Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill Dimitri Verhulst 9781846271571 Books
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A tender, precise, and perfect-pitch novel about a widow of legendary beauty and a love that endures beyond death from the new Dutch literary star. Years ago, Madame Verona and her husband built a home for themselves on a hill in a forest above a small village. There they lived in isolation, practicing their music, and chopping wood to see them through the cold winters. When Mr. Verona died, the locals might have expected that the legendary beauty would return to the village, but Madame Verona had enough wood to keep her warm during the years it would take to make a cello—the instrument her husband loved—and in the meantime she had her dogs for company. And then one cold February morning, when the last log has burned, Madame Verona sets off down the village path, with her cello and her memories, knowing that she will have no strength to climb the hill again. Poignant, precise, and perfectly structured, this is a story of one woman's tender and enduring love—as a wife, and as a widow.
Elegiacal and melancholy novella about grief, set on a mythic hill in a small mountain village where one woman's loyalty to the memory of love for her husband is recorded in small acts of devotion to the stray dogs who have always sought her out and to the memory of that rarest of things in life -- a soul mate.
At the same time, this is not a sad book; rather, it is a triumphant one in that Madame Verona wills and is able to dictate the time and place of her own last moments of life. She does not brood nor mope during her remaining span of years but she does honor what she had with her composer husband by finding ways to cultivate the memories of their happiness.
Two artists -- at least one of them was able to excel in the "art of dying."
Tags : Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill [Dimitri Verhulst] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>A tender, precise, and perfect-pitch novel about a widow of legendary beauty and a love that endures beyond death from the new Dutch literary star. Years ago,Dimitri Verhulst,Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill,Granta UK,1846271576,Social isolation;Fiction.,Widows;Fiction.,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Literary,Modern fiction
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It's not often I'd say you should definitely read a book, especially something in translation, but you should definitely read this book. Quite simply it's just an enjoyable read, despite what you might think considering the subject matter. Madame Verona comes down the hill, and she will never be able to make it up again. From this unravels the story of how she came to live on the hill in the first place, her husband Monsieur Potter, their life together, the woods on their property, the nearby village, the people there, the history... When Potter decides to hang himself instead of letting cancer take him Verona continues to live on, never quite letting go of him; even going so far as to have an ugly, terrible-sounding cello made from the tree he hung himself from... And as she waits on the hill she knows it won't be long before she's with him once again.
This is a great example of what novellas strive to be, something short and beautiful.
Exquisitely written, Dimitri Verhulst's short novel is a work of rare beauty that is relatively uncommon in modern literature - a brief novella, a concise and poetic meditation on life, specifically on the condition of reaching the end of one's life. The life in question is that of Madame Verona, a widow living alone in a small village after the death of her husband Monsieur Potter. Although over the years her great beauty is desired by the men of the village, Madame Verona clings to the memory of her husband, keeping only the company of the stray dogs that are drawn to her - a simple but unusual attraction that she hopes will stand her in good favour in the next life.
Verhulst considers Madame Verona's condition at this delicate stage in her life principally through the setting - specifically in the little village of Oucwègne, a village build on three hills. It's to this remote little place of no more than forty people that once had a cow for a mayor that she, a piano teacher, had come to live with her husband, a renowned composer. Her husband now dead, her regular climb down the hill to the village comes to express something else - the realization being that, in her old age, the day will come when she will not make it back up again. Adopting the tone of a fable, the novella considers the position of Madame Verona from a number of viewpoints - her own attempt to define her condition and also how she is viewed by the villagers of Oucwègne, but also through flashbacks that contrast the married woman with the widow, the younger woman with the older, and of course through the village itself which is also slowly dying in its distance from the modern world.
As well as finding much that is evocative in the setting and in the woods that border her house, Verhulst makes wonderful use of language and poetic imagery, considering for example the use a tree can be put to - a living thing reduced to wood that can be made into a coffin, or even a cello - and that the space the felled tree leaves behind will be occupied by something or someone. "It's like that for trees, it's like that for people". Gorgeously written in this respect, the novella finds a way to express the nature of life, of change and of the inevitable progression of time, seeking to find meaning in it all, or at least something of beauty.
Madame Verona and her husband Monsieur Potter are living in Oucwègne. Their house is on a hill and it's in a remote forest area. Oucwègne is a place where people are set in their ways, where table football is an important part of daily life, where people go to the vet if they have health issues and where baby girls are rare. Madame Verona is beautiful and still young when she loses her beloved Monsieur Potter. She misses him dearly and tries to endure life without him. Meanwhile she has the company of dogs as all dogs love her and want to be close to her.
Monsieur Potter chopped as much wood as he could for his wife. When he discovers he's ill he ends his life in a drastic way. Madame Verona has a lot of wood, but no husband to chop new wood for her, so eventually she will run out. There will be a final time when she goes down the hill, a time when she won't be able to climb back up again...
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill is a beautiful poetic story. Every word Dimitri Verhulst writes counts. It isn't a long story, but it doesn't have to be. The strength is in the love between Madame Verona and her husband and in the peculiarity of the village. They are a perfect match. The house on the hill and Oucwégne are an important part of this tale. Together they are balanced, they belong together. This book should be read because of its special love and the beautiful writing. It's fantastic, a true work of art.
It's a different little story, I had a difficult time staying present for the story line, what was it again?
Quirky. I sent it to my cousin who,, like Madame lives up a hill in Italy.
Review originally appeared on LibraryThing.
Elegiacal and melancholy novella about grief, set on a mythic hill in a small mountain village where one woman's loyalty to the memory of love for her husband is recorded in small acts of devotion to the stray dogs who have always sought her out and to the memory of that rarest of things in life -- a soul mate.
At the same time, this is not a sad book; rather, it is a triumphant one in that Madame Verona wills and is able to dictate the time and place of her own last moments of life. She does not brood nor mope during her remaining span of years but she does honor what she had with her composer husband by finding ways to cultivate the memories of their happiness.
Two artists -- at least one of them was able to excel in the "art of dying."
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill Dimitri Verhulst 9781846271571 Books
Review originally appeared on LibraryThing.Elegiacal and melancholy novella about grief, set on a mythic hill in a small mountain village where one woman's loyalty to the memory of love for her husband is recorded in small acts of devotion to the stray dogs who have always sought her out and to the memory of that rarest of things in life -- a soul mate.
At the same time, this is not a sad book; rather, it is a triumphant one in that Madame Verona wills and is able to dictate the time and place of her own last moments of life. She does not brood nor mope during her remaining span of years but she does honor what she had with her composer husband by finding ways to cultivate the memories of their happiness.
Two artists -- at least one of them was able to excel in the "art of dying."
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Tags : Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill [Dimitri Verhulst] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV>A tender, precise, and perfect-pitch novel about a widow of legendary beauty and a love that endures beyond death from the new Dutch literary star. Years ago,Dimitri Verhulst,Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill,Granta UK,1846271576,Social isolation;Fiction.,Widows;Fiction.,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Literary,Modern fiction
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Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill Dimitri Verhulst 9781846271571 Books Reviews
It's not often I'd say you should definitely read a book, especially something in translation, but you should definitely read this book. Quite simply it's just an enjoyable read, despite what you might think considering the subject matter. Madame Verona comes down the hill, and she will never be able to make it up again. From this unravels the story of how she came to live on the hill in the first place, her husband Monsieur Potter, their life together, the woods on their property, the nearby village, the people there, the history... When Potter decides to hang himself instead of letting cancer take him Verona continues to live on, never quite letting go of him; even going so far as to have an ugly, terrible-sounding cello made from the tree he hung himself from... And as she waits on the hill she knows it won't be long before she's with him once again.
This is a great example of what novellas strive to be, something short and beautiful.
Exquisitely written, Dimitri Verhulst's short novel is a work of rare beauty that is relatively uncommon in modern literature - a brief novella, a concise and poetic meditation on life, specifically on the condition of reaching the end of one's life. The life in question is that of Madame Verona, a widow living alone in a small village after the death of her husband Monsieur Potter. Although over the years her great beauty is desired by the men of the village, Madame Verona clings to the memory of her husband, keeping only the company of the stray dogs that are drawn to her - a simple but unusual attraction that she hopes will stand her in good favour in the next life.
Verhulst considers Madame Verona's condition at this delicate stage in her life principally through the setting - specifically in the little village of Oucwègne, a village build on three hills. It's to this remote little place of no more than forty people that once had a cow for a mayor that she, a piano teacher, had come to live with her husband, a renowned composer. Her husband now dead, her regular climb down the hill to the village comes to express something else - the realization being that, in her old age, the day will come when she will not make it back up again. Adopting the tone of a fable, the novella considers the position of Madame Verona from a number of viewpoints - her own attempt to define her condition and also how she is viewed by the villagers of Oucwègne, but also through flashbacks that contrast the married woman with the widow, the younger woman with the older, and of course through the village itself which is also slowly dying in its distance from the modern world.
As well as finding much that is evocative in the setting and in the woods that border her house, Verhulst makes wonderful use of language and poetic imagery, considering for example the use a tree can be put to - a living thing reduced to wood that can be made into a coffin, or even a cello - and that the space the felled tree leaves behind will be occupied by something or someone. "It's like that for trees, it's like that for people". Gorgeously written in this respect, the novella finds a way to express the nature of life, of change and of the inevitable progression of time, seeking to find meaning in it all, or at least something of beauty.
Madame Verona and her husband Monsieur Potter are living in Oucwègne. Their house is on a hill and it's in a remote forest area. Oucwègne is a place where people are set in their ways, where table football is an important part of daily life, where people go to the vet if they have health issues and where baby girls are rare. Madame Verona is beautiful and still young when she loses her beloved Monsieur Potter. She misses him dearly and tries to endure life without him. Meanwhile she has the company of dogs as all dogs love her and want to be close to her.
Monsieur Potter chopped as much wood as he could for his wife. When he discovers he's ill he ends his life in a drastic way. Madame Verona has a lot of wood, but no husband to chop new wood for her, so eventually she will run out. There will be a final time when she goes down the hill, a time when she won't be able to climb back up again...
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill is a beautiful poetic story. Every word Dimitri Verhulst writes counts. It isn't a long story, but it doesn't have to be. The strength is in the love between Madame Verona and her husband and in the peculiarity of the village. They are a perfect match. The house on the hill and Oucwégne are an important part of this tale. Together they are balanced, they belong together. This book should be read because of its special love and the beautiful writing. It's fantastic, a true work of art.
It's a different little story, I had a difficult time staying present for the story line, what was it again?
Quirky. I sent it to my cousin who,, like Madame lives up a hill in Italy.
Review originally appeared on LibraryThing.
Elegiacal and melancholy novella about grief, set on a mythic hill in a small mountain village where one woman's loyalty to the memory of love for her husband is recorded in small acts of devotion to the stray dogs who have always sought her out and to the memory of that rarest of things in life -- a soul mate.
At the same time, this is not a sad book; rather, it is a triumphant one in that Madame Verona wills and is able to dictate the time and place of her own last moments of life. She does not brood nor mope during her remaining span of years but she does honor what she had with her composer husband by finding ways to cultivate the memories of their happiness.
Two artists -- at least one of them was able to excel in the "art of dying."
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