Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67758 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 525 pages

Synopsis
Follows Trudi Montag, a dwarf who serves as her town's librarian, unofficial historian, and recorder of the secret stories of her people, in a novel that charts the course of German history in the first half of the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews

Outstanding!
A friend who had recently read this book gave me his copy, because as students of German we both have an interest in the country and its past.

The book is captivating! So all-embracing, so detailed, so absorbing, so vivid is Ursula Hegi's work here that often it is difficult to remember that "Stones from the River" is fiction and not fact. From very early on, we, through the eyes of a dwarf called Trudi Montag, are fed information about the events, inhabitants, traditions and secrets in the Rhine town of Burgdorf - sometimes in an offhand way, sometimes directly, but always with the effect that by the time we are told of the changes brought by the Nazis' rise to power, we have been fully acquainted with everyone there is to know and have formed opinions on them, whether positive or negative. This makes the changes themselves all the more poignant as, for example, we see affliction being heaped on the guiltless people we have come to know through Trudi's anecdotes and accounts.

I cannot recommend this book strongly enough to anyone! The best fiction I have ever read.

"In some people, [fear] brings out the lowest instincts while others become more compassionate."
Written in 1994, and set in the small (fictional) German town of Burgdorf from 1915 - 1951, this compassionate novel centers on Trudi Montag, a bright, observant, and articulate young woman who is also a zwerg, a dwarf. Born to a mentally ill mother who dies when Trudi is three, Trudi is at first bewildered by her small size, hanging from doorframes to "stretch" her arms and legs, praying that she will become more like other children, and believing that if she is truly good, God will help her.

Though a circus dwarf once comforts her by describing a fantasyland filled with gold and jewels, where everyone is a zwerg, Trudi finds that real life is not so magical. She is physically and mentally assaulted, and as a teenager watches in horror as the Nazis come to power, assaulting and later "deporting" her Jewish friends, whom the authorities now consider "different." Trudi's experience of her own "otherness" makes her a sympathetic friend and active supporter of the local Jews, and Hegi evokes great power by connecting these overwhelming horrors with the life of one small person in one small community. Through Trudi, Burgdorf's citizens come alive--those who befriend her and those who reject her, those who support her efforts to help the Jews and those who don't, and those who pity her and those who are inspired by her.

Throughout the novel, Hegi shows the power of storytelling to influence lives. Trudi works in her father's pay-library, and she is the community's best known storyteller, creating entertaining and lively stories that teach lessons, especially during the war years. But Trudi is no Pollyanna--she also uses her storytelling ability as a weapon against those who offend her, wreaking her own brand of personal vengeance. As the novel evolves, her childhood companions come and go. Some remain stalwart friends, and some change with the times. She matures emotionally, falls in love, and becomes part of the community's rebuilding after the war.

Hegi, who lived in Germany until she was eighteen, includes the small details of German life that bring the community and Trudi to life. Her depiction of war-time horrors is honest, and the stories of Trudi's Jewish friends are heart-breaking in their realism. Despite the sadness inherent in the times, however, Hegi is often lyrical in her celebrations of happiness, and Trudi's stories are often enchanting. Incorporating universal themes of love and hatred, life and death, strength and weakness, and acceptance and rejection, Hegi creates a novel that is as powerful on its second reading as on its first. Mary Whipple

Life-changing!
This is the story of the thousands and thousands of regular German civilians who were living in Germany during the Second World War whilst untold atrocities were being perpetrated by Hitler and his regime throughout the country. For anyone who has wondered what these people were doing, thinking, feeling in those desperate times this book will provide many answers. It is not a work of fact but rather a fiction so vivid and true that through the narrative a glimpse of reality emerges and a deeper understanding of what these people experienced can be grasped. Trudi Montag is a Zwerg - a dwarf - set apart from the rest of the community by her "difference" from the youngest of ages she is the ideal person to tell this tale set in a place and time where "difference" was not viewed kindly. The setting is a small German town, through Trudi's eyes we become part of this vivid community: we live the simple small-town life before the war, feel the gradually changing times and attitudes as Hitler's influence starts to spread, shiver through the hardships of wartime Germany and finally witness the "stock-taking" and soul-searching of the post-war era. All the characters are here, living in this book - the misfits, the followers, the heroes, the victims, the soldiers, the children, the innocent and the wicked - all portrayed in a way that is real, human, believable and also very frightening. This book is neither apologetic nor is it judgmental it is simply a slice of life from a slice of time. It truly makes you think about how gullible we human beings can be, how easily swept up in the hysteria of the moment. "What were you doing during the war?" is a question Trudi asks herself inwardly as the soldiers start dribbling home from the war - "what would I have been doing?" is the question the reader is compelled to ask himself. This is one of those books that leaves you changed as a person.