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ClareR (6247 KP) rated The Silence of Scheherazade in Books

Nov 29, 2022

The Silence of Scheherazade

Defne Suman | 2021 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

What’s it about:
We follow four families as their lives are changed forever when the Ottoman Empire is torn apart, and the city of Smyrna is at the front and centre of the trouble and violence.
This novel covers about 17 years from 1905, and follows four families from very different backgrounds: Levantine, Greek, Turkish and Armenian.

Scheherazade is born in September 1905, and never knows her mother as she is abandoned. An Indian spy (sent from the British) is who will tie them all together.

My thoughts:
I love an epic, sprawling story, and following the lives of four families certainly gives a lot of scope for that.

It was fascinating to learn about the different cultures of the four families, and of course Smyrna was a main character in itself.

It’s a book to be immersed in, with the sights and smells beautifully described.

Just my kind of book!

Kudos

The Silver Wolf

J. C. Harvey

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

The extraordinarily rich, dark, panoramic tale of an orphaned boy's quest for truth and then for...

Historical fiction 17th Century The Thirty Years War Europe

Niten. NR (75 KP) rated Dunkirk (2017) in Movies

Jul 27, 2017

Dunkirk (2017)

2017 | Action, History, War

8.0

(197 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Cinematography (6 more)

Story line/lines (merge)

An excellent cast.

Hans Zimmer's score

Minimalistic dialogue

Spitfires (aerial combat scenes)

Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance & Tom Hardy (being cool) .

A minor negative that due to the lack of back story. I believe knowledge of the historical event would be beneficial. (0 more)

Powerful & Immense

This is one hell of a film. It's an epic, all consuming, continually intensifying beast of a movie. The cinematography blew me away with those great big expansive shots. The 3 storyline amalgamation and the timescale structure of this, was superb in my opinion. Each lead in each storyline gave a powerful performance without the overuse of dialogue. Hans Zimmer's score built and built until, at times I felt like I was about to explode. I did feel that I enjoyed the film all the more because I was aware of the situation historically, there is a brief explanation early on but, I would advise anyone who's not aware, to read up a little on the massive scale of this evacuation, the uniqueness of the situation and the dangerous time it was for all involved. Overall, it's a must see at the cinema and to get the best of the sound and those beautiful aerial Spitfire vs Messerschmitt scenes, in Imax if possible.

Kudos

Sarah (7800 KP) rated One Hundred Years of Solitude in Books

Aug 5, 2018

Weird and a little overrated

I thought this book was more of a historical epic, and although it's based around the history of one family, I hadn't expected the deep fantasy elements throughout the story.

To begin with this book was a revelation - it was weird and wonderful, entertaining and a little bit bonkers. However this for me could only keep me going so far. Around 2/3 of the way through I started to get a little bit bored and getting through the remainder of the book was such a drag. The book has a sort of dreamlike quality to it and the plot and narrative moves and jumps around quite a lot and it did become a little difficult to follow. It wasn't helped by the fact that nearly all characters had different variations of the same 3 names, so it was a massive issue trying to remember which person was being spoken about. The characters themselves were also fairly unlikable and you can only read for so long when you don't like the characters.

It's an interesting story and a very unusual plot and writing style, but I just wish it had been at the very least a little shorter. Not one I'd read again.