While the Gods Were Sleeping

This novel was originally published in 2008 and now has been translated from Dutch. I’m amazed that the translation read as if it was the original language. I was not surprised to discover that the author is an award winning poet and novelist since the thing I loved most about this book was the beautiful language of the remembrances of an old woman. I quickly realized how much of the poet came out in Mortier’s writing. “The wind is blowing them out of the tame chesnut trees on the far bank of the river across the water, making them swirl in miniature tornadoes over the road as if it were snowing. The silence in the streets that morning, the pale light, the Sunday boredom, the smell of soup and roast veal ….”

The book is beautifully poetic and descriptive but not much happens in the beginning as Helena who is nearly 100 sits in a chair writing in her journals. Yet it was mesmerizing to read about her as a precocious young girl asking questions : “When I was young I wanted to know where time came from, whether it was a substance, like water or ether, which you can collect and keep or filter from deep inside things … I also wanted to know why I was myself, and not someone else, in a different place, at a different time, or on the contrary, at this time, and in the same place- someone who lived my life, with my relations and my school friends, but was not me.” Some of the most descriptive passages are the scenes that Helena sees as WWI ravages.

I so much enjoyed the poetic prose as she remembered things from her past. Memories of her childhood and her love of words and books , of her mother , father , brother , her home , her husband , her daughter, memories of the war . For anyone looking for a lot to happen this is probably not a book for you but for me it was about the beautiful language of these remembrances. Mortier has managed to get inside the head of this aged woman. .

Thanks to Steerforth Press and NetGalley