Location: Germany
Member Since:
March 08, 2010
Valentina Tulechov
Smashwords book reviews by Valentina Tulechov
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Falling in Love
on Sep. 21, 2010
Mrs Sovakova is not only a very gifted writer, but also a very fine observer; she never misses her central figure’s smallest necessities or motions. Haggling for her personal freedom, Irenchen outshines the cunning pattern of her social and political ties, she fills her personal tragedies with elegance and dignity, Sacrifices and risks burden her life, and ever so in the sights of her criticising and yet beloved private background. Her grandmother’s wisdom and elegance do not give the loving granddaughter any choice, and at the end of the day her young life’s necessities must burst into the merry-go-round of an exciting life between society’s arranged balls and sparkling artist’s worlds. Now she has to keep her joie de vivre top secret, while destiny’s merry-go-round never ceases turning. The author’s subtle sense of humour keeps it alive, sparkling places and houses bask in a refined ambience and our modern young lady and her family keep on struggling imperceptibly and very skilful for our attention and we so impatiently need to learn the protagonists’ further proceedings in Mrs Sovakova’s new volumes, finding their way into our lives very soon. Iris Baumann
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Tender Cruelties
on Sep. 21, 2010
The lively writing rich in dialogues brings the reader very close to the central figures possessing a very strong character. The author describes in an imaginastic and impressive way the Communist regime in Eastern Europe and its consequences. A charming reading with a bittersweet subtle sense of humour and a historical surrounding!
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The Frosted Mirrors
on July 04, 2011
Our inborn common sense must endure inutterable tests once the corset of beauty is standing in line behind an unseizable horror vacui around our favorite Group dynamics. In this outstanding novel our five protagonists tragically pervert their need for beauty. Keats´s thought “In Beauty is Truth and in Truth is Beauty” finds his equal suffocating others, gradually sublimed by catharsis. Many artists would be fairly amused to watch said “Vanity Purgatory” becoming a new merry-go-round beneath a marble sky, langouring above this raging horror, illuminated by Nature’s bewildering spectacles. The Fates as well as the author cunningly lead us to the protagonists´ cobweb, where in spite of all their crafty ways they remain dictators kept in suspense. Without pity, if not unsatiably they struggle for the view on the landscape of their relations and for the view on their souls. Their refined idleness is prevented by the privileged grandmother, desperately aspiring to heal these unloved pests of hers by the simple and yet efficient down-to-earth way of discipline. And finding her vice versa reduced to absurdum this must never make us doubt the grip on our individual reader´s distance. Let alone her son. Down to a certain sobriety he keeps the picture, outshining his relatives´ secret fateful and psychotic ways. Be it empathy, be it cunning – who knows? – it works for a while, as he emphasizes his passionate view on the world, touching his son Rinaldo´s deeper sanity, his unconscient perception as well as his shy glance on joy. This glance is ephemeral only, but that is. One must be a highly attentive reader to catch this wistful second of Rinaldo´s perfect sanity, astonished by something he might like, never haunted by malicious behavior. No bonfire, no great moment, never haunted by feelings, never haunted by words. May they transmogrify his sorrows and may they provide him with a lift to his heart. Lidmila Sovakova harbours a powerful knowledge that has the gift of reconciling us with a motionless Fate. So let us raise our glasses to a new vivaticum. Iris B.