Novo Livro para o Clube de Leitura

The Man Who Spoke Snakish

de Andrus Kivirähk

Traduzido por Christopher Moseley


Grove Press UK 2017




(442 paginas)

No segundo encontro do Clube de Leitura do Spohom Bucareste, onde foi discutida a obra de Elena Ferrante A Amiga Genial, foi escolhido o livro do escritor estónio Andrus Kivirähk The Man Who Spoke Snakish para o terceiro encontro, que se realizará amanhã. Só recebi o livro no dia da minha chegada a Lisboa, pois pedi ao meu filho que o encomendasse. Esta semana tem sido muito ocupada- só hoje o abri e cataloguei.

Entretanto tenho estado a ler The President is Missing de Bill Clinton e James Patterson, mas por enquanto a leitura não me tem entusiasmado ( apesar de estar quase a meio - pag 187). Vamos ver como será The Man Who Spoke Snakish...

"Unfortunately people and tribes degenerate. They lose their teeth, forget their language, until finally they're bending meekly on the fields and cutting straw with a scythe. Leemut, a young boy growing up in the forest, is content living with his hunter-gatherer family. But when incomprehensible outsiders arrive aboard ships and settle nearby, with an intriguing new religion, the forest begins to empty - people are moving to the village and breaking their backs tilling fields to make bread. Meanwhile, Leemut and the last forest-dwelling humans refuse to adapt: with bare-bottomed primates and their love of ancient traditions, promiscuous bears, and a single giant louse, they live in shacks, keep wolves, and speak to snakes.
Told with moving and satirical prose, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is a fiercely imaginative allegory about a boy, and a nation, standing on the brink of dramatic change"
in www.bookdepository.com


"A bestseller in the author’s native country of Estonia, where the book is so well known that a popular board game has been created based on it, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is the imaginative and moving story of a boy who is tasked with preserving ancient traditions in the face of modernity.
Set in a fantastical version of medieval Estonia, The Man Who Spoke Snakish follows a young boy, Leemet, who lives with his hunter-gatherer family in the forest and is the last speaker of the ancient tongue of snakish, a language that allows its speakers to command all animals. But the forest is gradually emptying as more and more people leave to settle in villages, where they break their backs tilling the land to grow wheat for their “bread” (which Leemet has been told tastes horrible) and where they pray to a god very different from the spirits worshipped in the forest’s sacred grove. With lothario bears who wordlessly seduce women, a giant louse with a penchant for swimming, a legendary flying frog, and a young charismatic viper named Ints, The Man Who Spoke Snakish is a totally inventive novel for readers of David Mitchell, Sjón, and Terry Pratchett"
in www.amazon.com