Childish Things
Описание книги
What can you say about the seventies – except to wish you hadn’t been there? The sixties produced hippies and sex, the eighties yuppies and money. But the seventies? Disposable fashion, disposable music. And disposable lives in the warm country where I grew up . . .
This is how thirty-three year old Mart looks back from 1990s London to remember her 17th year in 1970s South Africa. While being a teenager is never easy, in 1970s South Africa there is more to deal with than unflattering fashions and tedious teachers. There are the harsh realities of life, of politics, and even of death.
Introvert Mart gets her first taste of rebellion through her roommate at her new school, the extrovert Dalena, and begins to look at her world from a new, questioning perspective. Her elder brother Simon encounters that same rebellion through his enigmatic friend Pierre.
Against the backdrop of the political upheaval of the 1970s, Mart and Dalena must face upheavals of their own – at school, at home, and in their own hearts and minds. Simon and Pierre, meanwhile, must face the realities of war, ‘somewhere on the border’.
It is to be a life-changing year, as all four discover, in which they are forced to grow up and abandon childish things for ever.
Оглавление
Marita van der Vyver. Childish Things
Flight 605
You’ll have fun on the way
We will fight and go forward with faith
Nights in white satin
How will we know which side to choose?
Take the best from the past
It’s a long way to Tipperary
The star appeared only once
It’s still the same war
OK, you’ve got me
More nights in white satin
No point in upsetting people unnecessarily
Everything is under control
A dim image in a mirror
The key questions remain
A wonderful freedom that will be!
They say the worst is yet to come
Hello, darkness, my old friend
Everyone must see what’s happening here
Отрывок из книги
Childish Things
Marita van der Vyver
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I let the sea sand flow back and forth between my hands while my holiday unreeled like a movie in my head. Actually much better than a movie because I could even smell the suntan lotion.
I had used the rucksack as a beach bag, packing it each morning with my towel, book, dark glasses and purse before I went looking for Nic. Don’t run after him, my mother warned endlessly, as mothers have always warned. But I didn’t run after him. I merely made sure that I was in the right place at the right time. There’s a difference.
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