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Buy Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi available and for sale on Brightsurf
| View Larger Image | Stones from the River
by Ursula Hegi
| | List Price: | $15.00 | | Price: | $10.20 | | You Save: | $4.80 (32%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 9733 | | Studio: | Simon & Schuster | | | Binding: | Paperback | | Number Of Pages: | 525 | | Publication Date: | March 01, 1995 | | Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Stones from the River is a daring, dramatic and complex novel of life in Germany. It is set in Burgdorf, a small fictional German town, between 1915 and 1951. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, a Zwerg -- the German word for dwarf woman. As a dwarf she is set apart, the outsider whose physical "otherness" has a corollary in her refusal to be a part of Burgdorf's silent complicity during and after World War II. Trudi establishes her status and power, not through beauty, marriage, or motherhood, but rather as the town's librarian and relentless collector of stories.Through Trudi's unblinking eyes, we witness the growing impact of Nazism on the ordinary townsfolk of Burgdorf as they are thrust on to a larger moral stage and forced to make choices that will forever mark their lives. Stones from the River is a story of secrets, parceled out masterfully by Trudi -- and by Ursula Hegi -- as they reveal the truth about living through unspeakable times. |
Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, February 1997: Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River clamors for comparisons to Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum; her protagonist Trudi Montag--like the unforgettable Oskar Mazerath--is a dwarf living in Germany during the two World Wars. To its credit, Stones does not wilt from the comparison. Hegi's book has a distinctive, appealing flavor of its own. Stone's characters are off-center enough to hold your attention despite the inevitable dominance of the setting: There's Trudi's mother, who slowly goes insane living in an "earth nest" beneath the family house; Trudi's best friend Georg, whose parents dress him as the girl they always wanted; and, of course, Trudi herself, whose condition dooms her to long for an impossible normalcy. Futhermore, the reader's inevitable sympathy for Trudi, the dwarf, heightens the true grotesqueness of Nazi Germany. Stones from the River is a nightmare journey with an unforgettable guide. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 332 reviews)
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Shoot me now 
I had to read and annotate this book for AP language/composition. It was the worst book I have ever read in my entire life.
July 16, 2008 | |
not a disappointment 
Some books disappoint on a second reading, but not this one. When it came time for my book club to read this book I was very excited, because I remembered that I really liked it the first time I read it. And I was not disappointed. I think I liked this book at least as much the second time around as the first.
This is a story with two contrasting themes. One is difference. Told mostly from the perspective of Trudi, a dwarf, who feels how different she is from the members of her community on a daily basis. And she sees how difference in others is persecuted under the Nazis.
The other theme of this book is community. One thing I really liked about this book is how we come to know so many members of Trudi's community throughout their lives. We understand as well as Trudi does why certain members of the community do certain things, because we have known them almost as long as she has. Hegi does a wonderful job of bringing the whole community to life.
And she is more than equal to the task of describing what the advent of Nazism does to this small German community. She does not shy away from the people who enthusiastically embrace Hitler and his party, but she does portray in a more sympathetic way those who at least question Hitler's policies.
Rather than making a judgment call, though, based on how her characters respond to the Third Reich, Hegi seems more interested in demonstrating the range of responses that existed in a small town, and how those differing responses change the character of the town itself.
July 03, 2008 | |
Book club choice 
This was my book club's choice last month, and probably not a book I would have picked up on my own. But I enjoyed it. It was a little hard to read with a lot of German words stuck here and here, and a lot of characters to keep track of. But you were rooting for Trudi throughout the book. Got an understanding for what a small person goes through on a regular basis. It also painted a great picture of Nazi occupied Germany, and not only what Jews went through but how good German people did what they needed to, to survive and keep their families alive. I sometimes wondered what was going on in those towns outside the concentration camps and why they didnt ask what was going on..have a pretty good picture now why.
May 31, 2008 | |
I loved this book, and I am here to defend it from the people who don't agree
This book took me on the journey through a woman's life who just happens to be a zwerg (dwarf). She was an amazing character who experiences an extraordinary life in a small town in Germany. I often can't get through a book because of authors who have phony styles and try too hard. This book, however, is so REAL. It is beautifully written and anyone who disagrees has bad taste (in my not so humble opinion). I couldn't put the book down and at every moment wanted to immerse my mind in the intricate story of Trudi Montag. I stayed up until 4 in the morning 2 nights in a row, unable to stop reading.
The journey this story took me on is not to be missed. I am so grateful that I experienced it!
December 28, 2007 | |
A good book, but not great
In Stones from the River, set in wartime Germany, in the fictional town of Burgdorf, Ursula Hegi sets the theme of her book early on through Trudi's mother, Gertrude. She allows her young daughter to run her fingers across the scars on her thigh, feeling the grains of gravel beneath, telling her, "People die if you don't love them enough." The grains of gravel paralleled the stones in the river (hence the title) - they were sins people committed that, like the ripples in water from a stone being cast in, showed their scar on the surface for only a short time and then disappeared, but the stones remain beneath, unseen, like the sin. Already one can see the relevance this will have regarding the upcoming events in the novel, regarding the atrocities under the Nazi regime.
Trudi is a zwerg girl, a dwarf, who at first puts her faith in prayer, wishing to grow taller. She is confident in the divine power and, especially after meeting another zwerg woman named Pia, a lion tamer, feels more positive about herself and the possibility of "normalcy." However, after four abusive neighborhood boys find her too different and repulsive to even rape and instead humiliate her and disrobe her, she loses all faith in prayer, and from then on seems to take nothing for granted, developing an early conviction of justice.
By the end of the novel, after the World War II horrors have come to light and Germany begins to put itself back together, Trudi and the allied forces are able to finally deal out their justice. As the Americans move in it is now the Nazi supporters which are the ones being investigated and ostracized, as they had done to the Jews and dissidents. Once again, the themes of the stones in the river/gravel beneath the skin are set upon the town. People try to forget and pretend like the atrocities of war didn't happen, though beneath the surface the effects are still potent and permanent, as Trudi is determined to remind people of it. Remembering her mother's quote, it was people's lack of empathy and compassion that allowed such a horror as the Holocaust to occur.
Stones from the River offers the reader insight and understanding into this important era of history, whose hometown experiences of prejudice, denial, and hysteria are not entirely unique. The novel traces the hardships of several families in Trudi's small town with varying degrees of emotional impact. The story seems to slump and meander at times, particularly in the beginning and ending of the book, which makes the overall experience anti-climatic. Patience is required. Instead the story's greatest strength lies in the middle, and it is this portion that makes the endeavor worthwhile.
December 13, 2007 | |
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