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"Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours. But this version of 1950's America is characterized by a significant event: The Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales and talons, left a trail of fiery destruction in their path, and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved Aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn't know. It's taboo to speak of. Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this disturbing event: a mother more protective than ever; a father growing increasingly distant; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and helping to raise a beloved younger girl obsessed with dragons far beyond propriety. In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the forced limitations of girlhood. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small-their lives and their prospects-and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve"--… (mais)
The book is gripping, challenging, emotionally satisfying and worth reading. But the reviewer is not wrong who notes that the dragons who return are... baking bread, organizing book clubs, knitting... doing all the things that they did before. Life has not changed for them.
What does this mean? "The good life is just like the old life, only without men"? "Internal change changes everything: before enlightenment cut wood and carry water, after enlightenment cut wood and carry water"? The message is mysterious and obscure.
Although, bakery dragons and alternative schooling dragons -- that is just the sort of thing that would happen in Madison. There's not a whole lot of evocative sense of place writing in this book. The author is better at writing people than places, and that's okay; it's certainly better for a book to have plot and character than geography, if you have to choose. But the dragon culture is pure 1970s Madison, after the riots were over and the Vietnam War ended. I recognized the milieu and the dragon spirit.
The dragons who flew off to the moons of Jupiter, though? They were awe-inspiring. I wish we heard more about them. ( )
In general, there were good parts to the book, but it was repetetive, with some plot holes. The idea of this book is that women, throughout history, have had the ability to transform into dragons fueled by anger or other passions. There was a mass dragoning event in the 50's, when a large number of women transformed to dragons, left homes and families, leaving a certain amount of destruction. So in general, a woman's empowerment story. I would probably give this one 3 or 3.5 stars; and I'd say that if you liked [Lessons in Chemistry] you might like this as some of the themes are similar. ( )
In this novel, women sometimes become dragons - sometimes in individual instances and others in mass. For all that this is a fantastical element, these dragons exist in a world that is very much our own. The Mass Dragoning of 1955 centers this novel, which is very much about one family and the impact of members leaving, staying, and returning. The process of becoming a dragon is something only addressed in whispers and discouraged by society even as it continues to happen. Metaphors abound in this novel and while one could certainly read this novel as a metaphor for many things, one could also simply enjoy it as a great story. ( )
This book is rather obviously an allegory for women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, and an exploration of the anger of women. But it doesn't creak though it repeats, and repetition is part of the structure. It's is a bit impeded by wanting to tell more story than quite fits into a compact plot so there is some roughness in the flow when the thrust of the rather slow quiet action shifts. ( )
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
The dragon is in the barrow, wise and proud with treasures. -- Anglo-Saxon proverb
They were ferocious in appearance, terrible in shape with great heads, long necks, thin faces, yellow complexions, shaggy ears, wild foreheads, fierce eyes, foul mouths, horses' teeth, throats vomiting flames, twisted jaws, thick lips, strident voices, singed hair, fat cheeks, pigeon breasts, scabby thighs, knotty knees, crooked legs, swollen ankles, splay feet, spreading mouths, raucous cries. For they grew so terrible to hear with their mighty shriekings that they filled almost the whole intervening space between heaven and earth with their discordant bellowings.
-Life of Saint Guthlac by Felix, an East Anglian monk, approximately AD 730, in which the good monk describes the original occupants of the barrow where the Saint had attempted to build his hermitage.
If I, like Solomon...
could have my wish--
my wish... O to be a dragon,
a symbol of the power of Heaven--of silkworm
size or immense; at times invisible.
Felicitous phenomenon! -- "O to be a Dragon" by Marianne Moore, 1959
Dedicatória
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
For Christine Blasey Ford,
whose testimony triggered this narrative; And for my children --
dragons, all.
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
Greetings, Mother--
I do not have much time.
Citações
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
"Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours. But this version of 1950's America is characterized by a significant event: The Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales and talons, left a trail of fiery destruction in their path, and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved Aunt Marla transform but her mother did not? Alex doesn't know. It's taboo to speak of. Forced into silence, Alex nevertheless must face the consequences of this disturbing event: a mother more protective than ever; a father growing increasingly distant; the upsetting insistence that her aunt never even existed; and helping to raise a beloved younger girl obsessed with dragons far beyond propriety. In this timely and timeless speculative novel, award-winning author Kelly Barnhill boldly explores rage, memory, and the forced limitations of girlhood. When Women Were Dragons exposes a world that wants to keep women small-their lives and their prospects-and examines what happens when they rise en masse and take up the space they deserve"--
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Google Books — Carregando...
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What does this mean? "The good life is just like the old life, only without men"? "Internal change changes everything: before enlightenment cut wood and carry water, after enlightenment cut wood and carry water"? The message is mysterious and obscure.
Although, bakery dragons and alternative schooling dragons -- that is just the sort of thing that would happen in Madison. There's not a whole lot of evocative sense of place writing in this book. The author is better at writing people than places, and that's okay; it's certainly better for a book to have plot and character than geography, if you have to choose. But the dragon culture is pure 1970s Madison, after the riots were over and the Vietnam War ended. I recognized the milieu and the dragon spirit.
The dragons who flew off to the moons of Jupiter, though? They were awe-inspiring. I wish we heard more about them. (