Mario Berumen Berumen itibaren Ervauville, Fransa itibaren Ervauville, Fransa

i like this book for its dreamy prose--the rhythms, the ebb and flow. and the small details that get mirrored, bouncing back and forth through the narrative: the lump of clay that looks like a bird, the swan, the torn dresses. there are some things, i think, that i'm not quite getting from a single reading--the whole thing with the pleasure gardens and the broken statue of queen victoria, for example, seems to suggest that the pleasure garden of this tale is also at some level a political allegory about what life is like in post-wwii, post empire britain. or maybe it's about escaping the legacy of the victorian era--like i said, i'm not sure. the toyshop/house is ruled over by a horrid gluttonous tyrant. his wife is mute. her brothers are dirty and sad. and in the end it all burns down...