So, I suppose you could say I read the book. And I liked it. One of those books that actually dosen't have meaning if you don't think her over afterwards. So here's my thinking about her. In the beginig, story is fictional. It goes on about flying, climbing on very high trees, and it's very natureally. If that part of the story supposed to be someones real childhood, it's very childly imagined. And that's how most of us rembers it. I like that. The main character describes himself trough mr. Sommer. Main character is also a writer and storyteller - one of the charateristic of modern fairytales (This is not a fairytale.) . I found it interesting that storyteller describes mr. Sommer trough seasons, it's like almost mr. Sommer is a nature himself. Mr. Sommer is very cryptic character. He spends his time walking around the woods. Very rarely you could see him in town, the main reason you could see other people wakling so much. Nobody knew who he was, but everybody knew him. "In that province hence lived, not even 2 miles away from us, men named 'Mister Sommer'. Nobody knew him by any other name, or his first name - everybody just and only knew him by the name 'Mr. Sommer'." He is also very diligent character. He always caries his stick around whit him, and after every third step he would switch that stick in front whit his right hand. He was like a clock. Rarely when you could see him standing somewhere. People tried to talk to him, but he was always in a 'hurry'. This all happens when boy (the main charracter) is still young, around 5 yeras old. He is kind of lonley, and that makes him a bit difirent than his friends. Soon we found out he has a love. His Carolina, wich, nevermind his age, he adores. He loves to read brother Grimm. It is mentioned that his older brother has read all the stories from them. Here we can see how they take reading as a 'surveyor' of maturity. Trough the whole book there are partialreferences of physics. Seems like the writer was spellbound whit kinetics. Next, one of the most important part of the book is talking about his way of dealing life problems, one of things you realize when you are growing up. But here thy boy is only 5-7 years old. Wich is wierd given the fact he mentions phyiscs, and some other things that are really usual for a 5-year old. Here we found out that he attends piano classes. His teacher is Mrs. Funkel. "She sweard strange lot in that "madame" title, though I have never seen no women nor girl that shuold be less called like that. She was ancient, gray hairy, bowed and shriveled and straight as a board." There are some interesting explanations of how that all looks to the little boy. Funkel's mother, Funkel herself, and piano classes. "(...) and in general everybody in ours county knew to press at least one key." After one incident at Funkel's class boy gets very upset, and decides to kill himself. Again, he was 5 yeras old. Here is some part where many of us can recognize. Thinking how awfully world is unfair to us, and why us, and why so young. Sure you heard people killing themself before, but not at this age, so it must of been that you had so amazingly harder life than them, when it has lead you to this. So, the world must pay. As he is standing on a tree 30m tall, ready to jump, he hears something. It was Mr. Sommer. Sudenlly boy decides not to jump so fast, because he's woried for Sommer. But Mr. Sommer also looked kind of woried. He sat on the floor, took some beard from his backpack and started to eat devouringly. In no time he picked up everything and caried on walking. Now, boy is thinking otherwise. He was not angry any more nor scared. He almost laughed. "I couldn't understand how could I get to that silly idea: to kill myself over someones snots. Especially after I saw a men who is runing from death all his life." In the last chapter boy is all grown up, almost like ready for world. He notices how nobody cares about Mr. Sommer anymore. His wife died, and for folks he was just another silly old man. Later he saw a suicide of Mr. Sommer in the lake. He never told anybody about that. It took 2 weeks for someone to notice that Mr. Sommer is gone. In the end, nobody remberd the old lake, nobody ever discovered the truth about his death. All that a boy could rember was only real words from Sommer, that he said a long time ago when boy's father asked Mr. Sommer to give him a lift home ; "Oh, leave at peace for once, at least." Because of that words boy never told anyone about death of Mr. Sommer.
Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer (The Story of Mr Summer) - Patrick SüskindA very touching story, with much more effect than it's few pages would normally present. Süskind is a master story teller.Quite different from Perfume and The Pigeon (Die Taube) although now that i've read all three i am getting to see what is common to them all. (See my reviews of the other two.) This book is much more natural and realistic story than the other two. I love the way Süskind gets seemingly separate parts of his stories, to fit together to support common themes. The question asked in the last paragraph, about why the boy did what he did really is one that every reader can consider personally. Süskind is a special sort of writer.I read this both in the German original and the English translation. The translation is very good, and it was interesting for me to consider at some points why the translator carefully chose to substitute the precise words in the original and make new, even adding a playfulness not in the German. There is also some part of the playfulness with language lost from the German too. (I was sceptical at first why the translator decided to change the spelling of Mr. Sommers, but now i understand.)The other thing lost in translation is the book itself. The quality of the German original is significantly better than the U.S. edition, in the quality of paper, flatter and less glossy, and the way the book is constructed and lays when open. The artwork by Sempe, which fits so closely with the text, and with its dreamy and appropriate choice of pastel colors, also looks quite a bit better in the German edition, both in detail and in color. For both editions the artwork was reduced significantly to fit on the page, and i would have preferred both versions to have picked a larger page format. At least with the German edition there is enough detail in the printing that you can magnify the image with a magnifying glass and see some of the original.Also the redoing of a some of the images to translate some text, which was not done to the quality of the original artwork detract for me too. Not all of this was bad, but a few were really unnecessary.A very pleasant afternoon read.
What do You think about The Story Of MR Sommer (2003)?
Kitap bir çocuğun gözünden çok güzel akıyor, gizemli bir unsur da katılmış merak uyandıran, sonunu da güzel bağladı, daha ne olsun? Gerçi yazar mizahı diğer kitaplarında olduğu gibi hep iğrençliklerle sunuyor ama neyse seni de böyle kabul ediyoruz, Patrick.>Dip Anı Not: Bu kitabı bir yolculuğumda bitirmeyi düşünüyordum ama sinirlerini aldırdığını söyleyen ve yolculuk boyunca çenesi kapanmayan bir Roman gacı yüzünden bitiremedim. Aslında benim hep yapmak istediğim şeyi yapıyordu, yolcularla öylesine muhabbet etmek. Ama işte bunun ki limitsiz, arsız, fazla rahat, ne zaman ne diyeceği ne yapacağı belli olmayan tedirginlik verici bir sohbetti. 5-10 saniyelik yolcu indir bindir de sigara yakmaya çalışıyor, bütün yolcuları gezip aynı repliklerle vurup reaksiyon elde etmeye çalışıyor, inen yolcuların ardından otobüste dağıtılan bardak sularından döküyor, inen yaşlı amcaya "hani beraber inecektik" diye laf atıyor. En son şoförü de delirtti. Adam gelip uslu durmasını söyledi ama ne çare! Hepimiz sabırla ineceği durağı bekledik artık. Ben ilk bir kaç sorusuna cevap verdim ama sonra sessizlik silahıma büründüm çekip gitsin diye, onunda -tüh!- en sevmediği şeyi yapıyormuşum ve neyse ki bir arka koltuktakilere sardı sonunda da biraz kurtuldum. En sonunda da şoför garaja geldiğinde(gacının ineceği durak) diğer şoför arkadaşına "Sana birini getirdim, al onu!" diye bağırınca bizim kayış koptu tabii. Ahah! =)
—Figi
I have to say I enjoyed this book. It’s a book that you could easily rush through in one sitting. It’s 127 pages long but only 100 pages of actual text. I actually read it over three days not wanting to rush it and, seriously, having just finished it I could easily have turned back to the first page and begun again. The Sommers are a mystery and the fact is that we only ever have a few facts to go on. In many children’s stories there will be a mysterious neighbour like Sommer, the one whose front door the kids dare each other to go up to, and in these stories one or two of them get to discover the truth. That’s not the case here and so the narrator can only go so far in what he tells us about Mr Sommer. What he can tell us is the effect that his encounters with this odd misanthrope have had on him and that’s really what the story is about, three key moments in his childhood and early adolescence that helped shape his view of humanity.If I had to describe this book in a single sentence I’d probably say: This is a children’s book for grownups. We all enjoy reading children’s stories. The lovely thing is that those of us who have been lucky enough to have children of our own get to extend that pleasure into adulthood without feeling silly reading to them. Yes, you could read The Story of Mr Sommer to your kids at might but if you do then you need to be prepared for many questions. You can read my full review on my blog here.
—Jim
Un caramelo suave es lo que me pareció esta historia. Después de leer el tremendo suspenso de El perfume (Süskind), La historia del señor Sommer, aunque con final triste, nos lleva con ternura por la vida de un niño que se convierte en adolescente y que a lo largo de esos años observa a un peculiar personaje. Sus vidas se cruzan en tres momentos, que terminan por ser eje en la vida del niño.Confieso que he disfrutado la historia y que me he llevado la grata sorpresa de leer una cara oculta (al menos para mi) de este escritor.
—Dulce
