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ClareR (6230 KP) rated Bottled Goods in Books

Aug 18, 2018 (Updated Aug 18, 2018)

Bottled Goods

Sophie van Llewyn | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Life in Ceausescu’s Romania.

Set in Romania in the 1970’s, this portrays life for Alina and her husband, Liviu, under the Communist Ceausescu regime. Life for them becomes even harder when Alina’s brother in law defects to Germany. Her husband is a head teacher and is transferred to a difficult, failing school and seems to rely heavily on the alcohol that he drinks on the long train journey home. Meanwhile, Alina is harassed by a Secret Service agent, and this becomes very sinister.
The bottled goods of the title could be used as a metaphor for different aspects of this story: the perfumes Alina covets from the West; Liviu’s reliance on alcohol; how the couple (and probably their countrymen) bottle up their emotions and desire to defect; and a final, more fairytale bottling up - which I won’t give away.
This was all presented in the form of flash fiction that joined together to make a whole story. I liked this approach. It made the whole book feel uncomfortable (you never quite get in to the swing or the rhythm of the story), probably how Alina and Liviu felt, constantly under threat of arrest.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Fairlight Books for my copy of this book.