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From the Bookshelf of The Read Around The World Book Club…

Eve out of Her Ruins

Ananda Devi,

J.M.G. Le Clézio (Introduction)

Start date: December 1, 2018

Finish date: December 31, 2018

Discussion: December 2018 - MAURITIUS

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Showing 2 of 2 topics — 20 comments total

December 2018 - MAURITIUS

The rest
By Melanie · 8 posts · 46 views

last updated Dec 24, 2018 06:00AM

First half of the book
By Melanie · 12 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 17, 2018 03:04PM

What Members Thought

Mar 12, 2017 Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2017

While there were many stand-alone sentences that made me gasp and/or tugged on my heart, I did not like this book. The two central female characters moved me, but the characters of the men were incoherent. The writing was my biggest problem: the accumulation of emphatically poetic declaration after emphatically poetic declaration in lieu of more standard narration and characterization repulsed me by the end. I did finish, but unenjoyably so.

14 likes · Like · see review

Dec 23, 2018 Britta Böhler rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, femlit, fiction, 2018bw-read, 01women1001, 01women1001-read, fiction-literay, poc, fiction-transl, wit

I can see why so many readers loved this book but the uber-poetic language didnt work for me. I read a few passages in the French original and from that and the translator's note, I have to say that the English translation didn't convince me either. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Dec 12, 2018 Jo rated it really liked it

4.5 stars

It took me a few short chapters to get into this novel but once I got used to the rhythms of the language, I was engrossed in the story of Eve. The novel is narrated by four voices with occasional pages in between acting as further insight into the thoughts of the characters. There are two male and two female narrators with the prose changing slightly with each voice but with most of the sentences being short or choppy, especially when Eve is speaking, and there is the feeling that ever 4.5 stars

It took me a few short chapters to get into this novel but once I got used to the rhythms of the language, I was engrossed in the story of Eve. The novel is narrated by four voices with occasional pages in between acting as further insight into the thoughts of the characters. There are two male and two female narrators with the prose changing slightly with each voice but with most of the sentences being short or choppy, especially when Eve is speaking, and there is the feeling that every word is being pulled from her unwillingly.

Living in the poverty stricken area of Troumaron in Mauritius this book is a no holds barred illustration of what it is to be stuck in this area, to be in a kind of prison with little chance of escape. Eve’s life is one of letting her body be used by others to enable her to get the things she needs, to get by and survive-just. She has separated herself from her body, an image we see time and again in novels where women are abused, where the only way to survive is to leave the physical self behind. For Eve, Sarita, her friend, is the only consolation, a buffer between her and the harsh world she lives in while Saad, who loves her, she always keeps at a distance, unable to think of men in any positive way for all too obvious reasons.

Right from the start, there is a sense of inevitability, as we see Eve on her way to do something clearly serious, we know that this novel will not follow a happy ever after path. The way in which it moves towards this end is heart-breaking and revealing of the other side of a holiday island many people view as a paradise. As we witness Eve’s struggle, the fragility of her body is a contrast to the ‘lioness’ that grows inside her and there is a desire for her to break out of this prison in any way possible.

Ananda Devi is a poet and it shows in her writing, as I said it takes a little time to get used to it and this is not a book to be sped through but to read slowly, to visualize these images she creates, of the poverty, of the beauty and of the pain. This isn’t a book for all but for me it was a powerful portrayal of what being born in such a place can mean for your future and the different ways in which men and women, young and old make it through.

Some favorite lines

‘One day we wake up and the future has disappeared. The sky hides the window. Night makes its way into our bodies and refuses to leave.’

‘I read in secret, all the time. I read in the toilets, I read in the middle of the night, I read as if books could loosen the noose tightening around my throat. I read to understand that there is a somewhere else. A dimension where possibilities shimmer.’

‘When I walk under the mango trees, they wave to me like they know me. I think I look like lots of things-organic, or mineral, or strange or sloughed-off, but I don’t look like a woman. Only a reflection of a woman. Only an echo of a woman. Only the deformed idea of a woman.’

‘There is no fairy at my crib. I think when I opened my eyes I suddenly saw my whole life in front of me: a stone wall, bars over my eyes, a gag in my mouth, and metal in my heart. That face drove me to pronounce, when I opened my mouth that vital word: no’

‘Everybodys looking right at me. As if I’d broken the laws. I had disturbed the pattern, changed the space, broken open the locked doors. I sow discord. I give off a smell of greasy soot. I’m the fallen angel of the neighborhood, its ripped out soul.’
...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2018 Biblibio rated it it was amazing

Shelves: novellas, 21st-century, translated, women-in-translation, fiction, language-french

This is a beautiful and special book. While definitely more of a quick read, I loved the writing and the pacing. The narration shifts, for the most part, between three teenage narrators (occasionally expanding to a fourth) from Mauritius, living rough lives and seeking to make the best of them. Eve, the novella's central character (even as she does not necessarily narrate the majority of the text), is the sort of character that feels like a star burning out of the pages of the book; her strength ...more

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Dec 29, 2016 QQJJ marked it as to-read

Shelves: in-translation, africa-s

Apr 02, 2017 Tina Huntz marked it as to-read

Apr 03, 2017 Emmy B marked it as to-read · review of another edition

1 like · Like

Jul 18, 2017 bookslover_roxana rated it it was amazing

1 like · Like

Apr 09, 2017 Meredith rated it liked it

Apr 30, 2017 Kathleen marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: kamil-recommends

Jul 05, 2017 Gill Smith marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jul 12, 2017 Kym Wald marked it as to-read

Dec 17, 2018 Linda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-i-own, sewing-room-shelf-3-back-row

Dec 27, 2017 Navi marked it as to-read

Jan 05, 2018 Svetlana marked it as to-read

Jan 21, 2018 Kim marked it as to-read

May 26, 2019 Sanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lit-african, atw-africa-mauritius

Apr 16, 2018 Laura Frey (Reading in Bed) rated it liked it

Oct 17, 2018 Mary added it

Shelves: read-books-about-africa

Dec 06, 2018 Lisa10 rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2018

Nov 30, 2018 Marian marked it as to-read

Dec 09, 2018 Beatrizmallow rated it really liked it

1 like · Like

Dec 17, 2018 Marie rated it liked it

Shelves: around-the-world, ratw-book-club

Dec 29, 2018 patrice marked it as to-read

Mar 06, 2019 Eva marked it as to-read

Shelves: mauritius

Mar 10, 2019 Aileen Sitero marked it as to-read

May 03, 2019 Alexia Polasky marked it as to-read

Shelves: read-around-the-world

Apr 24, 2020 Alice marked it as aroundtheworld-bookclub

Jul 04, 2020 Adrienne marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jul 16, 2020 Kavitha marked it as to-read

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