Mini - Comments

I've recently read two books in Portuguese, which I brought from the library the last time I went there.
One of them I picked because I had read some good reviews by other readers, and the other book I chose because it was by a French author and that fits one theme in a challenge I'm doing this month.

Pão de Açucar by Afonso Reis Cabral is a mix of fiction and facts, based on a real case which took place in Oporto, a city in the north of Portugal, in 2006. In February that year, a group of children and teenagers (ages between 12 and 16 if I read correctly) beat and mistreated and eventually killed a transgender woman who was homeless and ill. The case was shocking at the time mainly due to the age of the kids, and the fact they all belonged to an institution for marginalized youths. It was also shocking they didn't grasp the seriousness of their acts and the complete lack of respect for a human being. 

Much was debated at the time and now the author uses information from one of those kids, who felt like making amends by coming forward with his version, but the truth doesn't change: they attacked and hurt and killed an ill person who had no way to defend herself. I found the text to be fluid, almost poetic for the author intended to convey the emotions and setting which propelled this to happen without being judgmental. This was written as if the kid was narrating what he saw and was part of, but in a cleaner, simpler writing. 

I think the quality of the text and the author's effort was quite well done, quite mature, but that doesn't mean the rawness of the facts isn't less terrible. One could say this doesn't add much to what was already known, but it is one more way to remember the woman who was killed and my grade relates to the text and the author's work of presenting it.

Grade: 8/10

A Madrugada em Birkenau by Simone Veil is one more version of her experience during the Holocaust. The title can be literally translated into "dawn at Bikenau" and it refers mostly to how she was deported and what life was at the camp. We also have more information about her years after the camps were released and some of her thoughts on the decisions the made afterwards, mainly the political ones.

This might not be the most comprehensive book on her life and the edition I was able to read also included many photographs and personal notes, but I've found the quick and objective narration an easy one to follow. Part of the text was written by a friend of hers, a filmmaker, and he shares some personal opinions on certain passages and how he got to be friends with Simone, who is still seen as one of the most important French personalities by the French.

I must say I'm grading the selection of information the co author used and how, not the actual content. Nevertheless, once Simone was an adult, married and in the public sphere, she includes here some of the opinions she had on certain subjects and I admit I don't agree with some of her political views, and this inadvertently affected my overall opinion on the book. As for her experience in concentration camps and her personal feelings on what happened, that is impossible to grade.

Grade: 7/10