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Twin by Gerband Bakker (2010, Trade Paperback)

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The Twin (Rainmaker Translations) by Bakker, Gerband [Paperback]

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherSteerforth Press

ISBN-101935744046

ISBN-139781935744047

eBay Product ID (ePID)92397081

Product Key Features

Original LanguageDutch

Book TitleTwin

Number of Pages343 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicFamily Life, Small Town & Rural, General, Literary

Publication Year2010

GenreFiction

AuthorGerband Bakker

Book SeriesRainmaker Translations Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight15 oz

Item Length7 in

Item Width5.7 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

ReviewsWINNER - THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. --J.M. Coetzee Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end. --Tim Parks This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. --Paul Binding I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker's tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters' tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one's faith in meticulous realism. --Lynne Sharon Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I've recommended it again and again. --Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [...] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. --Times Literary Supplement From the Hardcover edition., A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. -J.M. Coetzee Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end. -Tim Parks This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. -Paul Binding I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker's tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters' tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one's faith in meticulous realism. -Lynne Sharon Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I've recommended it again and again. -Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [â€¦] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. -Times Literary Supplement, WINNER - THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. --J.M. Coetzee Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end. --Tim Parks This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. --Paul Binding I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker's tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters' tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one's faith in meticulous realism. --Lynne Sharon Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I've recommended it again and again. --Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [...] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. --Times Literary Supplement "Oh, it's about to get so cozy and redemptive, you might think; never too late for a sad man to get his groove back! Bakker's sparse, prickly novel doesn't play that way, though. Instead, it ducks and swerves . . . The "happy" ending isn't exactly confetti and jazz hands, either; it's more freighted than that -- but more satisfying, too, for being earned." -- Leah Greenblatt, New York Times, A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. --J.M. Coetzee Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end. --Tim Parks This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. --Paul Binding I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker's tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters' tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one's faith in meticulous realism. --Lynne Sharon Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I've recommended it again and again. --Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [...] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. --Times Literary Supplement From the Hardcover edition., WINNER - THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. --J.M. Coetzee Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end. --Tim Parks This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. --Paul Binding I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker's tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters' tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one's faith in meticulous realism. --Lynne Sharon Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I've recommended it again and again. --Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [...] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. --Times Literary Supplement, "After finishing 'The Twin,' all the reader can say is: here is a true writer." --Het Parool "The charm of Bakker's book is how finely every element is balanced, how perfectly the story is paced. & Bakker shows a fine gift for laconic comedy. & The great pleasure of this novel is how it has just enough plot to allow us to relish its beautifully turned observations of birds and beasts, weather and water." --Tim Parks, The New York Review of Books "Tense with unuttered yearning & The greatness of this book lies & in a mounting intricacy of feeling as life begins to burgeon out of a stony, wasted existence. & But instead of something terrible happening & rillets of sweetness and joy arise, little springs of gladness. & In the end & this becomes a kindhearted book, kind to both characters and reader." --Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe "The novel has all the careful observation and and delicate shading of a painting by one of the Dutch masters - Bakker sees beauty and complexity in the smallest corners of everyday life and portrays them with a quiet mastery that gives his story both great weight and great lightness." --The Quarterly Conversation "Stealthy seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end." --Tim Parks "This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour [...] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland." --Times Literary Supplement "Bakker is above all a gifted stylist. His dialogue is exemplary, and the descriptions of nature have a natural charm worthy of Nescio. It is a long time since we've taken such pleasure in a genuinely Dutch novel." --Truow "This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force but is open-ended, its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfilment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. Human dramas are offset by landscape and animals feelingly delineated, and David Colmer's translation is distinguished by an exceptional (and crucial) ear for dialogue." --Paul Binding "Bakker has a gift for investing daily rituals and landscape with the universal questions around identity and self worth. Helmer's transformation affirms that it is never too late to take responsibility for one's destiny. This is a beautifully written book - its lustre lies in the clear simplicity of language as well as the authenticity of Helmer's internal dialogue." --Ruth Wildgust, The Sunday Business Post (Ireland) "Bakker captures the feel of life in the Dutch countryside in a style which is both dazzling and subdued. ... a poignant story, recounted in a tone at once spare and loving." --De Volkskrant

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Dewey Edition22

Dewey DecimalFIC

Synopsis"A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor."--J. M. Coetzee"The charm of Bakker's book is how finely every element is balanced, how perfectly the story is paced. . . . The great pleasure of this novel is how it has just enough plot to allow us to relish its beautifully turned observations of birds and beasts, weather and water."--Tim Parks, "The New York Review of Books""Gerbrand Bakker's writing is so fabulously clear, so clear that each sentence leaves a rippling wake."--"Los Angeles Times""Oustanding. . . . Full of life and truth. . . . One of those rare works of fiction that everyone should read."--"The Irish Times""I just finished "The Twin" by Gerbrand Bakker, which is basically all about themes that I associate with crushing boredom--farmers and old, sick parents and rural areas--but I couldn't put it down. It's subtle, quiet, hilarious, cruel, beautiful, and somehow exhilarating in all of its understatement. It has a protagonist with a unique voice. It never hits a false note. It never hits a predictable note. Reading a book like that is joyous, especially when it keeps rereading itself in your head, your heart, and your life for a few days or weeks afterwards."--Elizabeth Bachner, BookslutWinner of the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest and most international prize of its kind that involves libraries from all corners of the globe, "The Twin" was also a 2009 NPR pick for Best Foreign Fiction of the Year and a Powell's Indiespensable Pick.Gerbrand Bakker (b. 1962) studied Dutch language and literature and workedas a subtitler for nature films before becoming a gardener. "The Twin" appeared in Dutch in 2006 and was awarded the Golden Dog-Ear, a prize for the best-selling literary debut., When his twin brother is killed in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to give up university to take over his brother's role on the small family farm, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days "with his head under a cow." The novel begins thirty years later with Helmer moving his invalid father upstairs out of the way, so that he can redecorate the downstairs, finally making it his own. Then Riet, the woman who had once been engaged to marry Helmer's twin, appears and asks if her troubled eighteen-year-old son could come live on the farm for a while. Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, The Twin ultimately poses difficult questions about solitude and the possibility of taking life into one's own hands. It chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity, a world culturally apart yet laden with familiar longing.

LC Classification NumberPT5882.12.A55