#pat baker

[vintagegoddesses3]

[isawitbefore]

What I came away with was a sense of Helen seizing control of her own story. She was so isolated in that city, so powerless - even at my age, I could see that - and those tapestries were a way of saying: I'm here. Me. A person, not just an object to be looked at and fought over.

Pat Baker, The Silence of the Girls

[prosedumonde]

Ils sont près l’un de l’autre, si près qu’ils se touchent presque, mais leurs douleurs sont parallèles et non partagées.

Pat Baker, Le Silence des vaincues

[broke-book-bandits]

“So, you agree with his views but not his actions? Isn’t that rather an artificial distinction?”

— Regeneration, by Pat Baker

one of my favorite books to study back in school haha~☁️

[for-her-madness]

[evphrosyne]

April wrap-up

With Goodreads links! If any of you want to see what I am currently reading and my huge TBR list, you can find my page here.

This month was also for reading - pretty diverse I should say. And social distancing. And crying over my dead plants because no one could go water them. And ordering some plants at my current home so I have something to take care of.

The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells - 4/5 stars

if you like sad books and you don’t mind the tragic narrative of the white European man that makes sense of said sadness in the end, this is the book for you

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed - 5/5 stars

in which the author replies to letters in a deeply emphatic way while also teaching you life lessons. Thank you, Cheryl

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid - 3/5 stars

this is not your typical thriller novel. I can’t and won’t say more

It by Alexa Chung - 2/5 stars

I probably should have read this when I was 16

Street Photographer by Vivian Maier - 5/5 stars

just a photography book that made want to pick up my film camera again; and maybe actually learn how to use it

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - 1/5 stars

my first DNF of the month; I just could not follow the writing style

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl - 3/5 stars

just adding another sprinkle of nonfiction here; this is a good book if you’re studying/planning to study psychology or if you want to learn something about what drives human beings apart from the all too famous Hierarchy of Needs

Notes to Self: Essays by Emilie Pine - 1/5 stars

second DNF this month; I find it pretty hard to get on with essay collections and I was really getting nothing from this one - maybe it was the general theme of moderhood (up to the point when I stopped reading at least)

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk -5/5 stars

I’ve heard mixed reviews about this one (even if it’s a Nobel winner) and I went in with not too high expectations. I was pleasantly surprised with the writing style and character development, it was easy to follow even if it might not seem like it at the beginning (if you’ve read it, you know what I mean), the characters were intriguing and it was overall an immersive reading experience

Pet Sematary by Stephen King - 2/5 stars

I listed to this one on audio. This is my first Stephen King novel and I think I expected more from the story. I found the ending extremely rushed, but I’m willing to read more of his work.

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker - 2/5 stars

Everyone was recommending this and comparing it to Madeline Miller so I HAD to read it, Circe having been my favourite book of last year. I mean...it was ok. it was nice. but nothing compared to Miller’s writing style. It felt like a poor retelling (or more like fanfic) and even if some parts of the narrative were from Briseis’ perspective (the slave of Achilles), as some other reviewers have said, the girls stayed silent in this book. And what bugged me the most about this book was that you could sense the author did not do enough research to capture all the necessary details to make this story what it set out to be. (but I do get the hype)

[rambling-bookworm]

Book review- The Silence of the Girls

Recently I have been trying to challenge myself as a reader to branch out and read genres I do not usually care for. One of those genre’s is historical fiction especially when I know they deal with touchy subjects such as war and rape. I am so glad I gave Pat Baker’s The Silence of the Girls a chance because it is a powerful story about women and stories that are silenced.

“They were men, and free. I was a woman and a slave. And that’s a chasm no amount of sentimental chit-chat about shared imprisonment should be allowed to obscure” (p.124).

Baker’s novel is definitely one of those pieces of literature which has left me feeling empowered. As well as angry over the marginalization created in societies. And the lengths people will go to silence those viewed as less than and the stories of those who are not in power.

“What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant time? One thing I do know: they won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They wont want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they’ll go for something altogether softer. A love story perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were” (p.291)

The Silence of the girls also left me feeling reflective about history and who tells it. As George Washington says in Hamilton, “Who lives, Who dies, Who tells your story?” When everyone who has ever lived through a historical event, who can remember what really happened is gone, what will future generations remember or forget? What stories will they tell? how much will be close to the truth and how much will be fiction told to ease the discomfort of others?

Thanks for reading!

[crocodilecryptid]

The pics from the Christmas ep are driving me insane so have these for the time being :)