Mrs. K and her book and movie reviews.

Book Reviews

I read Harpswells "The Secret Life of Bees" and could hardly put it down once I started. It's about a little white girl in the south in the 60's who runs away from home with her black nanny and the personal and racial struggles they encounter.....I don't want to tell anymore cuz I don't like giving away too much.....but it's very good....
Another one I read recently and loved is called "The Things They Carried." Gaines loaned it to me and I'm greatful she did. It's about Vietnam, but it's nothing like any other war story; it's about the things they carried with them and is a narrative, almost like the author is sitting there telling you his deepest confessions 30 years later. It's wonderful.
Oooh, and another one I just got in a little book shop in Sopron is called A magyarok kolteszete (the o has two dots and the first e has a dash). ie Poetry of the Magyars. It's great cuz you know how the hungarians love poetry and this book is bilingual. It's apparently, too, a famous book of poetry. The dude who put it together is Sir John Bowring in 1830 (I'm reading about all that in the extensive introduction right now). Apparently all his translations are pretty bad but, according to introduction, this is a book that all Hungarians know about, even if they've never read it, and even though it's super famous, it's never been reprinted before this year. So I'm pretty syched. I had hoped it would help me with my Hungarian, but now that I know the translations are apparently pretty bad, well, we'll see.

Film Reviews

Oh!!! A few more recommendations: last night Yerik and I watched 2 Hungarian movies. Speaking of working on my Hungarian, these two films would be highly entertaining ways to do so, especially since some of the translations for the subtitles leave out the most colorful phrases, it seems worth learning enough to understand what they're saying. The first film is called "Magyar Vandor" (there's a dash on the last a). I don't even want to begin to describe the plot, but I will say that it's full of little jokes about Hungary and Hungarians and I at least loved that I got most of the jokes. I'm fairly certain that a Hungarian would tell you that it's a cheesey flick, but I at least am looking forward to finding a copy of this one to own.
The second film is Kontroll. This one you may have heard about. It's the one about the Budapest metro line ticket controllers. It's quite good. Gives me a new perspective on those dudes we love to hate.

Again any other reviews of just lists of who has what books would be helpful.