Remede a la Mort Par La Foudre (Collections Litterature) (French Edition) (Original 1996; 1998. Auflage)

Kann mich nicht erinnern ob es wirklich der Inhalt war der mir nicht gefiel, oder die Tatsache es handelt sich hier um die Übersetzung. ( )

This book is very well written and has some great moments but it is pretty bleak and I need a happy book now!I loved the descriptions of day-to-day life on the farm and the view of life in town as well. I enjoyed the inclusion of Native lore and magical realism very much as it felt true to the reality of having Native neighbors, friends and farmhands. I had previously read [b:Turtle Valley|2164768|Turtle Valley|Gail Anderson-Dargatz|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320500180s/2164768.jpg|4435620], not knowing that is a "sort-of sequel" and wish I had known that beforehand and had it to read now as I don't remember it well and want to know what happens to the characters.

*SPOILER ALERT* -I am conflicted by the abuse in the book as I feel the book could have been just as good without (some of) it and I am finding that there is so much of it in literature lately that I am becoming desensitized to it - and I don't like that feeling. While I am very aware it is a horrific and prevalent problem, for me it is starting to feel like a writing cliché. I hate even writing this, but it is getting to the point where I will avoid books where this is part of the plot. ( )

This is no warm, fuzzy Little House on the Prairie type of book. The narrator is Beth Weeks, a fifteen-year-old living on a remote Canadian farm during World War I. The book is filled with one mentally ill or socially outcast person after another, scraping an existence out of the hostile countryside. And throughout is the legend of Coyote told by the local Indians, the supposed cause of everyone’s craziness and evil.

Have you ever seen those nature specials where they show the sea turtles hatching? The baby turtles are trying to make their way into the ocean, but there are a hundred predators waiting to eat them – that is what this book felt like, except the predators are all waiting around to rape Beth. The book would have been better if it had explored any one of the sub-plots more: Maud’s scrapbook, how John’s mental illness affected the family emotionally, Beth’s exploration of lesbianism, the magical realism of the Coyote folklore…. And I thought the narrator’s voice was inconsistent.
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fiction ( )

This story has one of my favorite opening sentences:

"The cure for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mother’s scrapbook, under the recipe for my father’s favorite oatcakes: Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more."

It really sets the tone for what I can only describe as a compelling coming-of-age story. A wonderful blending of isolated rural community living, family histories, native folklore, evocative memories stirred by the wonders captured within the pages of her mother's scrapbook and the luscious descriptions of food, gardening and bizarre remedies. It is a wonderful throw-back to a forgotten era and I love how Beth reminds us that the story she is telling is something that occurred in her past, not her present. The writing is a delight to experience, like this description of eating cherries fresh off a cherry tree:

"When you eat a ripe cherry straight from the tree on a sunny day, its juice is so hot, thick, and red that it has the feel of blood running down your chin, staining your lips, and filling your mouth. Once you've sucked all you can from it, you spit out the pit and go for another warm cherry off the tree, and another and another, because the cherry will seduce you every time. You don't see that ripeness, that hot blood juice, in a store-bought cherry. But a cherry sun-hot off the tree, well, that's where it came from, the insinuation of lust in the cherry, the smut-name put to the ripe button-love of a woman. Cherry. It's all juice and warmth, a O in your mouth, a soft marble for your tongue to play with, a sweet soft thing with a core cloaked in flesh."

I delighted in the recipes and remedies that are strewn throughout the story. The kinds of recipes and remedies that are handed down from generation to generation so I was very happy to see the index at the back of the book. While the story is set in the Turtle Valley region of British Columbia, it is easy to picture it as taking place in almost any Northwest valley farming community with an reserve nearby. Canadian specific references to such things as Vancouver, Vernon and residential schools are kept to a minimum. As with most coming-of-age stories, it has elements that are harrowing and emotional. Anderson-Dargatz focuses on how Beth reacts/deals with situations, instead of exposing the reader to minute details of the situations themselves. A nice touch as some of the topics are disturbing enough without having the read through pages and pages of ugly details.

Overall, a really good read. ( )