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Swap the books you've read, for some you haven't!
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Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
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  | Orion, 2002 Paperback, 314 pages edition: New edition isbn: 0752849409value: 14 creditscondition: acceptable | owner: mckenzieanne     
Anna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whoM she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Set against the majestic isolation of the Scandinavian lakes and mountains, this is more than a story of three Swedish women. It is a moving testament of a time forgotten and an epic romance in every sense of the word.
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Hanna's Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson
Synopsis: Anna has returned from visiting her mother. Restless and unable to sleep, she wanders through her parents' house, revisiting the scenes of her childhood. In a cupboard drawer, folded and pushed away from sight, she finds a sepia photograph of her grandmother, Hanna, whoM she remembers as old and forbidding, a silent stranger enveloped in a huge pleated black dress. Now, looking at the features Anna recognises as her own, she realises she is looking at a different woman from the one of her memory. Set against the majestic isolation of the Scandinavian lakes and mountains, this is more than a story of three Swedish women. It is a moving testament of a time forgotten and an epic romance in every sense of the word.
Review: Hanna's daughters tells the stories of three generations of women in the same Swedish family. As Johanna lies dying in an geriatrics' hospital, her daughter Anna tries to make contact with her, to resolve her own questions about the past, and to understand her mother's life - questions she never thought to ask before it was too late. Once launched on this voyage of discovery, she also starts to wonder about her grandmother Hanna, about whom she knows almost nothing, in spite of the fact that her grandmother was alive well into her own young adulthood. In the course of the book, the lives of the three women are unfolded for the reader, and gradually bit by bit for Anna. The action moves from the poor Swedish farming areas on the Noorwegian border in the middle of the nineteenth century to Goteborg in the 1980's. To tell more would risk giving the plot away too much. Suffice to say that two peoples memories of the same event are never the same, and that the events of the past can cast long shadows. A moving and compelling book from a talented story teller and weaver of images.
Review: When I finished this book I immediately wanted to begin reading it again. It gives a fascinating glimpse of both daily life and emotional life over four generations. It illustrates how our views of love, work, society and family changed over time and also shows how hard it is sometimes to bridge the distances that separate us from our loved ones. It made me realize how little I know about the emotional life of my parents, my grand parents . .
Review: Dont let the jacket of this book deter you, for once you begin you immediatley realize that this is a thoroughly mezmerising and complex story. The story of three generations of Scandanavian women, who live through very different times, encourages you not only to look to them for inspiration: but to to your own maternal predecessors aswell. I was extremely moved and found the style and tone completley refrehing
Review: Although not previously familiar with this author's work, the jacket cover synopsis intrigued me with its allusions to an overlapping tale of three generations of Swedish women and the family they created. The book delivered on its promise 100%. In the process, the author has made each women's story as interesting as the next and made you understand eventually why you may not always like the way the women act. The author has done a good job of interweaving the tales and not telling each women's story in chronological order. This makes for a much richer story and allows you to see the characters interacting at different points in each of their lives. As a bonus, reading this book has given me more insight into the psyche of Scandanvian women than the two years I lived in Stockholm and the many years I have worked with Swedish women at the office. Definitely a tale to read if you are interested in family sagas -- regardless of where they are set -- rich with historical detail. Details you don't find in history books, but the details of everyday living that in truth is what makes up each of our lives.
Review: The front of my cover reads "an uplifting family saga", but I found nothing uplifting about it. This was one of the most depressing and dull books I've read in a while. Perhaps it has some redeeming value as "literature", but an enjoyable read it is not. Hanna, Johanna, and Anna are mothers and daughters who are, simply put, always sad. The idea of happiness is occasionally contemplated, but then decidedly dismissed. I read to the end just to see if anything was ever going to happen. Finally something did. They died.
Review: This book is a bit difficult at first to get into. The beginning is a bit jumpy and some of the characters share the same name making it at times confusing. With all that said, stick it out and you can't help but enjoy seeing the legacy a women can leave. Although it is rooted in Scandinavian history, its truths and experiences are transcendental. A thought provoking and enjoyable read for women.
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