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    Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
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    Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
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    Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
    Ebook328 pages6 hours

    Second Nature: A Gardener's Education

    By Michael Pollan

    4/5

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    “One of the distinguished gardening books of our time,” from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (USA Today).
     
    Chosen by the American Horticultural Society as one of the 75 greatest books ever written about gardening
     
    After Michael Pollan bought an old Connecticut dairy farm, he planted a garden and attempted to follow Thoreau’s example: do not impose your will upon the wilderness, the woodchucks, or the weeds. That ethic did not, of course, work. But neither did pesticides or firebombing the woodchuck burrow. So Michael Pollan began to think about the troubled borders between nature and contemporary life.
     
    The result is a funny, profound, and beautifully written book in the finest tradition of American nature writing. It inspires thoughts on the war of the roses; sex and class conflict in the garden; virtuous composting; the American lawn; seed catalogs, and the politics of planting a tree. A blend of meditation, autobiography, and social history, Second Nature, from the renowned author of The Botany of Desire, In Defense of Food, and other bestsellers, is “as delicious a meditation on one man’s relationship with the Earth as any you are likely to come upon” (The New York Times Book Review).
     
    “Usually when Americans have wanted to explore their relationship to nature they’ve gone to the wilderness, or the woods. Michael Pollan went to the garden instead . . . and he’s returned with a quirky and pleasing book.” —Annie Dillard
     
    “A joy to read.” —Los Angeles Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 1, 2007
    ISBN9780802198617
    Author

    Michael Pollan

    Michael Pollan is the author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, all New York Times bestsellers. A longtime contributor to The New York Times Magazine, he is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley.

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    Reviews for Second Nature

    4/5

    498 ratings29 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was a tough read due to the subject matter. Oksanen writes of crimes against women in war and the sex trade. She writes it well. There are no gratuitous scenes and she reminds us of the often easy flip of human nature. And we often need the reminder.
    • 4/5
      This was my first purchase made for this year's reading goals. I don't remember how it caught my eye that it was translated, in the used section of my local bookstore, or why I felt compelled to buy it even though it's suspense, and suspense isn't typically my genre. It wasn't until after I got it home that I noticed it was blurbed by bookslut.

      While this book, set in Estonia, is shaped by political events spanning multiple changes of regime, it is a story of much more personal suspense. As many have noted, Purge is the perfect title for this slowly unravelling story. Through flashbacks, two narrators, and intertwining storylines, we see purge after purge on a variety of scales. How communities purge themselves of oppressors thrown off during a regime change, and how that slowly trickles down to punishing anyone who did better under the old regime than you, how people thus punished try to purge themselves, their homes, their relationships of anything that might cause suspicion, how some, purged of their homeland, are also purged of their voices, and the hollow lives that go on around such absences.

      There is horror in this book, around the way such upheavals affect the lives of women. When stripped of our community, our humanity, a woman's body is just another thing to be punished, to be bought and sold. To be purged.

      Chilling.
    • 4/5
      This book was a gift from my SantaThing secret santa, and i have finally got around to reading it. It was Sofi Oksanen's first book that was translated into the English language from Finnish. This is a book that is not easy to read. it is visceral, tragic, and gut-wrenching. The book is set around the second world war, and during the narrative it skips ahead to 1992 and then back to 1944. It is set Estonia, and it tells the tale of how Estonia suffered during and after the second world war. During the war, the Germans occupied this country, and it was very difficult for the native peoples to try to live under their tyrannical rule. After the war it became a Russian country and the Russians brought more pain and misery to the mostly rural population in this country. The Estonians gained their independence from Russia in 1991. The story is told from the perspective of Aliide who lived through both occupations. When we first see her in 1992, she is an old woman who carries around a tremendous burden of secrets from her long life. She discovers a bruised and battered young girl at the gate to her property, and in a moment of weakness, she takes her in and cleans her up and feeds her. We see that Aliide and the young girl called Zara share a past and a history, and how and why becomes brutally clear to us. Both have been through hell and both used terribly by brutish men. This is where the reading gets difficult as we find out what each of these women have suffered. The book is gut-wrenching and forces us as readers to think about how far we would go to save ourselves and our loved ones if faced with the realities that each of these women have experienced. Can we judge their choices harshly when we realize that very difficult decisions have to be made in order to survive? No one in this book is unscathed by the harsh realities and horrors of war. The book is extremely well-written, and I'm sure we have not heard the end of Sofi Oksanen.
    • 4/5
      This is a Finnish novel, but takes place in Estonia in the early 1990's when the country is dealing with scars from the Soviet years. But it also deals with events from the 1940's. Because I'm unfamiliar with Estonian history, it was sometimes confusing, but not too much. It is a very personal story of unfulfilled love set in a very specific place and time. It is well worth the effort.
    • 4/5
      I was drawn to this book because of the review of a goodreads/BookCrossing friend. She thought it a strong read, filled with the smells and tastes of the Estonian world, but I was unprepared for how powerful the stories actually were. I say stories because the book braids together the lives of two women, Aliide Truu, an old Estonian woman living alone in the country with her memories and her secrets, and Zara, a girl running from her pimp and her life of compelled prostitution in Russia. Aliide finds Zara crumpled, dirty, and wounded in many unseen ways, in her backyard one morning. The lives of the two women unfold, only to twine more intricately together, weaving hope, longing, fear, and love, though not in the way one might I often am cautious reading translated books, but the very visceral feel of this book makes me believe the translation is a good one. The shifting perspective of the story from the 1940's to 1990's threw me at first, but I fell into the rhythm after a bit. Though Aliide's basic story was not too hard to anticipate, the way the author built the characters, complete with smells and tastes made it a very visceral experience, and not one for the fainthearted. My only exposure to Estonia has been of the more modern sort -- a friend of my son's lives there, his father very prominent in Estonian government, and my son and some other university friends went to visit a few summers ago. I have a beautiful piece of Estonian amber jewelry that somehow seems at odds with the onions, horseradish, and harshness so prevalent in this novel. But I shall treasure it more knowing more about the history of the country now.
    • 3/5
      With a title like "Purge," I expected the book to end with some big emotional catharsis. Instead, it just ends, and you're left to wonder how the two main characters dealt with the turn of events. I don't expect everything to have a happy ending, but this doesn't even feel like it has an ending. The characters tiptoe around the main topic for most of the book, and then instead of showing you how they behave when everything comes out into the light of day, the author just says, basically, "And then Zara left." Disappointing to say the least.
    • 2/5
      2.5 stars

      I don't remember when I've hated the main character as much as Aliide! And I don't think we need 3-4 pages to read about killing a fly. I can't say what exactly annoyed me about the writing but I just wasn't fan of it.

      It started really slow and I almost fell asleep but it got better. I don't think I would have been this disappointed if it wasn't so overhyped.
    • 5/5
      An excellent novel - more like a thriller - set against the turbulent background of Estonian history. It is the story of two sisters, of treachery, fear, love and guilt. Estonia is a main character in its own right, exerting its nationalism and its survival instinct against all odds. Super despite the constant flashbacks.
    • 4/5
      Brilliant!...Loved it. From start to finish. A masterpiece.
    • 3/5
      A difficult read at times and I would have liked a bit more clarification in the end.
    • 5/5
      This novel is set in Estonia between 1939 and 1992, a time span in which Estonia was occupied first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, then, for a much longer time, by the Soviets again, to eventually achieve independence that brought with it the emergence of criminal gangs. Aliide has lived in a village in western Estonia throughout those turbulent times and she's survived horrible things, things which have made her a survivor. Now she's hanging on, hated by her neighbors and hoping to get her family's land back. Zara shows up one morning in her yard, filthy and frightened. Aliide is worried that Zara's been sent by a criminal gang, but she takes her in nonetheless and a guarded friendship builds between the women. They both have a lot to hide and things to hide from and as their relationship develops, the story moves back and forth between their present and the pasts that they're trying to bury.Purge is an excellent and nuanced story of a place and time that would challenge anyone. Oksanen writes eloquently of rural Estonian life among the birch trees and cows and fear, where what a family member did can destroy your life unless you do what you need to do to preserve it. This wasn't always an easy book to read; Oksanen doesn't linger over the atrocities, but neither does she brush over them, but it was a compelling and important book about a place and time I know too little about.
    • 4/5
      Purge is written by Sofi Oksanen, a early 30s Finnish-Estonian novelist and playwright. It is a heart wretching story that spans over several decades from 1949 to 1992 with the two key characters who are very connected with each other but play a cat and mouse game as they try to figure out what the means. A frightening look into the global sex trade that is still very much in force and the dreadful impact of war on human emotions. It is also a story of two sisters - loving, hurtful, slighted, misguided thoughts, and everything else that whirls and swirls and can wreck havoc onto those whose blood you share.
    • 4/5
      Beautifully written but dark and disturbing. It reminded me in style a lot of the 'Dragon Tattoo' series. I finished not quite understanding what had happened though - which left me thinking I need to go back and read it more closely - especially the chapters about Aliide's experiences the Soviet occupation.
    • 3/5
      With a title like "Purge," I expected the book to end with some big emotional catharsis. Instead, it just ends, and you're left to wonder how the two main characters dealt with the turn of events. I don't expect everything to have a happy ending, but this doesn't even feel like it has an ending. The characters tiptoe around the main topic for most of the book, and then instead of showing you how they behave when everything comes out into the light of day, the author just says, basically, "And then Zara left." Disappointing to say the least.
    • 5/5
      This is a gripping, well written story of love, survival, sexual violence, secrets, treachery. It tells of the lives of two women in Estonia, gradually revealing their stories, moving back and forth through time to do so. It starts slowly but builds nicely and you soon become engrossed. I was a little apprehensive about reading it, thinking the topic somewhat depressing, but it didn't depress and I am so glad I read it. I can see this making the shortlist for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and I highly recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Aliide wakes one morning to find a dishevelled girl in her garden. Seemingly destitute, terrified and barely talking in outdated Estonian she is a mystery. Why is she here, what does she want and what trouble is following hard on her heels?I have been having trouble writing this review because one word repeats in my head like a mantra obliterating all consideration of character or plot, of craft or pacing. That word is claustrophobic. From the plot to the characters to even me, all trapped and itching to escape. The story winds itself around you like an unwelcome Boa Constrictor. It's maddening even if addictive.Don't get me wrong the writing is good. The two characters are well drawn (although you could argue Zara is just a future echo of Aliide). What could be pretty bad pacing because of lurching between characters and time is instead brilliant and the plot goes from mildly interesting to gripping.There's more here than a family mystery hidden in the past, of a tale at how life traps us and we survive. There are the horrors of totalitarianism and free market capitalism, tales of love, hope and hatred. A hard hitting look at abuse, slavery and torture (strong but not gratuitous and I thought well done). Themes and lives mirror each other throughout and strengthen and deepen the book.It does have it's bad points, although really disliking a main character but still wanting to know what happens isn't one of them. The ending is a bit abrupt and Zara gets somewhat overshadowed because of this. I also thought the beginning was tad slow too but to honest it's not really a problem. All in all a strong, fascinating read I would recommend to anyone with the stomach to take it.
    • 5/5
      Nothing is simple in this story of an elderly Estonian villager who finds a disheveled and desperate young woman on her property one day and reluctantly takes her in. Just hearing the bare bones of the plot, you think you know what kind of story you're getting -- but you don't. Both Aliide, the villager, and Zara, the young runaway, are hiding things from each other and from everyone else, and the situation is far more complicated than it first appears. Author Sofi Oksanen uses flashbacks to show how the women have been scarred by both the totalitarian regime of Soviet Communism and the lawless thuggery of the criminal capitalism that replaced it. Detailed description and minute recording of the women's thoughts make the story especially realistic, until the pressures on the characters feel almost unbearable. Powerful and surprising right up to the end, this book is an intense read but well worth it.
    • 4/5
      A dark and sad story of dark and sad times. I feel really ashamed for knowing so little about the history of and life in Estonia, although we live so close - I live in Sweden. An important novel, well written and highly recommendable.
    • 3/5
      Interesting to learn more about the Russian occupation of Estonia and also about the appalling sex trafficking industry. I listened to this as an audiobook and it did become confusing as it jumped between time periods. By the end, I was totally confused. I need someone to read the text and explain the ending to me now.
    • 5/5
      A book to make you réalise that horror can be so close to home. Aliida terrified and saddened me as if I knew her personally.
    • 5/5
      One night in 1992, Aliide Truu finds what at first glance seems to be a pile of rags in her front yard in Estonia. A closer look reveals that it’s a young woman, bruised and battered. Against all instincts, she goes out and brings the girl in. Zara tells the first of her stories to Aliide; that she’s had a fight with her rich husband. In reality, Zara is running from her pimp, who lied to her in her Vladivostok home, telling her she could go to Germany for job training. He brought her to Germany and made her into a sex slave, controlling her with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. The shame she feels over this makes her lie to Aliide, sure that she is so disgusting no one would ever help her if they knew. And she wants- needs- Aliide to take her in. They have a connection that Aliide doesn’t know about.Aliide has secrets of her own. Flashbacks show her living in Estonia as it’s invaded and controlled first by the Fascists and then by the Stalinists. She is ashamed that she was brutally raped as part of an interrogation. She also married a Communist, making the townspeople she grew up with call her a collaborator and shun her. Then there is the matter of what ultimately happened to her brother-in-law, a man she wanted to take from her sister- the sister she had deported via her husband’s contacts. Both women are deeply ashamed to what has been done *to* them. The ending surprised me. I suppose it shouldn’t have, as Aliide had already shown herself to be a survivor. I thought it was be best ending possible, despite being violent. It’s a hard book to read. Not because of the writing; the writing flows quickly and fluidly. It’s because the things that happen to the characters are so awful. Oksanen describes the rapes and abuse quite graphically, yet so matter-of-factly that it’s almost surreal; just, well, that happened; let’s keep going. And I think this is because that’s how the people in their situations- and there were and are many- have to deal with it. Just keep going. No time for a screaming fit. These are horrors unimaginable to most of us in the USA, and so many people- whole countries- have endured them. In my opinion, this is a book that should be required reading at some level. There is too much sex and violence for schools in the USA to accept, but it should at least be required in college.
    • 4/5
      Estland, 1992: Die alleinlebende ältere Frau Aliide Truu findet in ihrem Garten ein russisches Mädchen, offenbar eine Prostituierte auf der Flucht vor ihren Zuhältern. Doch Zara ist nicht zufällig zu Aliide geflohen. Sie denkt, das Aliide ihre Großtante ist.Nach und nach erzählt das Buch die Familiengeschichte. Eingerahmt ist diese Erzählung in die politische Geschichte Estlands: zweiter Weltkrieg, Besatzung, Widerstand, Kommunismus, Deportation, Befreiung. Und dazu im Privaten: Vergewaltigung, Verrat, Schuld und über allem die Grausamkeit der Männer.Das Buch verschont den Leser nicht. Zwar wird nicht alles ausformuliert und manches der Fantasie überlassen. Aber das Meiste wird doch so geschildert, dass davon Alptraumbilder bleiben. Das Handeln der Hauptakteurin Aliide erschien mir unbegreiflich. Die Besessenheit, mit der sie versucht, ihren Schwager für sich zu gewinnen, kann ich mir einfach nicht vorstellen. Etwas glaubwürdiger wird das Ganze, wenn man am Ende in den abgedruckten Akten feststellt, dass Aliide erst 1925 geboren ist. Sie war also, als Ingel und Hans sich 1936 kennenlernten, noch ein Kind. Und war ein Kind, die ganze Zeit über, während ihre 5 Jahre ältere Schwester ihr (naturgemäß) in allem überlegen war. Die Rache der zu kurz Gekommenen, aber auch die unbedingte Loyalität dem Geliebten gegenüber, das wird dann etwas plausibler. Auch zum Zeitpunkt der Haupthandlung 1992 ist sie noch keine alte Frau, selbst wenn das Buch sich so liest, als wäre sie im Greisenalter. Vom Ende her macht auch die Fliege, die das (ekelhafte) Cover ziert und metaphorisch durch das Buch schwirrt, Sinn. Das Buch ist grausam und brutal, wenn auch literarisch gut gemacht. Unweigerlich fragt man sich, wie viele solcher Schicksale es tatsächlich gibt. Viele, wahrscheinlich.
    • 4/5
      I have an affinity to books where the characters outshine the storyline. Such volumes craft a distinct memory that never seems to fade for years creating an imaginary bond with those characters; experiencing their pain and suffrage through your smallest nerves.Zara and Aliide will never die away from my mind as long as I will remember.

      'Purge' is not a book about bulimia or anorexia. It is a metaphor for all those sinister culpabilities that an individual buries within his/her heart until the moment of truth where it all erupts like smoldering lava destroying every possibility of tranquility. Oksanen puts forth a riveting account of human lives that are trapped in a web of uncouth circumstances and repelling emotions making the cost of survival nauseating and demeaning.

      Set in the early 1990s,the book is structured into five parts each going back and forth in time connecting the lives of the two women. Estonia a few years shy to reclaiming its independence (the last Russian troops left on August 31, 1994) was under the communist rule of the Soviet. Poverty, unemployment raked throughout the country’s landscape creating a spate of thefts and squalor. Aliide Truu, an elderly woman spent her days preserving candied fruits and cultivating her modest vegetable farm whilst waiting for the weekly visits from her daughter Talvi. The nights were frightening to Aliide as it went by trying to evade the local hooligans from stoning and robbing her tattered home. On one such night, there was a shadow lurking on Aliide’s front yard. It was a hapless young woman, battered, abused, writhing in fear and pain. She was a Russian who spoke broken Estonian and her name was Zara. The sudden intrusion of a stranger in Aliide’s life was about to open her convoluted past, resurfacing the buried disgrace and guilt.

      Zara:- Zara lived a recluse and impoverished life with her grandmother and mother. Her grandmother Ingel rarely speaks, so does her mother Linda. Her desire to bring financial security to her family leads her into a network of prostitution and sexual slavery.

      "Over the past year she had forgotten all the normal ways of being with people -- how to get to know a person, how to have a conversation -- and she couldn't think of a segue to break the silence."

      Terrified with the unfortunate events Zara finally escapes from her pimps and finds shelter in Aliide’s home. Zara coming to Aliide is not a mere concurrence. The photograph that Zara carried when she left her home was the thread that connected Aliide and Zara, revealing a torrent of uncultivated relations.

      Zara’s characterization throws a light on the tedious circumstances that Eastern Europe endured in the early 1990s. The political pandemonium and deteriorating economical landscapes led to vast immigration and impecunious survival. The silence that prevailed over Ingel or Linda was suffocating making you wonder about the immense torture that a human heart endures, coercing it to find refuge in a vacuumed world. The packed suitcases, the trembling with slightest clatter portrayed the acute fear that thrives within the victims of war.

      Aliide:- Aliide could never comprehend the jealousy she nurtured for her elder sister for marrying her bashful love-Hans. All through her life she was the ‘black sheep’; the ugly duckling failing to be a swan. Her life in the 1940s was propelled in a vortex of wrecked dreams, war, deportation and the sudden disappearance of her parents. What distressed Aliide was losing her only love Hans to her elder sister. Thus, began an inundation of sheer vengeance and wrong doings in order to pacify the agitated broken soul. The entry of Zara into her life created a flutter, throwing Aliide into a muddle of endless shame and remorse which she had buried long ago.

      Aliide resembles the many, who out of fallacious sentiments step into untoward verdicts and regretting it forever. Aliide loved her sister dearly, but the ignominy that engulfed her soul restricted her from making amends and ending her solitude.

      Oksanen has an incredible quality of cautiously peeling the human mind-set exposing every layer of reckless choices and heartfelt redemptions.

      It is a common occurrence to see a translated script losing its strength and significance; Purge banishes all these fears with Lola Rogers doing an excellent job, restoring Oksanen’s depiction of Estonian spirit and history.
    • 4/5
      Aliide is an elderly widow living in an isolated house in a half-deserted Estonian village in the early 1990′s. One day she finds a young girl collapsed outside her house and, against her better judgement (who might be watching and who will they tell?), she brings the “dishrag of a girl” into her home where she, warily and sparingly, provides some nourishment and general aid. About all we know for sure for some time is that the girl’s name is Zara and she is from Vladivostok. Over the course of the novel we travel backwards and forwards in time to learn the histories of the women who have both had traumatic experiences which have left deep physical and psychological scars.

      Purge isn’t only a story of violence and abuse perpetrated against its two protagonists but is testament to the ease with which such behaviour has always been, and is still, accepted as the natural way of things in many cultures. Its sadness lies not only in the stories of two women but in the fact that these stories are shared by so many (we did, after all, just observe the international day for the elimination of violence against women). However the strength of the novel lies in the clever and engaging way Oksanen teases out the stories and compels the reader to discover how the two women ended up where they were. Aliide’s story in particular also plays out against the backdrop of some momentous events in the region’s history, including the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and there is a very credible depiction of the impact of these events on the day-to-day lives of the average person. This aspect of the novel made me realise how little I know about these events from recent history when compared with events in western Europe or America.

      The two central characters are very strong though not, perhaps contrary to expectations, entirely likeable. Aliide is an especially prickly character and while some of this is explained by the horrific traumas she has experienced there are other things which cannot be so easily justified. I liked the fact she was portrayed in this way as it made her far more believable than I think she would have been without these very human flaws. The secondary characters, including the various people who torment the two women are also well-drawn and all too credible.

      The story itself was well told and relatively easy to follow despite its somewhat choppy nature though I have to admit I thought the ending somewhat awkward and rushed. I’ve read quite a few reviews of this book and they all seem to take a different message or theme from their reading which is the sign of a really great book. For myself I thought it spoke beautifully about the dangers of longing for something (or someone) you can’t have, the lengths humans will go to for self-preservation and I enjoyed reflecting on the various implications of the novel’s title. It is, in parts, a harrowing read but a highly rewarding one.
    • 5/5
      Rural western Estonia 1992, right after the fall of the Soviet Union. The old woman Aliide is waiting for the legal rights to her family’s lands and forests to be returned to her (hopefully before the finnish companies that are moving in fast cut it anyway without paying) and worry about the local youths who shout outside her house at night. For Aliide a labelled a communist collaborator and Russian lover – and in this new state there is noone to protect her. One morning she finds the young woman Zara huddling on her front porch. She’s been drawn into trafficking and is now on the run from her slavers. And it’s soon evident that her coming to this particular farm house is no coincidence. The girl is connected to Aliide’s dark and hidden past – her hopeless and blinding love for her brother-in-law, a member of the hunted nationalist resistance, and the chain of betrayals, sacrifices and moral corruption that love sets in motion.Oksanen’s book jumps between the stories of the two women, back and forth in time, creating a puzzle that comes together only slowly and gradually. It’s a read demanding some concentration, but exciting and rewarding, with a great balance between character, situation and plot. The Estonian landscape is so vividly described I can almost taste and smell it, as can I the drab, grey paranoia of the Stalinist times.In quite a few of the reviews here on LT the point is made that the two major story lines are unblanaced. And I agree to some degree. Zara’s story, while heart-wrenching, very graphic and often disturbing doesn’t match Aliide’s in complexity or originality. But to me, since the stories are mirroring each other thematically, the draw emotional impact from each other. Both the women’s stories deal with oppression in different systems, captivity, the helplessness in not having legal documents, trying to play by the rules in a game you can’t win, the corruption of ideals, the shame in being abused – to mention but a few overlaps. Oksanen used the same technique in Stalins kossor, in letting the starvation of the people during the early communist era contrast with young western women’s anorexia of today, but here the weave is so much more intricate.The ending of the book is somewhat stressed and blunt, but that almost becomes a quality in itself, especially in contrast to the concluding string of documents and letters. Purge is not a book completely without flaws, but it’s original, moving and it has something to say. One of the most memorable reads of 2010 for me.
    • 5/5
      This review for Sofi Oksanen’s book Purge is probably the most difficult I’ve ever done. I liked the book very much, but I’m terribly afraid of revealing spoilers, as the novel is so complicated and layered. I can easily describe it as one of my personal favorites, up there with Per Petterson and Tim Winton. To begin, this book has nothing to do with eating disorders, and the only real complaint I have is that the cover art scarcely seems to apply to the complicated work within. After you’ve read it, you realize that the cover does in fact refer to details encountered, but I’m curious if the cover itself would dissuade readers from picking it up. A pretty measly complaint, to be followed by lavish praise! However, I’m also known to pick out wine based on how artistic the bottle labels look, rather than whether it is any good or not, so maybe that's just me! That said, there are two interlinking threads in this story. One character thinks she’s escaping her small Russian village, allured by the glamorous Western world represented to her by elegant silk stockings worn by a visiting friend. Unfortunately, while Zara focuses on the material luxury represented by those stockings, she doesn’t see the wave her friend gives her, “it looked more like she was scraping at the air with red fingernails. Her fingers were slightly curled, as if she were ready to scratch.” Desirous of that ‘better life’, frustrated with her silent mother and her fragile grandmother, Zara thinks she can escape. Instead she’s kidnapped and chained, set up by that friend, and headed for a brutal world in Germany: a place that makes Vladivostok look much more beautiful.In the meantime, Aliide leads a quiet life in Estonia, her days spent canning and cultivating her small garden and dairy animals, dwelling in the past. Since childhoood, her life was filled with pain, suffering, and loss. Her village had suffered from Fascist and Communist occupation, with many citizens (including her own sister and niece) being sent to Siberia. The village itself was a complex array of loyalties…those that hoped for American intervention to save them, others loyal to Russia, and still others harboring German sympathies. Not even the simplest of farmers could trust one another: too much was at stake. The atrocities from all sides were fresh in everyone’s memories. The result was people who carried physical and mental scars, who were eaten up with regret and suspicion. Aliide was one of them, more damaged than most.Eventually Zara makes an escape, and her path crosses with Aliide. Their new relationship is mistrustful and edgy, as neither knows the true identity or agenda of the other. As this developed, I was sure that “this” relationship was the core of the novel. I was wrong, and the way the story proceeds is not only unpredictable but shocking and ugly. No one is as they appear, and trust is unachievable. Because it turns out that Aliide knows far more about Zara than either realized, and the threads that connect them go back further than their chance meeting. Here unfolds the deeper part of the novel, the most disturbing, as we see that Aliide is not the warm-hearted savior we expected her to be, and her damaged psyche is revealed.The underlying theme is that appearances can be deceptive. A person can appear good, or moral, or upstanding. But what they hide can be unimaginable, and they keep the deception up so well that they can convince themselves it doesn’t exist. Danger is present everywhere, but it can distract you with a beautiful appearance. This is well expressed in an introductory quote from Paul-Eerik Rummo: “The walls have ears, and the ears have beautiful earrings.” Such a simple quote, but it describes much of what the novel means. This is a combination of crime fiction and historical fiction, and fans of both would be pleased. It was translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers.
    • 2/5
      I found this book extremely slow which was compounded by the large amounts of unnecessary detail throughout. I didn't engage with the characters, in fact Aliide was totally unlikeable.
    • 5/5
      This book tells the story of three generations of Estonian women (and the men in their lives). The book chapters jump in time to tell the tale of some horrifying events in their lives which correspond to the historical events which take Estonia, in general, and their rural village specifically through WWII, soviet rule and independence.The story centers around two women, Aliide Truu and Zara who is the victim of a sex-trafficking operation and ends up in Aliide’s home while running away from her captors. Only that Zara has a picture of Aliide and her sister, her arrival wasn’t coincidental. There is a psychological side to this book, which I felt was more fascinating than the historical side. Aliide’s motivations are a product of lost love and jealously, but her actions are a product of survival in an oppressing society; she cheats on her husband and turns in her sister to the authorities. Hans, Aliide’s brother in law and the subject of her fantasies, is a Nazi sympathizer and a murderer. Zara goes looking for easy money and gets caught up in the harsh and violent world of prostitution. When Zara arrives on Aliide’s doorstep, a Pandora’s box is opened and shines a light of decades of abused women both in Communistic as well as Democratic societies.As mentioned, the book is not written in chronological order, but the story unfolds very simply, in a country where nothing seems as it is, under a government which is vigilant, oppressive, cruel and paranoid, yet has taken the role of a nanny which has many people so dependent on it they almost forgot how to take care of themselves.The characters in this book are drawn very well, no-one is what he or she seems to be, the world is filled with dangers and the extremes we (Americans) are so used to simple do not exist.The women in this novel purge their soul, name and their past while, metaphorically speaking,
    • 4/5
      ''The silence has been peculiar that year-expectant, yet at the same time like the aftermath of a storm''.

      Once in a while, there are books that leave you powerless. Books that rise beyond any attempt of reviewing, that intimidate you and make you feel that whatever words you may use, they are bound to be mundane, detrimental, inadequate. Sofi Oksnanen's Purge is such a book.

      I have it as my personal principle to make no judgement regarding historical events. Human History is made of endless conflicts, wars and oppression. It has always been thus, it will never change. All hope and eulogies that man remembers the sins of the past to avoid repeating them are extinguished. Therefore, this is my inadequate attempt to write a review focusing on language, feelings and characters. To make a judgement regarding whose fault is what is not my place.

      There is an outstanding opening sequence where we witness the battle between Aliide and a fly. Flies are constantly present in the book. What do they stand for? Perhaps, the dirt that fills Allide and Zara's lives. Perhaps they are a symbolism for the dream that is impossible to fulfill or the horror that is impossible to kill.Perhaps, the constant buzzing in an echo of the constant buzzing in Aliide's heart, her unreceprocated feelings for Hans. Flies, onions and soil are vivid images in the book. This is a novel that doesn't rely heavily on dialogue, but on images and musings of the troubled souls of the two women that are the focus of the story.

      The headings before each chapter give an almost fairy-tale quality in the narration.But it is a dark, twisted, hellish tale. The language is raw, ferocious like the heart of Aliide, but beautiful in its bleakness. There are many raw descriptions of violent sexual nature,and this is exactly why Purge has such an impact on the reader. They are not there to shock for the sake of it, nor for the sake of sexposition. Their purpose is to make us understand the humiliation of gilrs like Zara, the falsehood of great dreams that are born under the despair of oppression.

      It is hard to focus on any other character than Aliide. She is the heart of the story, our eyes to everything that unfolds. I cannot place her as a good or a bad character, she is a human being, full of coflicts and fears, and hopes that are always thwarted. Her love is an obsession that causes pain. Personally, I don't believe that Hans deserved her adoration. I don't see him as someone worthy of the sacrifice, he is not likeable at all. His diary reveils his ingratitude towards Aliide's efforts. Ingel is a character devoid of soul,she is the princess that does everything right and is always loved unconditionally. Still, I wonder whether we are meant to see her that way, since our only source is Aliide, a quite unreliable narrator.

      Zara is the representation of the present, while Aliide is the past. However, Oksanen shows that nothing has changed. The oppression, persecution and exploitation of the women remain the same throught the decades. It doesn't matter what the political situation is, it doesn't matter what your nationality is, you are in danger beause you are a woman, because others see you as weak, vulnerable and vile.

      It is impossible to choose the most powerful scenes. I believe that we have a novel where every chapter matters, every moment is a small storm leading to the catharsis of the end, the moment when freedom becomes tangible, however briefly or tragically.

      This is one of the rare cases where I watched the film adaptation before I read the book, so I knew what to expect. Despite this, I was shocked, there were moments when I quickly skipped over to the next page. Purge is a novel that everyone should read. It contains every horror that mankind has created, war , violence, exploitation, hatred, despair. It also contains love. Love as a source of hope, love as a desructive force. Only I refrain from passing a quick judgement for Aliide. Who knows what one would do in her place...

      ''The crows were screaming like lunatics in the yard.''