I am reading the book Motherland by Fern Schumer Chapman. It wasn't necessarily the title that attracted me to the book but more its cover and the summary on the inside.
The cover had a very vintage feel to it so it was like going back in time. It has a table with a lace tablecloth on it and a vase with flowers. There is also a picture frame on top of the table but it has no picture in it, which gives the book a sense of mystery. Also the colors of the cover are very washed out so it's like looking at an old photograph.
The summary on the inside talks of a girl going off to America just as Germany had entered World War 2. The girl named Edith cuts off all her old memories of the past and tries to start a new life. But everywhere she goes she always feels out of place. After so many years of denying her past and trying to forget she and her daughter, who had never really known anything about her, decide to go back to their roots in Germany.
Now this gets me wondering to what secrets they might find in Germany. As I am about to start the book i see the epigram. "Like those pear-shaped Russian dolls that open at the middle to reveal another and another, down to the pea-sized, irreducible minim, may we carry our mothers forth in our bellies. May we, borne onward by our daughters, ride in the envelope of Almost-Infinity, that chain letter good for the next twenty-five thousand days of their lives." ---Maxine Kumin.
I think that has something to do with Edith and her daughter finding each other and becoming closer. I think it means that each of us of a piece of our mothers inside us and that we always will.
Of course when i start the book i was a bit disappointed. I expected flashbacks to the war, stories of cruel torture and love. But the most I got was a daughter going on and on about how she knows nothing about her mother. Hopefully though, the book will get better.
The cover had a very vintage feel to it so it was like going back in time. It has a table with a lace tablecloth on it and a vase with flowers. There is also a picture frame on top of the table but it has no picture in it, which gives the book a sense of mystery. Also the colors of the cover are very washed out so it's like looking at an old photograph.
The summary on the inside talks of a girl going off to America just as Germany had entered World War 2. The girl named Edith cuts off all her old memories of the past and tries to start a new life. But everywhere she goes she always feels out of place. After so many years of denying her past and trying to forget she and her daughter, who had never really known anything about her, decide to go back to their roots in Germany.
Now this gets me wondering to what secrets they might find in Germany. As I am about to start the book i see the epigram. "Like those pear-shaped Russian dolls that open at the middle to reveal another and another, down to the pea-sized, irreducible minim, may we carry our mothers forth in our bellies. May we, borne onward by our daughters, ride in the envelope of Almost-Infinity, that chain letter good for the next twenty-five thousand days of their lives." ---Maxine Kumin.
I think that has something to do with Edith and her daughter finding each other and becoming closer. I think it means that each of us of a piece of our mothers inside us and that we always will.
Of course when i start the book i was a bit disappointed. I expected flashbacks to the war, stories of cruel torture and love. But the most I got was a daughter going on and on about how she knows nothing about her mother. Hopefully though, the book will get better.
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