Three Weeks in December (Audible Audio Edition) Audrey Schulman PJ Ochlan Yetide Badaki Audible Studios Books
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In 1899 Jeremy, a young engineer, leaves a small town in Maine to oversee the construction of a railroad across East Africa. In charge of hundreds of Indian laborers, he soon finds himself the reluctant hunter of two lions that are killing his men in almost nightly attacks on their camp. Plagued by fear, wracked with malaria and alienated by a secret he can tell no one, he takes increasing solace in the company of the African who helps him hunt. In 2000 Max, an American ethnobotonist, travels to Rwanda in search of an obscure vine that could become a lifesaving pharmaceutical. Stationed in the mountains, she closely shadows a family of gorillas, the last of their group to survive the encroachment of local poachers. Max bears a striking gift for understanding the ape's non-verbal communication, but their precarious solidarity is threatened as a violent rebel group from the nearby Congo draws close.
Three Weeks in December (Audible Audio Edition) Audrey Schulman PJ Ochlan Yetide Badaki Audible Studios Books
When I read Audrey Schulman's Three Weeks in December, I was transported back to the time when I read literary novels by the dozen. In college and graduate school, especially, I lived for sentences so beautiful that they could bring me to my knees. Never mind where those sentences might take me. I just wanted to bask in the crystalline light of words and images perfectly crafted.Among my favorite novels were books by Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Paul Bowles, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, and Doris Lessing. Now there is Audrey Schulman, who has reminded me of how much I love to read.
Many reviewers here have already summarized the plot, so I won't go in that direction with this review. You already know that this book involves two parallel stories, one set in 1899 and one set in 2000, and that the two stories are connected--a fact that doesn't become clear until the end of the book. What you need to know is that this is a "must read" book, whether you're 22 or 82 years old. The social and political issues in both story lines--whether you agree that they should be connected or not by the book's end--will leave you thinking deeply, not just about Africa and its troubled history, but about the British railway system, Asperger's Syndrome, the great apes, and the strange medicinal properties of certain plants.
Even better, as you read, you will be immersed in gorgeous passages like these:
"When she woke, the sun had appeared from behind the clouds. The last two weeks on these mountains, she'd been surprised by how much the light could change along the jungle floor. At times it was as gloomy as a basement, at other points it gleamed otherworldly with mist. Sometimes it dazzled the eyes, as brazen as a spotlight.
"Right now, a thick beam of dusty light poured down through a hole in the canopy. In the brightness of this luminance, everything shown as though lit from within, the stained-glass of the flickering leaves, the brilliant red of a parrot flying by, the hewed columns of the giant trucks. The cathedral of the trees. This must be where humans came up with the architecture of churches--the vaulted spaces and filtered light imprinted in the genes as the original holy place."
As I said before: you must read this book. You will be forever changed by it.
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Three Weeks in December (Audible Audio Edition) Audrey Schulman PJ Ochlan Yetide Badaki Audible Studios Books Reviews
4 1/2 stars
Two novels in one, told in alternating chapters. A young Maine
engineer, miserable in his small town life, escapes to Africa in 1899
to help Britain build a railroad that will extend its colonial power
there. His adventures trying to deal with the mostly-Indian laborers,
British colonial attitudes, disease, and a pair of cunning lions, are
exciting and bring turn-of-the-century colonial Africa to life.
Even better was the story set a hundred years later about an American woman
botanist with Aspergers who goes to Rwanda to find a vine containing a
chemical that could save millions of lives. Unfortunately the cost of
her success would likely be very high, as this story also involves a
terrible kind of colonialism. Max Tombay was so well characterized and
fascinating that I felt I knew her from the inside. Her sensitivity
to odors was especially useful in not just seeing and feeling, but
smelling the African jungle.
Only at the very end of the book was there a stunning connection
between the two parts. Both of them contain descriptions of intense
violence and brutality.
The stories are skillfully and artfully told, and would interest anyone
looking for a good, fairly easy read. Those who enjoy stories set in
Africa would be especially happy to find this book.
This story of two very different Americans takes place in Africa -- one at the beginning of the twentieth century, the other at the beginning of the twenty-first, with alternate chapters for each character. They are not two separate stories, as some readers have thought. It was enlightening to learn about the problems these two people, with their own problems, face regarding the environment, the slow disappearance of the 'magical' apes, etc., and how humanity is harming the natural environment--for better or for worse?
The book was original, beautifully written, and absorbing, and slowly, slowly a mystery started to unfold. You can look for the hints to this mystery from almost the very beginning of the book. My curiosity was aroused immediately and I tried to make sense of where all the hints led to. Actually, I came up with one or two more 'hints' than perhaps the author intended and am still stymied that I cannot fit them in.
I've read this three times in less than two months, when I rarely read a book more than once, and sometimes, after several years, a second time. I lived in Africa for six weeks and while reading this I felt that I, again, was THERE. This book
brought back many beautiful memories of that experience and made me happy. I am certain I will read it again. (Perhaps now?)
Superb, original, profound story. I can't speak highly enough of it.
When I read Audrey Schulman's Three Weeks in December, I was transported back to the time when I read literary novels by the dozen. In college and graduate school, especially, I lived for sentences so beautiful that they could bring me to my knees. Never mind where those sentences might take me. I just wanted to bask in the crystalline light of words and images perfectly crafted.
Among my favorite novels were books by Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Paul Bowles, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, and Doris Lessing. Now there is Audrey Schulman, who has reminded me of how much I love to read.
Many reviewers here have already summarized the plot, so I won't go in that direction with this review. You already know that this book involves two parallel stories, one set in 1899 and one set in 2000, and that the two stories are connected--a fact that doesn't become clear until the end of the book. What you need to know is that this is a "must read" book, whether you're 22 or 82 years old. The social and political issues in both story lines--whether you agree that they should be connected or not by the book's end--will leave you thinking deeply, not just about Africa and its troubled history, but about the British railway system, Asperger's Syndrome, the great apes, and the strange medicinal properties of certain plants.
Even better, as you read, you will be immersed in gorgeous passages like these
"When she woke, the sun had appeared from behind the clouds. The last two weeks on these mountains, she'd been surprised by how much the light could change along the jungle floor. At times it was as gloomy as a basement, at other points it gleamed otherworldly with mist. Sometimes it dazzled the eyes, as brazen as a spotlight.
"Right now, a thick beam of dusty light poured down through a hole in the canopy. In the brightness of this luminance, everything shown as though lit from within, the stained-glass of the flickering leaves, the brilliant red of a parrot flying by, the hewed columns of the giant trucks. The cathedral of the trees. This must be where humans came up with the architecture of churches--the vaulted spaces and filtered light imprinted in the genes as the original holy place."
As I said before you must read this book. You will be forever changed by it.
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