Brandes's Decision

by Eduard Márquez

"A short but intense novel. Big, believe me."—Joan Josep Isern, Avui

"A little masterpiece."—Giancarlo Montalbini, Lettera

"A refined book. One of those books one should add to one's book collection, that one should re-read when looking for emotions in the silent world of writing."—Matteo Chiavarone, Ghigliottina

Brandes, a painter living in the Nazi-occupied Paris, will have to make a tough decision: Goering has taken away all his work and asked him to hand him over his Lucas Cranach painting, a family relic. If he does so, he will retrieve them, if he refuses to do it, he will never get them back.

Genres: Art, Fiction

150 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Eduard Márquez Taña

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a bit silly for reading this book in English as I can read in Catalan, but I thought it was a good translation. The novel is short but powerful, and centres on Brandes, a painter who is living his last days looking back at his tumultuous life. The style is very much Catalan I feel, also very literary, but it's a relatively easy read. There were some excellent passages with good quotes.

[Joan Planells · Rating 2 out of 5]

En acabar “La decisió de Brandes”, de l’Eduard Màrquez, m’assalta una certesa: d’aquí pocs mesos, no en recordaré pràcticament res. Cap detall. Cap personatge. Cap situació. A penes la trama, si en aquestes línies la descric una mica. Però poc més.

“La decisió de Brandes” m’ha semblat un llibre tirant a avorrit. La trama no és tal. Com a molt, és una excusa retòrica per posar-li títol al llibre i marcar un inici i un final del mateix. Si no fos un text curt, crec que m’hagués pensat si abandonar-lo a mitges, no tant per avorriment, sinó per la sensació de què allò no anava enlloc i hi estava perdent un temps que podria estar dedicant a qualsevol altre dels milers de llibres pendents.

Ressenya completa aquí.

[Buse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sanatı ve sanat dünyasını sevdiğim için eserin resimler üzerine olması, detaylara yer verilmesi çok hoşuma gitti. Anlatım ve değindiği noktalar da öyle. Maalesef kitabın sonu için ise aynı şeyi söyleyemeyeceğim, çok vasat kalmıştı.

❝...Zaman akıp gittikçe, insanın belleği acının keskin kenarlarını törpülüyor, kederin ağırlığını hafifletiyor, hasretin dış hatlarını silikleştiriyor. Oysa ölümün yakın olması, unutkanlığın kurduğu tuzaklardan kurtulmuş olan anların hiç alışılmadık bir canlılıkla zedelenmesine neden oluyor. Belki de hiçliğin bu derece yakın olması, o anları, dikkatimi çekmek için son bir çaba harcamaya zorluyor olabilir. Son düşüncelerimi onların hangisi meşgul edecek acaba?...❞

❝...Hiç yorulmadan çalışır, acele etmez, hile de yapmazsan, sabrın da varsa her şeye sahip olursun...❞

[Julia Alberino · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, with many themes. There are a couple of twists that would constitute spoilers, so read the book for yourself, especially if you like Catalan authors but read them in translation for convenience. This is a good translation. Plot wise, you will find plenty about memory, occupied Paris, art, and even the science of creating pigments. Just to clarify, I did NOT read the Kindle edition, but GoodReads is being balky and not letting me change it to the Hispabooks Publisher paperback edition. I think you may not want to read the Kindle edition, since there are times (even though the book is short) when I, at least, wanted to go back and refresh my knowledge of a certain character or event, and that remains cumbersome on Kindle.

[Lis Gaibar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro que se lee rápido y que te envuelve bastante en la dinámica de confesión del protagonista, lo cual me parecen dos virtudes; pero tiene otros defectos. El primero y principal es que el estilo me resulta algo pretencioso, hay frases muy buenas pero que siento que no me terminan de pegar, que es una licencia literaria que me aparta del personaje por sentirla forzada. Me pasa que cuando siento un estilo poco natural (que no tiene que estar relacionado con la sencillez del lenguaje), no paro de sobreanalizarlo y no disfruto igual del libro. A mí me ha pasado con este. Sin embargo, en general se trata de una lectura entretenida y con reflexiones interesantes. 3,5/5

[Sangeeta K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of this book is tautology, with Brandes never quite saying more than what memories he has, and a lot of his life events overlapping, being full of decisions made out of hapless events. We don't know why what's happened to him has happened, but the title doesn't promise to tell you this. I, in the middle, was 'lost in the orpiment' not in a good way, but the ending was quite nice. A solid 2.75 star book for me.

[JO i els Meus Llibres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Petit esquema de pintors i situació durant la II guerra mundial

[Graham Oliver]

I interviewed the translator of this book here: http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/lan...

First half is pretty slow (lots of figuring out timeline and people's identities), but man, talk about a book that circles around the drain of trauma for a shotgun-blast of an ending.