Sunken Red (Twentieth Century Lives)

By Jeroen Brouwers

Book Overview

Two epigraphs introduce this wrenching novel. One is taken from Eckermman's "Conversations with Goethe: "
But in his accustomed way, wrapping himself in mystery, he looked at me wide-eyed, and said these words: "The mothers Mothers How marvelous that sounds "

The other is from "The Song of the Dead," from the Southern Celebes:
Seek me while I am here. Know me because I am here. I am here. Yet it is certain that I am not here.

Those flashes of dark light, the alternating current of love and estrangement, are the pulses that have molded an artist and blasted a life. It is clear that the narrator's story of imprisonment with his mother in a Japanese concentration camp during the Second World War-five years old, exploring the camp on a single skate--is the author's own story, and indeed the story of many of his generation. Strange, and strangely exalting to have made art out of the memory of horror, with a spirit crippled by loss. Strange that a loveless life as an older child in Holland, as a young man, as a man no longer young, can, on the death of the mother from whom he separated himself, raise this paean to what was missing, and find the self-knowledge that lets him glimpse the shape of that woman's spirit and her tragedy.
Jeroen Brouwers is a distinguished Dutch man of letters, the author of four novels, a play, and several volumes of biography, autobiography, and literary history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1561310255
• ISBN13: 9781561310258
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: New Amsterdam Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.5" x 1.1" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

Sunken Red

The book starts where the mother of Jeroen dies. For years he has hated his mother and tries to explain why. This leads him back to the Japanese camp where he and his mom spend several years in torment when he was only 5 years old. In the beginning you think of Jeroen as a strange man, but while the story goes on you start to understand him more and more. The ending will move you to tears. This is my all time favorite book and I can recommend it to anyone.

Un livre très marquant

Ce livre retrace la vie terrible dans les camps de concentration en Indonésie détenue par les Japonais.Cela vous arrache les entrailles;et à chaque page les larmes restent bloquées dans notre gorge devant le courage de cette mère face à ce destin inhumain. Il n'y a pas de partie pris car la cruauté en tant de guerre est partout la même.

Un livre fascinant

Angoissant, fascinant, d'une beauté et d'une cruauté absolue. Comment la perte d'un être cher fait ressurgir dans la tête de l'auteur ses souvenirs (insoutenables) d'internement dans un camp japonais en Indonésie, et comment de ces souvenirs, l'homme nait au jugement de lui même, de sa famille (des pages magnifiques sur sa mère) et d'autrui. A lire absolument.