Bettie's Books

bookshelves: translation, sweden, women, series, published-1979, under-50-ratings, paper-read, epic-proportions, winter-20142015, spring-2015, memento-mori, medical-eew, period-piece, bedside, tbr-busting-2015

Description: The Angel House opens in the late 1920s and follows characters familiar from the previous novel through to the 1940s. The women are now free from the hard physical tasks of the earlier novels, but no less trapped in the grinding repetition of factory jobs, repressive unions, and domestic chores in the isolation of their new homes. A male hierarchy still dominates the town; time is ruled by financial imperatives, council chairman's gavels, factory whistles, and military orders. Against this Ekman sets the remnants of a more organic timescale, governed by the slow evolution of women's bodies, the nurture of informal networks, and the unhurried cycles of trees and fruit bushes in old gardens.

Opening: At the windy corner of Highway Street and Industrial Road, opposite the Co-operative Stores. stood a lime tree and a large, old wooden building. There was a newspaper kiosk too, to be strictly accurate. The lime tree and the building used to talk to one another. But there were long intervals between their words.

For fun - Olle Adolphson: 'Trubbel' I have to laugh into my sleeve when it comes to Americans not understanding the difference twixt Social Democrats and Communists, hence the standoff in this song...

Hot damn! but I love this series about women in Sweden through the ages. Had to smile knowing that the ladies crotcheted covers for the chain guards on their bikes - yarn bombed before that term was in use.

This one didn't have quite the bite of the previous two but I will get around to the final one after a sufficient gap to cleanse the palate.



4* Blackwater
5* The Forest Of Hours
3* The Dog
3* Under the Snow

The Wolfskin Trilogy:
4* God's Mercy
WL #2
WL #3

The Women and the Town series:
4* Witches' Rings
4* The Spring
3* The Angel House
WL City of Light