A complicated kindness - a novel

Miriam Toews

Vintage Canada

2004

250 páginas

8h 20m

ISBN-10: 0676976131

"We're Mennonites. As far as I know, we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you're a teenager. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man called Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing... Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking, temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock 'n' roll, having sex for fun, swimming, makeup, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o'clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Meno."
A work of fierce originality and brilliance, Miriam Toews's award-winning novel explores the ties that bind families together and the forces that tear them apart. It is the world according to Nomi Nickel, a heartbreakingly bewildred and wry young woman trapped in a small Mennonite town that seekes to set her on the path to righteousness and smother her at the same time.
"Half of our family, the better-looking half, is missing", Nomi tells us at the beggining of A Complicated Kindness. Left alone with her father, Ray, her days are spent piecing together the reasons her mother, Trudie, and her sister, Natasha, have gone missing, and trying to figure out what she can do to avoid a career at Happy Family Farms, a chicken abattoir on the out-skirts of East Village - not the neighbourhood in Manhattan where Nomi most wants to live but the small town in southern Manitoba.
As Nomi gets to the bottom of the truth behind her mother's and sister's disappearences, she finds herself on a direct collision course with the only community she has ever known. But one startling act of defiance brings the novel to its shattering conclusion, and Mirian Toews reveals herself as a master of storytelling at the height of her powers.

Resenhas (1)

3.5 (Bom)

É complicado...

Quando comecei a leitura me perguntei "o que está acontecendo neste livro?" e o deixei de lado. Alguns meses depois, quando retomei a leitura, a pergunta continuou a mesma, mas o fato de que eu não sabia o que estava acontecendo não era mais um empecilho. A criatividade e destreza da autora permitiram que entrássemos na confusão da personagem principal, Nomi, e, junto a ela, tentássemos resolvê-la. É um livro belamente escrito, conta com personagens críveis e cheios de características lindas e muitas falhas para nos identificarmos, amando-os, com uma história que pode parecer não levar a lugar algum mas, após minha leitura, percebi que tem como objetivo traçar possibilidades de caminho, e não de chegada. Para quem gosta de aventuras elaboradas e muitos acontecimentos, não indicaria a leitura, mas para aqueles que gostam de algo mais introspectivo, excelente opção.