic, and despite her role as "other" she is us. Because of this duality, I think I have finally understood how ordinary, mostly decent, if flawed, people can become, the often reluctant inhabitants of a place like Hitler's nightmare realm. And wonder how they got there. This tale makes clear that no people or country is immune to the moral flaws that brought Germany down. Burgdorf was not an Eden, but people were neighborly even while harboring the usual religiousprejudices, that is the Catholic school kids vs. the Protestant school kids and some from each group bad mouthing the Jewish kids Not all.not even most. And one sees the daily affections and spites. One sees the rot of Naziism destroying not only its enemies but many of its original supporters. One sees too the interworking of small town life,howevil has its origins in daily life and family unhappiness, how small delights can survive and sometimes grow. And how love may bloom in terrible times and save unlikely people. Many times during the reading of this book I found myselftrying to imagine how I'd have acted if I had been a citizen of Germany in the 1920's or 30's. Unfortunately, denial of unpleasantor frightening possibilities is alltoo human. I've done it, haven't you? I don't know how courageously I'd have behaved. I hope I'd havebeen with the risk takers. Trudy's otherness gave her more strength toresist evil than many of her neighbors. And though Trudy is a survivor -physically and at last em
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Summary: Through the eyes of a dwarf, I saw life in a new light.
Review: Trudi made me realize how naive I have been about what life must have been like during a war. I want to go to the book store and continue my conversation with Trudi
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Summary: Good, but not excellent
Review: I really liked this story. I learned about the people of WWII and their struggles. The main struggle, Trudi's handicap, was described in a way that helped me begin to see what it might be like to be a Zwerg. The descriptions of the townspeople and their various relationships kept my interest. All these strengths, to me, make a good book.
However....the ending was missing something. It almost seemed like a different person wrote the last 20 pages. It left me asking a few questions, like who was the mid wife's baby? What REALLY happened to Max? Why didn't she ever reveal what happened with the boys? I guess that might be the author's way of ending it "cliffhanger" style.
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Summary: YES! Read "Stones from the River"
Review: Search no further for an amazing, extraordinary, compelling, thought-provoking read. Though Hegi's novel is set in a particularly dark period in history, we gain the insight into the lives of the common German citizen who had to witness the brutality and injustice of the Third Reich. We feel the desperation and helplessness, imagine the shame of doing nothing in order to save ourselves, the horror of knowing in advance what horrors lay ahead for those who were taken away to the "work camps". What is truly amazing however is that this story is not dark or depressing, but it will cause each of us to examine how we treat and think of people who are different from ourselves, and consider how we may be perceived by others
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Summary: Wonderful imagery combined with a compelling plot
Review: Three cheers for Oprah! If she can introduce middle America to writers like Ursula Hegi, there's hope for the intellectual future of our country. This is a superbly written tale that weaves the big Questions (with a capital "Q") into a very approachable, touchable, memorable story. It is a story I talk about with others over lunch and wake with it echoing in my dreams. More than a summer read, Stones from the River is a book whose impressions will out last even the deepest tan
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Summary: A River Runs Through It
Review: That's how some people would describe Burgdorf, Germany, the setting of this novel before the war. The river acts as a reminder that life goes on, changes, can become extremely cruel or blissfully calm.
Life for Trudi Montag, the main character, is all of the above. And as the river flows, so does Trudi's stories. A "Zwerg" (drawf), Trudi witnesses life's cruelty and prejudices first hand. However, she also bears witness to the destruction of Germany during the Nazi invasion. She is not only the town librarian, but also the town historian. Through her stories, she chronicles people's lives, the town's history and her own future.
"Stones" is filled with characters and symbolism. A tough start but by page 300, I began to "flow" through it.
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