A Widow for One Year
The Basis for the Movie The Door in the Floor
(Sprache: Englisch)
Im Mittelpunkt des Romans steht Ruth Cole. Wir begegnen ihr an drei Wendepunkten ihres Lebens. Zuerst 1958 in ihrem Geburtshaus in Long Island. Ruth ist gerade vier Jahre alt. Das zweite Mal 1990 als unverheiratete Schriftstellerin in Frankfurt und...
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Im Mittelpunkt des Romans steht Ruth Cole. Wir begegnen ihr an drei Wendepunkten ihres Lebens. Zuerst 1958 in ihrem Geburtshaus in Long Island. Ruth ist gerade vier Jahre alt. Das zweite Mal 1990 als unverheiratete Schriftstellerin in Frankfurt und Amsterdam. Der dritte Teil des Romans spielt 1995 in Long Island. Ruth ist 41, Witwe und Mutter und verliebt sich zum ersten Mal. Eine vielschichtige Liebesgeschichte und eine Geschichte übers Erwachsenwerden.
Klappentext zu „A Widow for One Year “
Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four.
The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason.
A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time.
Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.
Lese-Probe zu „A Widow for One Year “
Summer 1958The Inadequate Lamp Shade
One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking--it was coming from her parents' bedroom. It was a totally unfamiliar sound to her. Ruth had recently been ill with a stomach flu; when she first heard her mother making love, Ruth thought that her mother was throwing up.
It was not as simple a matter as her parents having separate bedrooms; that summer they had separate houses, although Ruth never saw the other house. Her parents spent alternate nights in the family house with Ruth; there was a rental house nearby, where Ruth's mother or father stayed when they weren't staying with Ruth. It was one of those ridiculous arrangements that couples make when they are separating, but before they are divorced--when they still imagine that children and property can be shared with more magnanimity than recrimination.
When Ruth woke to the foreign sound, she at first wasn't sure if it was her mother or her father who was throwing up; then, despite the unfamiliarity of the disturbance, Ruth recognized that measure of melancholy and contained hysteria which was often detectable in her mother's voice. Ruth also remembered that it was her mother's turn to stay with her.
The master bathroom separated Ruth's room from the master bedroom. When the four-year-old padded barefoot through the bathroom, she took a towel with her. (When she'd been sick with the stomach flu, her father had encouraged her to vomit in a towel.) Poor Mommy! Ruth thought, bringing her the towel.
In the dim moonlight, and in the even dimmer and erratic light from the night-light that Ruth's father had installed in the bathroom, Ruth saw the pale faces of her dead brothers in the photographs on the bathroom wall. There were photos of her dead brothers throughout the house, on all the walls; although the two boys had died as teenagers, before Ruth was born (before she was even
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conceived), Ruth felt that she knew these vanished young men far better than she knew her mother or father.
The tall, dark one with the angular face was Thomas; even at Ruth's age, when he'd been only four, Thomas had had a leading man's kind of handsomeness--a combination of poise and thuggery that, in his teenage years, gave him the seeming confidence of a much older man. (Thomas had been the driver of the doomed car.)
The younger, insecure-looking one was Timothy; even as a teenager, he was baby-faced and appeared to have just been startled by something. In many of the photographs, Timothy seemed to be caught in a moment of indecision, as if he were perpetually reluctant to imitate an incredibly difficult stunt that Thomas had mastered with apparent ease. (In the end, it was something as basic as driving a car that Thomas failed to master sufficiently.)
When Ruth Cole entered her parents' bedroom, she saw the naked young man who had mounted her mother from behind; he was holding her mother's breasts in his hands and humping her on all fours, like a dog, but it was neither the violence nor the repugnance of the sexual act that caused Ruth to scream. The four-year-old didn't know that she was witnessing a sexual act--nor did the young man and her mother's activity strike Ruth as entirely unpleasant. In fact, Ruth was relieved to see that her mother was not throwing up.
And it wasn't the young man's nakedness that caused Ruth to scream; she had seen her father and her mother nakedÑnakedness was not hidden among the Coles. It was the young man himself who made Ruth scream, because she was certain he was one of her dead brothers; he looked so much like Thomas, the confident one, that Ruth Cole believed she had seen a ghost.
A four-year-old's scream is a piercing sound. Ruth was astonished at the speed with which her mother's young lover dismounted; indeed, he removed himself from both the woman and her bed with such
The tall, dark one with the angular face was Thomas; even at Ruth's age, when he'd been only four, Thomas had had a leading man's kind of handsomeness--a combination of poise and thuggery that, in his teenage years, gave him the seeming confidence of a much older man. (Thomas had been the driver of the doomed car.)
The younger, insecure-looking one was Timothy; even as a teenager, he was baby-faced and appeared to have just been startled by something. In many of the photographs, Timothy seemed to be caught in a moment of indecision, as if he were perpetually reluctant to imitate an incredibly difficult stunt that Thomas had mastered with apparent ease. (In the end, it was something as basic as driving a car that Thomas failed to master sufficiently.)
When Ruth Cole entered her parents' bedroom, she saw the naked young man who had mounted her mother from behind; he was holding her mother's breasts in his hands and humping her on all fours, like a dog, but it was neither the violence nor the repugnance of the sexual act that caused Ruth to scream. The four-year-old didn't know that she was witnessing a sexual act--nor did the young man and her mother's activity strike Ruth as entirely unpleasant. In fact, Ruth was relieved to see that her mother was not throwing up.
And it wasn't the young man's nakedness that caused Ruth to scream; she had seen her father and her mother nakedÑnakedness was not hidden among the Coles. It was the young man himself who made Ruth scream, because she was certain he was one of her dead brothers; he looked so much like Thomas, the confident one, that Ruth Cole believed she had seen a ghost.
A four-year-old's scream is a piercing sound. Ruth was astonished at the speed with which her mother's young lover dismounted; indeed, he removed himself from both the woman and her bed with such
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Autoren-Porträt von John Irving
John Irving published his first novel at the age of twenty-six. He has received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation; he has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar.In 1992, Mr. Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 2001, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: John Irving
- 2001, 608 Seiten, Maße: 10,6 x 17,2 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Ballantine
- ISBN-10: 034543479X
- ISBN-13: 9780345434791
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
By turns antic and moving, lusty and tragic, A Widow for One Year is bursting with memorable moments. San Francisco Examiner-ChronicleWisely and carefully crafted . . . Irving is among the few novelists who can write a novel about grief and fill it with ribald humor soaked in irony. USA Today
Deeply affecting . . . The pleasures of this rich and beautiful book are manifold. To be human is to savor them. Los Angeles Times Book Review
A powerful tale to add to an already extraordinary body of work from a great American writer. Richmond Times-Dispatch
Masterful . . . powerful . . . Irving s best books are Dickensian in their rich characters, plotting and language and of course, in moving the reader. On the final page of A Widow for One Year . . . I literally burst out crying. Orlando Sentinel
A sprawling 19th-century production, chock full of bizarre coincidences, multiple plot lines, lengthy digressions, and stories within stories. . . . An engaging and often affecting fable, a fairy tale that manages to be old-fashioned and modern all at once. The New York Times
[Irving s] characters can beguile us onto thin ice and persuade us to dance there. His instinctive mark is the moral choice stripped bare, and his aim is impressive. What s more, there s hardly a writer alive who can match his control of the omniscient point of view. The Washington Post Book World
In the sprawling, deeply felt A Widow for One Year, John Irving has delivered his best novel since The World According to Garp. . . . Like a warm bath, it s a great pleasure to immerse yourself in. Entertainment Weekly
Enchantingly balances the haunting tug of grief with the lure of enduring love . . . Irving s rich narrative and his sense of play result in a delicious collusion between author and reader. Raleigh News & Observer
Wonderfully
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satisfying . . . [Irving] tells this story with so much delight that it s difficult for the reader not to be infected with the same kind of joy in the reading. The Dallas Morning News
As compelling as Garp . . . Which is to say it s terrific. . . . His most moving book . . . John Irving is one of America s great storytellers. San Jose Mercury News
Comic and tragic, brilliant, and moving . . . Crammed with all the wonderful characters, quirky situations and memorable coincidences that have made [Irving] so beloved by readers . . . A terrific read that will make you its willing slave, so captivating is its allure. Chattanooga Free Press
A feast . . . One of this storyteller s richest works. . . . A rich, resonant tale. Austin American-Statesman
Irving is a writer whose keenest sensibilities have always fallen somewhere between Dickensian verbosity and Mad magazine mischief. Rocky Mountain News
Full of humor, heartbreak and lust. Newsday
Powerful . . . a masterpiece. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A Widow for One Year delivers everything John Irving fans have come to expect from the beloved author of The World According to Garp: a funny, sad, sprawling saga full of oddball yet believable characters. Glamour
There s only one thing wrong with John Irving novels: They have to end. Readers won t easily part with the characters in his latest work, A Widow for One Year. . . . [An] exhilarating talent. The Tennessean
Moving and memorable . . . This novel marks a return to the deep but gentle examination of human nature that made Garp so successful. San Diego Union-Tribune
May be Irving s best book . . . A remarkable achievement. Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
As compelling as Garp . . . Which is to say it s terrific. . . . His most moving book . . . John Irving is one of America s great storytellers. San Jose Mercury News
Comic and tragic, brilliant, and moving . . . Crammed with all the wonderful characters, quirky situations and memorable coincidences that have made [Irving] so beloved by readers . . . A terrific read that will make you its willing slave, so captivating is its allure. Chattanooga Free Press
A feast . . . One of this storyteller s richest works. . . . A rich, resonant tale. Austin American-Statesman
Irving is a writer whose keenest sensibilities have always fallen somewhere between Dickensian verbosity and Mad magazine mischief. Rocky Mountain News
Full of humor, heartbreak and lust. Newsday
Powerful . . . a masterpiece. St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A Widow for One Year delivers everything John Irving fans have come to expect from the beloved author of The World According to Garp: a funny, sad, sprawling saga full of oddball yet believable characters. Glamour
There s only one thing wrong with John Irving novels: They have to end. Readers won t easily part with the characters in his latest work, A Widow for One Year. . . . [An] exhilarating talent. The Tennessean
Moving and memorable . . . This novel marks a return to the deep but gentle examination of human nature that made Garp so successful. San Diego Union-Tribune
May be Irving s best book . . . A remarkable achievement. Sunday Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
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