“When we cry, we save ourselves a little.”
Na jednom otoku u Japanu smjestio se Arhiv otkucaja srca – jedinstveno mjesto u kojem se čuvaju otkucaji srca tisuća ljudi, živih i mrtvih. Kilometrima dalje nalazi se gradić Kamamura u kojem se Shūichi, četrdesetogodišnji ilustrator knjiga, vraća u roditeljski dom nakon smrti majke. Suočen sa bolnom prošlošću, brojnim uspomenama iz djetinjstva i još bolnijima iz odrasle dobi, Shūichi upoznaje nekoga tko bi mu mogao vratiti život i biti njegov oporavak…
Otok otkucaja srca skriva lijepu, ali tužnu priču o jednom ne tako uobičajenom prijateljstvu, o tugovanju, o životu sa ožiljcima, onim vidljivim i onim duboko skrivenim ispod kože, ali i o nadi i ljubavi. Predivna ideja Arhiva posebno me oduševila. Pomisao da i kada izgubimo neke od najvažnijih ljudi u našem životu oni i dalje na neki način žive, u zvuku, u uspomenama, na mene djeluje nekako umirujuće baš kao i ova priča.
Ako volite romane koji su više usmjereni na osjećaje i likove, a manje na samu radnju onda je Otok otkucaja srca, takozvana „healing fiction“ za vas.
[english]
“Life is a succession of shipwrecks.”
The Library of Heartbeats – Laura Imai Messina
On an island in Japan, there is a library of heartbeats – a unique place where the heartbeats of thousands of people, both living and dead, are kept. Kilometers away is the small town of Kamamura, where Shūichi, a forty-year-old book illustrator, returns to his parents’ home after the death of his mother. Faced with a painful past, numerous memories from his childhood and even more painful ones from his adulthood, Shūichi meets someone who could give him back his life and be his recovery…
The Library of Heartbeats hides a beautiful but sad story about an unusual friendship, about grief, about life with scars, both visible and deeply hidden under the skin, but also about hope and love. The wonderful idea of the Library particularly delighted me. The thought that even when we lose some of the most important people in our lives, they still live on in some way, in sound, in memories, has a calming effect on me, just like this story.
If you like novels that focus more on feelings and characters, and less on the plot itself, then The Library of Heartbeats, the so-called “healing fiction”, is just right for you.
