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In the Orchard, the Swallows
In the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan is a beautiful orchard. Swallows wheel and dive silently over the branches, and the scent of jasmine threads through the air. Pomegranates hang heavy, their skins darkening to a deep crimson. Neglected now, the trees are beginning to grow wild, their fruit left to spoil on the branches.
Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality.
Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times -- the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life.
A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, In The Orchard, The Swallows is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty.
Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality.
Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times -- the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life.
A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, In The Orchard, The Swallows is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty.
139 pages, Paperback
First published April 14, 2012
23 people are currently reading
1718 people want to read
About the author
Peter Hobbs
12 books29 followersPeter Hobbs grew up in Cornwall and North Yorkshire and was educated at New College, Oxford. He began writing during a prolonged illness that cut short a potential diplomatic career.
He is the author of two novels: The Short Day Dying (2005) and In the Orchard, the Swallows (2012), and of I Could Ride All Day in my Cool Blue Train (2006), a book of short stories. He is also published in New Writing 13, an annual anthology of new work, and 'Zembla'. He is currently a writer-in-residence for the charity First Story.
The Short Day Dying was short listed for the 2005 Whitbread First Book Award (known now as the Costa Book Awards), the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and won a 2006 Betty Trask Award.
He is the author of two novels: The Short Day Dying (2005) and In the Orchard, the Swallows (2012), and of I Could Ride All Day in my Cool Blue Train (2006), a book of short stories. He is also published in New Writing 13, an annual anthology of new work, and 'Zembla'. He is currently a writer-in-residence for the charity First Story.
The Short Day Dying was short listed for the 2005 Whitbread First Book Award (known now as the Costa Book Awards), the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and won a 2006 Betty Trask Award.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 223 reviews
April 26, 2022
O recitire care mi-a umplut iar sufletul de incantare.
Multumesc din nou, Peter Hobbs.
Multumesc din nou, Peter Hobbs.
January 29, 2013
I had read a lot about this book through various reviews claiming that it was a Modern work of genius with lush, lyrical prose and containing a love story for the ages. After taking my time reading this short novel, I feel quite different than the majority of reviews for this book.
I did not read a book with lush, lyrical prose. I did not read a love story.
"In the Orchard, the Swallows" uses simplicity to tell its story, and I think when you pare down a work of fiction to bare-bones description, it is easy to confuse it as "lyrical". Yes, Hobbs creates some powerful imagery, but it is not because he over-describes the scenery with gushy, emotional wording and metaphors; he does not express himself using particularly beautiful words or phrases; he doesn't barrage the reader's senses through adjectives and adverbs. He just tells the story using simple, straight-forward wording, so that we can easily comprehend the more powerful meaning which lies underneath the words.
This novel is also not a love story, as it has been advertised. This is a story about imprisonment and suffering (some of us cold-hearted types would ask, "What's the difference?") This is not a love story because it is not about romance. Briefly, in the beginning of the book, there is a pinch of romance; but, the majority of this story is about a man, locked in a jail, being subjected to horrible, endless abuse. It is the IDEA of love that allows him to survive and endure the horrors of captivity. He doesn't really love the girl he met all those years ago, the girl who probably forgot about him the moment he was arrested, he simply needs to hold on to that IDEA of love in order to stay alive. In that sense, the only metaphors implied in this book are: prison is love, and freedom is loneliness.
I would compare this book to Elie Wiesel's, "Night". Thematically and stylistically they are very similar. Very short, simplistic stories that use imprisonment and torture to narrow in on the human condition. In a short amount of time and space, both authors are able to hone in on the meaning of Freedom, Hope, Endurance, Love, and other heavy ideologies, without using extraneous description to convolute the message. It is not sentimental, it is not overly emotional, it is not even poetic writing... but it is impactful and cathartic and rare.
4/5
I did not read a book with lush, lyrical prose. I did not read a love story.
"In the Orchard, the Swallows" uses simplicity to tell its story, and I think when you pare down a work of fiction to bare-bones description, it is easy to confuse it as "lyrical". Yes, Hobbs creates some powerful imagery, but it is not because he over-describes the scenery with gushy, emotional wording and metaphors; he does not express himself using particularly beautiful words or phrases; he doesn't barrage the reader's senses through adjectives and adverbs. He just tells the story using simple, straight-forward wording, so that we can easily comprehend the more powerful meaning which lies underneath the words.
This novel is also not a love story, as it has been advertised. This is a story about imprisonment and suffering (some of us cold-hearted types would ask, "What's the difference?") This is not a love story because it is not about romance. Briefly, in the beginning of the book, there is a pinch of romance; but, the majority of this story is about a man, locked in a jail, being subjected to horrible, endless abuse. It is the IDEA of love that allows him to survive and endure the horrors of captivity. He doesn't really love the girl he met all those years ago, the girl who probably forgot about him the moment he was arrested, he simply needs to hold on to that IDEA of love in order to stay alive. In that sense, the only metaphors implied in this book are: prison is love, and freedom is loneliness.
I would compare this book to Elie Wiesel's, "Night". Thematically and stylistically they are very similar. Very short, simplistic stories that use imprisonment and torture to narrow in on the human condition. In a short amount of time and space, both authors are able to hone in on the meaning of Freedom, Hope, Endurance, Love, and other heavy ideologies, without using extraneous description to convolute the message. It is not sentimental, it is not overly emotional, it is not even poetic writing... but it is impactful and cathartic and rare.
4/5
November 23, 2018
This is a beautifully written short novel. Very visual, thought provoking and emotional in places. It's a story that managed to touch my heart.
December 16, 2019
Rounding up from 3.5 stars.
In this quiet, meditative novel, an unnamed narrator, who's just been released from fifteen years in prison, tells his story of doomed love: he, a peasant, committed the "crime" of falling in love with a wealthy girl, and in measured, evocative prose, he tells how it happened, and what it meant for his life.
If you want a plot-driven book, this isn't for you, but poetry lovers will find much to appreciate.
In this quiet, meditative novel, an unnamed narrator, who's just been released from fifteen years in prison, tells his story of doomed love: he, a peasant, committed the "crime" of falling in love with a wealthy girl, and in measured, evocative prose, he tells how it happened, and what it meant for his life.
If you want a plot-driven book, this isn't for you, but poetry lovers will find much to appreciate.
January 28, 2012
My review, published in The National:
I have always enjoyed thinking that there’s something fundamentally wrong with people who become writers of fiction. A wobbly pet theory, sure, but I’ve never been convinced that something as simple as talent and a love of literature fully explain the impulse behind the mind-chewing desperation of professional novel writing.
Mikhail Bakunin’s old anarchist dictum comes to mind here. “The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.” Indeed, and vice versa, I would think. Novel writing is hardly the most sustainable career path, financially, personally or psychologically. It’s dictatorial and self-obsessed; the act of pulling in and reordering consciousness, experience and impressions of the world day after day, alone in a room, just you and your illusions. It’s only really healthy if you’re coming from someplace a bit sick to begin with.
Sometimes, quite literally. In 1997, British author Peter Hobbs, 22 years old and fresh out of Oxford, was set to embark on a Middle Eastern diplomatic career. Before taking up his post, he decided to travel through Pakistan. There, he was struck down by a serious illness. In 2008, Hobbs told the magazine Granta about it: “It defined every second of my life for the best part of 10 years, no question. When you’re seriously ill, that’s it, that’s the only story there is about your life. I guess that phase lasted about three years, and I was still pretty ill but convalescing over another five years. Illness is solitary, because suffering is something you always do alone. It impacts phenomenally on your world view and on your experiences and on how you see the external world. It creates all kinds of limitations on the freedoms you have.”
Future paths eradicated along with his health, Hobbs began to write fiction. Over the course of the past decade he has become one of the most exquisite and wise writers on the nature of suffering, both of the body and the spirit.
Hobbs’ first novel, the Dublin IMPAC shortlisted The Short Day Dying, emerged from this in 2005. Narrated by Charles Wenmoth, a young Methodist preacher in 1870, the voice of the novel is unforgettable from the very first paragraph: “Our time is stolen from us and we are blind to its loss neither will we see it again mine hours have been wasted.” Both earthy and spiritual, Hobbs’ non-use of commas evokes not only the internal landscape of his character, the topography of consciousness, but also, incredibly, the external space and time of the 19th century Cornwall countryside. You feel the cold, the wide-open spaces, the fields and the low-hanging sky inside Wenmoth’s narration. In a sense, it is nature writing, but of a sort that places man’s own nature among the mysteries of creation; character and place are intertwined in Hobbs’ tonal landscapes. As Wenmoth says when exposed to Romantic poetry, “And then among the poems there are several in praise of Nature but the verses seem to me false and overly refined everything that Nature is not. I do not have a liking for it.”
Hobbs’ new novel, In the Orchard, the Swallows, manages the same feat, but with an entirely different voice. Loathe as anyone should be to quote a back-of-the-book blurb, I can think of no better way of putting this than Libyan author Hisham Matar’s praise that the book “contains more light than seems possible”. Where The Short Day Dying grammatically captured its foggy, wet environment, Hobbs’ new novel does the same with its clean, piercingly simple prose, every sentence exposed and true under the glare of the Pakistani sunlight. “There is a nakedness to imprisonment,” the unnamed narrator says. “No part of yourself can remain hidden.” The novel is a perfect distillation of this.
In the Orchard, the Swallows – its title alone contains more commas than Hobbs’ entire first novel – is set in present-day Pakistan. The narrator, 29 years old at the time of the telling, has returned to the village of his birth after being incarcerated and tortured for 15 years. Physically, he is a broken man. But by holding on to his capacity to love, and his love of the natural world, it is likely that he has returned wiser. The chapters, like the novel itself, are short. Each exposes a present-day occurrence or memory under the interrogatory spotlight of perfunctory titles such as The Orchard, The Garden, The Prison, The Wedding, and The Swallows. The novel is foregrounded by the tale of the narrator’s re-emergence into life. Found on the side of the road, half dead, he is nursed back to health by Abbas, a retired “government poet”, and his daughter, Alifa.
“I was so dehydrated I could hardly speak. When they tried to give me water my body would not keep it down [...] And he gave me pills, antibiotics, sour lozenges the size and shape of almonds. Even as it knew how much I needed them, my body tried to reject them, as it purged almost everything from it in those days. I wonder if there was something in me that did not want to return from illness. Something that preferred to remain latched closely to it, resigned to circle down into darkness, to be consumed.”
The narrator’s family is now gone, disappeared, and their beloved orchard is sold and untended. Aged by his years of torture, he is unrecognisable to the villagers of his hometown, which has gone through its own terrifying transformation: world events have broken through. A bomb is hurled over the wall of a school in a neighbouring valley; war is everywhere and people live in fear of strangers. He is now a stranger.
The novel takes the form of a journal written to the narrator’s beloved, Saba, a girl he hardly knew but the memory of whom has allowed him to remain human in prison where others “became inhabited by some vacancy, as though some crucial part of them was gone”. Among other things, the book is a love story. His love for Saba is both the cause of his imprisonment and, in a sense, what kept him sane. “I have said that I do not know the boy I once was. In truth, all that remains of him is this love for you. It was the only thing that survived.” He has come of age through powerlessness and physical suffering.
The construction of the novel feels at once perfectly calibrated, shorn of all but the most necessary details, and yet also free, mimicking the twists of memory. This is an accomplished feat. We’re taken from poetic descriptions of childhood and nature, from heartbreaking memories of dancing with his father in the orchard to the grotesquery of imprisonment. It’s hard to say what is more important to the narrator; descriptions of swallows in flight are given almost equal weight to descriptions of torture.
“Every instinct of the body is to recoil from pain, but they allowed us no escape. An awful sense of powerlessness grew steadily, as though I were inhaling a great breath of air and was unable to stop. The horror became overwhelming, and from some hidden place in my mind I felt a darkness, something huge and unnameable, begin to form. [...] I would wonder how many days I had been tormented, only to find, on being returned to the cell, that I had been gone no more than an hour or two.”
To be honest, that an English novelist chose as a subject a Pakistani man’s imprisonment initially rang some alarm bells for me. This, I thought, was not a case of writing what you know. In the end, however, it is exactly that – in a broad sense. Hobbs has homed in on a universal kernel of experience and truth, a love and suffering, and the force of a character shaped by events outside his control.
It’s hard not to read Hobbs’ own emergence as a writer from his debilitating illness into the story of a man recovering from 15 years of torture through the composition of a journal. Surely his own experience has given this devastating and gorgeous short novel its weight.
“All things are possible,” the narrator concludes towards the end of the book, and a line that might seem the slightest of clichés in the hands of another writer, another book, feels hard won in the context of In the Orchard, the Swallows – and, improbably, triumphantly uplifting.
Tod Wodicka is the author of the novel, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. He lives in Berlin where he is at work on his second novel, The Household Spirit.
I have always enjoyed thinking that there’s something fundamentally wrong with people who become writers of fiction. A wobbly pet theory, sure, but I’ve never been convinced that something as simple as talent and a love of literature fully explain the impulse behind the mind-chewing desperation of professional novel writing.
Mikhail Bakunin’s old anarchist dictum comes to mind here. “The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.” Indeed, and vice versa, I would think. Novel writing is hardly the most sustainable career path, financially, personally or psychologically. It’s dictatorial and self-obsessed; the act of pulling in and reordering consciousness, experience and impressions of the world day after day, alone in a room, just you and your illusions. It’s only really healthy if you’re coming from someplace a bit sick to begin with.
Sometimes, quite literally. In 1997, British author Peter Hobbs, 22 years old and fresh out of Oxford, was set to embark on a Middle Eastern diplomatic career. Before taking up his post, he decided to travel through Pakistan. There, he was struck down by a serious illness. In 2008, Hobbs told the magazine Granta about it: “It defined every second of my life for the best part of 10 years, no question. When you’re seriously ill, that’s it, that’s the only story there is about your life. I guess that phase lasted about three years, and I was still pretty ill but convalescing over another five years. Illness is solitary, because suffering is something you always do alone. It impacts phenomenally on your world view and on your experiences and on how you see the external world. It creates all kinds of limitations on the freedoms you have.”
Future paths eradicated along with his health, Hobbs began to write fiction. Over the course of the past decade he has become one of the most exquisite and wise writers on the nature of suffering, both of the body and the spirit.
Hobbs’ first novel, the Dublin IMPAC shortlisted The Short Day Dying, emerged from this in 2005. Narrated by Charles Wenmoth, a young Methodist preacher in 1870, the voice of the novel is unforgettable from the very first paragraph: “Our time is stolen from us and we are blind to its loss neither will we see it again mine hours have been wasted.” Both earthy and spiritual, Hobbs’ non-use of commas evokes not only the internal landscape of his character, the topography of consciousness, but also, incredibly, the external space and time of the 19th century Cornwall countryside. You feel the cold, the wide-open spaces, the fields and the low-hanging sky inside Wenmoth’s narration. In a sense, it is nature writing, but of a sort that places man’s own nature among the mysteries of creation; character and place are intertwined in Hobbs’ tonal landscapes. As Wenmoth says when exposed to Romantic poetry, “And then among the poems there are several in praise of Nature but the verses seem to me false and overly refined everything that Nature is not. I do not have a liking for it.”
Hobbs’ new novel, In the Orchard, the Swallows, manages the same feat, but with an entirely different voice. Loathe as anyone should be to quote a back-of-the-book blurb, I can think of no better way of putting this than Libyan author Hisham Matar’s praise that the book “contains more light than seems possible”. Where The Short Day Dying grammatically captured its foggy, wet environment, Hobbs’ new novel does the same with its clean, piercingly simple prose, every sentence exposed and true under the glare of the Pakistani sunlight. “There is a nakedness to imprisonment,” the unnamed narrator says. “No part of yourself can remain hidden.” The novel is a perfect distillation of this.
In the Orchard, the Swallows – its title alone contains more commas than Hobbs’ entire first novel – is set in present-day Pakistan. The narrator, 29 years old at the time of the telling, has returned to the village of his birth after being incarcerated and tortured for 15 years. Physically, he is a broken man. But by holding on to his capacity to love, and his love of the natural world, it is likely that he has returned wiser. The chapters, like the novel itself, are short. Each exposes a present-day occurrence or memory under the interrogatory spotlight of perfunctory titles such as The Orchard, The Garden, The Prison, The Wedding, and The Swallows. The novel is foregrounded by the tale of the narrator’s re-emergence into life. Found on the side of the road, half dead, he is nursed back to health by Abbas, a retired “government poet”, and his daughter, Alifa.
“I was so dehydrated I could hardly speak. When they tried to give me water my body would not keep it down [...] And he gave me pills, antibiotics, sour lozenges the size and shape of almonds. Even as it knew how much I needed them, my body tried to reject them, as it purged almost everything from it in those days. I wonder if there was something in me that did not want to return from illness. Something that preferred to remain latched closely to it, resigned to circle down into darkness, to be consumed.”
The narrator’s family is now gone, disappeared, and their beloved orchard is sold and untended. Aged by his years of torture, he is unrecognisable to the villagers of his hometown, which has gone through its own terrifying transformation: world events have broken through. A bomb is hurled over the wall of a school in a neighbouring valley; war is everywhere and people live in fear of strangers. He is now a stranger.
The novel takes the form of a journal written to the narrator’s beloved, Saba, a girl he hardly knew but the memory of whom has allowed him to remain human in prison where others “became inhabited by some vacancy, as though some crucial part of them was gone”. Among other things, the book is a love story. His love for Saba is both the cause of his imprisonment and, in a sense, what kept him sane. “I have said that I do not know the boy I once was. In truth, all that remains of him is this love for you. It was the only thing that survived.” He has come of age through powerlessness and physical suffering.
The construction of the novel feels at once perfectly calibrated, shorn of all but the most necessary details, and yet also free, mimicking the twists of memory. This is an accomplished feat. We’re taken from poetic descriptions of childhood and nature, from heartbreaking memories of dancing with his father in the orchard to the grotesquery of imprisonment. It’s hard to say what is more important to the narrator; descriptions of swallows in flight are given almost equal weight to descriptions of torture.
“Every instinct of the body is to recoil from pain, but they allowed us no escape. An awful sense of powerlessness grew steadily, as though I were inhaling a great breath of air and was unable to stop. The horror became overwhelming, and from some hidden place in my mind I felt a darkness, something huge and unnameable, begin to form. [...] I would wonder how many days I had been tormented, only to find, on being returned to the cell, that I had been gone no more than an hour or two.”
To be honest, that an English novelist chose as a subject a Pakistani man’s imprisonment initially rang some alarm bells for me. This, I thought, was not a case of writing what you know. In the end, however, it is exactly that – in a broad sense. Hobbs has homed in on a universal kernel of experience and truth, a love and suffering, and the force of a character shaped by events outside his control.
It’s hard not to read Hobbs’ own emergence as a writer from his debilitating illness into the story of a man recovering from 15 years of torture through the composition of a journal. Surely his own experience has given this devastating and gorgeous short novel its weight.
“All things are possible,” the narrator concludes towards the end of the book, and a line that might seem the slightest of clichés in the hands of another writer, another book, feels hard won in the context of In the Orchard, the Swallows – and, improbably, triumphantly uplifting.
Tod Wodicka is the author of the novel, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. He lives in Berlin where he is at work on his second novel, The Household Spirit.
April 2, 2022
Mă bucur atât de mult că am primit această carte! A fost absolut genială!
Povestea acestui tânăr m-a făcut să simt fiori reci pe șira spinării. Există capitole dureroase, cu un puternic impact, dar și capitole care aleg să ne ofere un moment de liniște, o pauză pentru a așeza informațiile primite, pentru a ne relaxa puțin.
Povestea acestui tânăr m-a făcut să simt fiori reci pe șira spinării. Există capitole dureroase, cu un puternic impact, dar și capitole care aleg să ne ofere un moment de liniște, o pauză pentru a așeza informațiile primite, pentru a ne relaxa puțin.
January 10, 2018
“Saba – eram doar nişte copii pe atunci şi nu ştiam nimic despre graniţele care despart lumea adulţilor. Nu ştiam că lumea e formată din ziduri şi gratii, că popoarele sunt separate unele de altele. Munţii erau străbătuţi de văgăuni. Cum putea cineva să traseze vreo graniţă acolo? Şi dacă nici măcar popoarele nu puteau fi delimitate, de ce ar trebui să fie despărţiţi doi oameni? Nu, noi eram copii şi nu ştiam nimic despre toate astea; poate că nicicând nu vom mai fi la fel de înţelepţi.”
October 28, 2022
My first proper french novel ...woohoo!! 🎊
This novella was originally published in English called In the Orchard, The Swallows.
It's a very melancholic story of an unfortunate nameless young man living in the beautiful fertile Northern region of Pakistan. One fateful day he meets Saba and there starts their very succinct and troubled love story. Soon they are caught by the politician father of Saba and under the darkness of the night the boy is whipped away to a far off prison where he is brutally and mercilessly tortured.
This little book is basically him writing down his story, addressed to Saba. Story of his baseless and brutal incarceration over many years, the months spent recuperating in the orchards and gardens of the beautiful North and dreaming of one day some day maybe meeting her again.
This novella was originally published in English called In the Orchard, The Swallows.
It's a very melancholic story of an unfortunate nameless young man living in the beautiful fertile Northern region of Pakistan. One fateful day he meets Saba and there starts their very succinct and troubled love story. Soon they are caught by the politician father of Saba and under the darkness of the night the boy is whipped away to a far off prison where he is brutally and mercilessly tortured.
This little book is basically him writing down his story, addressed to Saba. Story of his baseless and brutal incarceration over many years, the months spent recuperating in the orchards and gardens of the beautiful North and dreaming of one day some day maybe meeting her again.
September 17, 2022
“Ce lucru extraordinar e memoria.”
„Iubirea trebuie împărtășită căci altfel e doar nebunie.”
Cartea este scrisă ca o scrisoare adresată iubirii din tinerețe ori un jurnal “îți voi spune despre ea pentru că vreau să știi pe unde am fost. Mă îndurerează că nu știi nimic despre viața mea.”
Personajul principal este un tînăr de 14 ani care ajunge la închisoare în urma unei încăierări cu tatăl fetei pe care o iubește. Fiind om influent și cu putere (politician), acesta se răzbună într-un mod ridicol și exagerat “fusesem băgat la închisoare nu pentru a fi pedepsit ci pentru a fi uitat. Nu existase niciun proces, niciun dosar sau judecată”. 15 ani l-au costat acest act de furie necontrolat “eram atît de tînăr și neghiob. Îmi este rușine de prostia mea”.
Capitolele legate de anii în care a fost închis descriu ororile din închisorile pakistaneze unde “timpul devine insuportabil”. Mi-a amintit de comunism. Gardienii pedepsesc prin torturi groaznice doar din plictiseală. Condițiile sunt inumane. Deținuții dorm în fecale, în frig și în lanțuri. Apa e murdară, mîncarea puțină și simplă. În aceste condiții omul este pus la încercare: să devină animal sălbatic sau să tragă cu dinții de rațiune și bunătate. Una din formele de rezistență o reprezintă Saba, iubita lui din copilărie de care nu mai știe nimic. Iubirea îi dă o speranță totuși nu durează mult “a venit o vreme cînd doar amintirea ta nu mai putea să mă salveze”.
Spre final, gîndul că iubirea lui este imposibil de împărtășit îl copleșește “tînjesc în fiecare zi după ceva ce nu voi avea niciodată și învăț să trăiesc cu acest dor. Nu e mai bine așa decît să uităm? Să ne înfruntăm regretele așa cum sunt, să le cunoaștem măsura, să știm valoarea a ceea ce am pierdut?”. Au trecut mulți ani. E o străină acum. Poate s-a măritat, poate are copii, poate e fericită. De ce să-i fure bucuria?
Ultimele pagini sunt o dorință arzătoare de a o reîntîlni pe Saba și de a-i înmîna manuscrisul cu tot ce a scris despre viața sa care acum a ajuns la 29 de rîndunici. Bucata de viață care i-a despărțit și despre care ea nu știe nimic este mărturia unui om care a pierdut totul “atîția ani... mi s-a luat totul. Sănătatea și familia. Acum sunt o jumătate de om, o umbră. Plăcerile m-au părăsit”.
“-Am fost poet.
-Și acum ești la pensie?
-Acum nu mai am poezii de scris.” Cînd rămîne omul fără poezii de scris? Poate cînd simte că nu mai sunt cititori pentru el.
„Iubirea trebuie împărtășită căci altfel e doar nebunie.”
Cartea este scrisă ca o scrisoare adresată iubirii din tinerețe ori un jurnal “îți voi spune despre ea pentru că vreau să știi pe unde am fost. Mă îndurerează că nu știi nimic despre viața mea.”
Personajul principal este un tînăr de 14 ani care ajunge la închisoare în urma unei încăierări cu tatăl fetei pe care o iubește. Fiind om influent și cu putere (politician), acesta se răzbună într-un mod ridicol și exagerat “fusesem băgat la închisoare nu pentru a fi pedepsit ci pentru a fi uitat. Nu existase niciun proces, niciun dosar sau judecată”. 15 ani l-au costat acest act de furie necontrolat “eram atît de tînăr și neghiob. Îmi este rușine de prostia mea”.
Capitolele legate de anii în care a fost închis descriu ororile din închisorile pakistaneze unde “timpul devine insuportabil”. Mi-a amintit de comunism. Gardienii pedepsesc prin torturi groaznice doar din plictiseală. Condițiile sunt inumane. Deținuții dorm în fecale, în frig și în lanțuri. Apa e murdară, mîncarea puțină și simplă. În aceste condiții omul este pus la încercare: să devină animal sălbatic sau să tragă cu dinții de rațiune și bunătate. Una din formele de rezistență o reprezintă Saba, iubita lui din copilărie de care nu mai știe nimic. Iubirea îi dă o speranță totuși nu durează mult “a venit o vreme cînd doar amintirea ta nu mai putea să mă salveze”.
Spre final, gîndul că iubirea lui este imposibil de împărtășit îl copleșește “tînjesc în fiecare zi după ceva ce nu voi avea niciodată și învăț să trăiesc cu acest dor. Nu e mai bine așa decît să uităm? Să ne înfruntăm regretele așa cum sunt, să le cunoaștem măsura, să știm valoarea a ceea ce am pierdut?”. Au trecut mulți ani. E o străină acum. Poate s-a măritat, poate are copii, poate e fericită. De ce să-i fure bucuria?
Ultimele pagini sunt o dorință arzătoare de a o reîntîlni pe Saba și de a-i înmîna manuscrisul cu tot ce a scris despre viața sa care acum a ajuns la 29 de rîndunici. Bucata de viață care i-a despărțit și despre care ea nu știe nimic este mărturia unui om care a pierdut totul “atîția ani... mi s-a luat totul. Sănătatea și familia. Acum sunt o jumătate de om, o umbră. Plăcerile m-au părăsit”.
“-Am fost poet.
-Și acum ești la pensie?
-Acum nu mai am poezii de scris.” Cînd rămîne omul fără poezii de scris? Poate cînd simte că nu mai sunt cititori pentru el.
December 10, 2025
“Ben Saba,” dedin, adın bana muhteşem bir hediye gibi gelmişti.
Hala da öyle geliyor. Adını, sahip olduğum en değerli şeyi uzun süre taşıdım. Çok nadir dile getiririm ismini, böylece etrafımdaki her şey gibi lekelenmez. Ruhumun derinliklerine gömdüm, tutunacak başka hiçbir şeyim kalmadığında karanlıkta ismini fısıldar, kimsenin duymasını istemem, böyle yaptığımda senden bir parça bana gelir, benden bir parça da seni tamamlar.
//
Anlatıcının aşkı, acısı, tüm kalp kırıklığı olduğu gibi okura geçiyor ama öyle sessiz sakin bir tonu var ki, umutsuzluğuna rağmen insan kendini umut ederken buluyor gibi.
Ilık bir akşam rüzgârına benzettim bu kitabı. Hani hafif bi’ esinti yüzünüzü okşadığında huzurlu hissedersiniz ama uzun süre maruz kaldığınızda bu rüzgarın sizi üşütüp hasta edeceğini bilirsiniz ya? Öyle.
Hala da öyle geliyor. Adını, sahip olduğum en değerli şeyi uzun süre taşıdım. Çok nadir dile getiririm ismini, böylece etrafımdaki her şey gibi lekelenmez. Ruhumun derinliklerine gömdüm, tutunacak başka hiçbir şeyim kalmadığında karanlıkta ismini fısıldar, kimsenin duymasını istemem, böyle yaptığımda senden bir parça bana gelir, benden bir parça da seni tamamlar.
//
Anlatıcının aşkı, acısı, tüm kalp kırıklığı olduğu gibi okura geçiyor ama öyle sessiz sakin bir tonu var ki, umutsuzluğuna rağmen insan kendini umut ederken buluyor gibi.
Ilık bir akşam rüzgârına benzettim bu kitabı. Hani hafif bi’ esinti yüzünüzü okşadığında huzurlu hissedersiniz ama uzun süre maruz kaldığınızda bu rüzgarın sizi üşütüp hasta edeceğini bilirsiniz ya? Öyle.
January 17, 2016
okay, so i had to take a bit of times to process this read and while i have a few things to say about this beautiful book, i can't guarantee any coherence of my thoughts. this book has sort-of...rendered me dumb. though probably "awe-struck" is a better term? :)
going into this read, i was very aware of hobbs's backstory: 15 years ago, while travelling in pakistan, hobbs became very ill. so sick from a crazy virus that attacked his immune system and confounded doctors, in fact, that he was rendered disabled and not able to work or even function for 10 years. and while he is not totally "better" he is at a point where he can entertain choices about how to live and how to earn a living.
so, this information was very present in my mind while reading the story of a young man, imprisoned at the age of 14. he endures torture and is held for 15 years (all for falling in love with a girl above his station). hobbs maintains the prison arc was not an allegory for his own illness, but it's hard to not make that connection.
hobbs's writing is exquisite - spare, exact and beautiful. as a reader i was pulled into our unnamed narrator's love, heartache and pain. so much is conveyed so simply with the prose and while our narrator experiences horrible things, i was left feeling, very strongly, this person, this story was full of hope, and humanity and compassion can still be found in this world in the most unlikely places.
mark medley, writing in the national post did a wonderful feature on peter hobbs, back in may of this year.
i am very grateful there are publishing houses and editors willing (and keen) to take on books that are quieter and less mainstream. i hope to convince many people to read this amazing book!!
going into this read, i was very aware of hobbs's backstory: 15 years ago, while travelling in pakistan, hobbs became very ill. so sick from a crazy virus that attacked his immune system and confounded doctors, in fact, that he was rendered disabled and not able to work or even function for 10 years. and while he is not totally "better" he is at a point where he can entertain choices about how to live and how to earn a living.
so, this information was very present in my mind while reading the story of a young man, imprisoned at the age of 14. he endures torture and is held for 15 years (all for falling in love with a girl above his station). hobbs maintains the prison arc was not an allegory for his own illness, but it's hard to not make that connection.
hobbs's writing is exquisite - spare, exact and beautiful. as a reader i was pulled into our unnamed narrator's love, heartache and pain. so much is conveyed so simply with the prose and while our narrator experiences horrible things, i was left feeling, very strongly, this person, this story was full of hope, and humanity and compassion can still be found in this world in the most unlikely places.
mark medley, writing in the national post did a wonderful feature on peter hobbs, back in may of this year.
i am very grateful there are publishing houses and editors willing (and keen) to take on books that are quieter and less mainstream. i hope to convince many people to read this amazing book!!
January 29, 2014
Brief and tragic story of a life shattered by brutality. The imagery is fresh and poignant in the unnamed protagonist's extended letter to the object of his fatal teenage passion; simplicity gives the work poetic force, like a really good pop song.
For me the best aspect of the book is the kindness shown to the protagonist by the poet Abbas, which is beyond formality and habit.
For me the best aspect of the book is the kindness shown to the protagonist by the poet Abbas, which is beyond formality and habit.
February 21, 2022
Cartea asta e micuță, dar îți rupe sufletul.. E o poveste atât de tristă, dar cu siguranță reală, în Pakistanul inchistat de tradiții și islam. Recomand
April 26, 2022
Am citit diverse recenzii care susțineau că este o lucrare modernă de geniu, cu o proză luxuriantă, lirică și care conține o poveste de dragoste care a rezistat vremii. Dar nu. „În livadă, rândunicile” folosește simplitatea pentru a spune povestea. Hobbs creează niște imagini puternice, dar nu pentru că el supradescrie peisajul prin cuvinte și metafore pline de emoție, nu se exprimă folosind cuvinte sau expresii deosebit de frumoase și nu trezește la viață simțurile cititorului prin adjective și adverbe. El spune doar o poveste folosind o formulare simplă și directă, astfel încât să putem înțelege cu ușurință sensul mai puternic care se află în spatele cuvintelor.
"Ura față de tatăl tău m-a chinuit ani în șir. Și, în confuzia mea, eram supărat, de asemenea, pe familia mea, pentru că nu mă căutau, și eram supărat și pe tine, că nu-l rugai pe tatăl tău să afle unde sunt. Nu credeam că era posibil ca tu să știi, și totuși să nu-l convingi să i se facă milă de mine. Acum înteleg, desigur, că și dacă ai fi știut, nu ai fi putut să faci nimic."
"Caut să fiu un om mai bun decât sunt."
Nici acest roman nu este o poveste de dragoste, așa cum i s-a făcut reclamă. Aceasta este o poveste despre închisoare și suferință. Aceasta nu este o poveste de dragoste, deoarece nu este vorba despre dragoste. Pe scurt, la începutul cărții, există o scurtă poveste de dragoste, dar nu este romantism in adevăratul sens al cuvântului. Cea mai mare parte a acestei povești este despre un bărbat, închis pentru 15 ani pe nedrept, supus unor abuzuri oribile și nesfârșite. Este IDEEA iubirii care îi permite să supraviețuiască și să îndure ororile captivității. Nu o iubește cu adevărat pe fata pe care a cunoscut-o cu toți acești ani în urmă, fata care probabil a uitat de el în momentul în care a fost arestat, dar trebuie să se agațe de acea IDEE a iubirii pentru a rămâne în viață.
"Vei citi aceste rânduri și vei crede că sentimentul pe care îl încerc a ajuns să fe o obsesie pentru mine? Sentimentul acesta, care odinioară a fost adevărat, dar care a ajuns să existe doar în inima mea? Iubirea trebuie să fie împărtășită, căci altfel e doar nebunie."
"Mi-e teamă că (...) am schimbat adevărul a ceea ce am avut noi, fără putință de a-l restaura. Că, luându-l în beznă, i-am permis să se altereze, că a devenit ceva ce aparține doar imaginației mele."
Aș compara această carte cu cea a lui Elie Wiesel, „Noaptea”. Tematic și stilistic sunt foarte asemănătoare. Povești foarte scurte, simpliste, care folosesc închisoarea și tortura pentru a se limita la condiția umană. Într-o perioadă scurtă de timp și spațiu, ambii autori sunt capabili să se concentreze asupra semnificației libertății, speranței, rezistenței, iubirii și a altor ideologii grele, fără a folosi o descriere străină pentru a înveli mesajul transmis. Nu este sentimental, nu este exagerat de emoționant, nu este nici măcar scriere poetică... dar este de impact.
"Dacă-mi întreb acum inima: te iubesc? atunci răspunsul țâșnește rapid, copleșitor și cert: da. O simt cu fiecare părticică din mine. Și mă încred în inima mea, căci nu am nimic altceva. (...) E posibil să iubești pe cineva atâta amar de vreme, în absența sa, și ca iubirea aceea să rămână neștirbită și sinceră?"
Ce nu mi-a plăcut la această carte a fost că m-a lăsat cu numeroase întrebări. Mi-aș fi dorit un epilog sau o continuare care să ne arate cum a continuat viața lui peste ani, dacă a reușit să depășească greutațile sau dacă, din contră, s-a afundat mai tare în problemele vieții. Ce s-a ales de familia lui? Ce s-a ales de ea, iubirea lui? De ce a fost abandonat de toți atâția ani? Pot înțelege că el a ales să scrie pentru a-și spune povestea și, poate, pentru a încheia acest capitol din viață lui și pentru a putea merge mai departe, un fel de terapie, dar oare ce s-a ales de el?
"Ura față de tatăl tău m-a chinuit ani în șir. Și, în confuzia mea, eram supărat, de asemenea, pe familia mea, pentru că nu mă căutau, și eram supărat și pe tine, că nu-l rugai pe tatăl tău să afle unde sunt. Nu credeam că era posibil ca tu să știi, și totuși să nu-l convingi să i se facă milă de mine. Acum înteleg, desigur, că și dacă ai fi știut, nu ai fi putut să faci nimic."
"Caut să fiu un om mai bun decât sunt."
Nici acest roman nu este o poveste de dragoste, așa cum i s-a făcut reclamă. Aceasta este o poveste despre închisoare și suferință. Aceasta nu este o poveste de dragoste, deoarece nu este vorba despre dragoste. Pe scurt, la începutul cărții, există o scurtă poveste de dragoste, dar nu este romantism in adevăratul sens al cuvântului. Cea mai mare parte a acestei povești este despre un bărbat, închis pentru 15 ani pe nedrept, supus unor abuzuri oribile și nesfârșite. Este IDEEA iubirii care îi permite să supraviețuiască și să îndure ororile captivității. Nu o iubește cu adevărat pe fata pe care a cunoscut-o cu toți acești ani în urmă, fata care probabil a uitat de el în momentul în care a fost arestat, dar trebuie să se agațe de acea IDEE a iubirii pentru a rămâne în viață.
"Vei citi aceste rânduri și vei crede că sentimentul pe care îl încerc a ajuns să fe o obsesie pentru mine? Sentimentul acesta, care odinioară a fost adevărat, dar care a ajuns să existe doar în inima mea? Iubirea trebuie să fie împărtășită, căci altfel e doar nebunie."
"Mi-e teamă că (...) am schimbat adevărul a ceea ce am avut noi, fără putință de a-l restaura. Că, luându-l în beznă, i-am permis să se altereze, că a devenit ceva ce aparține doar imaginației mele."
Aș compara această carte cu cea a lui Elie Wiesel, „Noaptea”. Tematic și stilistic sunt foarte asemănătoare. Povești foarte scurte, simpliste, care folosesc închisoarea și tortura pentru a se limita la condiția umană. Într-o perioadă scurtă de timp și spațiu, ambii autori sunt capabili să se concentreze asupra semnificației libertății, speranței, rezistenței, iubirii și a altor ideologii grele, fără a folosi o descriere străină pentru a înveli mesajul transmis. Nu este sentimental, nu este exagerat de emoționant, nu este nici măcar scriere poetică... dar este de impact.
"Dacă-mi întreb acum inima: te iubesc? atunci răspunsul țâșnește rapid, copleșitor și cert: da. O simt cu fiecare părticică din mine. Și mă încred în inima mea, căci nu am nimic altceva. (...) E posibil să iubești pe cineva atâta amar de vreme, în absența sa, și ca iubirea aceea să rămână neștirbită și sinceră?"
Ce nu mi-a plăcut la această carte a fost că m-a lăsat cu numeroase întrebări. Mi-aș fi dorit un epilog sau o continuare care să ne arate cum a continuat viața lui peste ani, dacă a reușit să depășească greutațile sau dacă, din contră, s-a afundat mai tare în problemele vieții. Ce s-a ales de familia lui? Ce s-a ales de ea, iubirea lui? De ce a fost abandonat de toți atâția ani? Pot înțelege că el a ales să scrie pentru a-și spune povestea și, poate, pentru a încheia acest capitol din viață lui și pentru a putea merge mai departe, un fel de terapie, dar oare ce s-a ales de el?
March 7, 2024
'In the Orchard, the Swallows' by Peter Hobbs.
Rating: 3.75/5.
Review:
If you have accidentally stumbled upon this review, let me be quite frank with you all. I had no idea about the existence of this work of art until a week before reading it. I won the book as a part of a giveaway hosted by an online used bookseller [@theoldpostman_ on Instagram] about a week ago. Neither the bookseller nor I have any connections with the author and the publisher, and hence, any views posted here are reflective of an honest attempt to narrate my experience while reading this book.
After winning the giveaway, I browsed through some spoiler-free reviews on Goodreads to get a general idea about the story. Several reviews were lauding the story for its lush and lyrical prose, while some reviews mentioned it to be a love story worth noting. However, my experience with the book wasn't the same as the majority. I neither encountered such lyrical prose nor a love story in this book. Rather, the author uses simplicity to tell the story. This isn't a glaring flaw, but something that works within the context of the tale. With merely simple and straightforward prose, Hobbs manages to create powerful imagery that enables the reader to comprehend the strong emotions and deeper meaning that lies buried within such simplistic prose.
This isn't a love story as it has been advertised. There's a budding romance at the beginning, but the majority of the book is about a man who is unjustly imprisoned and subjected to inhumane degrees of torture for over a decade and a half. It is the idea of love that helps him survive his ordeal. When it is revealed almost towards the end of the book that he has been imprisoned for over fifteen years, it dawned upon me that there's no hope for him when it comes back to getting his long-lost love. The girl probably has forgotten about him a few weeks after his imprisonment and might have been married and started her family by now. It was then that I realized this book wouldn't have the fairy tale ending I had been hoping for. For the hopeless romantics, the last chapter does offer an alternate ending imagined by the protagonist that offers some solace if you were looking for a miracle towards the end.
Do I regret reading this book? Absolutely not. Instead, I'm glad that I got introduced to this story by some strange happenstance. It is simple yet beautifully written. It is a very visual, thought-provoking, and emotional tale that managed to touch my heart.
Perhaps you have put the past behind you, and whatever regrets you might have had have been set aside, because you do not see their purpose. Time softens all griefs, they say, and it is useless to dwell on the lives that might have been. We are granted only one life, and one life is enough. Whom do such regrets profit? What do they achieve, except to bring us unhappiness?
Rating: 3.75/5.
Review:
If you have accidentally stumbled upon this review, let me be quite frank with you all. I had no idea about the existence of this work of art until a week before reading it. I won the book as a part of a giveaway hosted by an online used bookseller [@theoldpostman_ on Instagram] about a week ago. Neither the bookseller nor I have any connections with the author and the publisher, and hence, any views posted here are reflective of an honest attempt to narrate my experience while reading this book.
After winning the giveaway, I browsed through some spoiler-free reviews on Goodreads to get a general idea about the story. Several reviews were lauding the story for its lush and lyrical prose, while some reviews mentioned it to be a love story worth noting. However, my experience with the book wasn't the same as the majority. I neither encountered such lyrical prose nor a love story in this book. Rather, the author uses simplicity to tell the story. This isn't a glaring flaw, but something that works within the context of the tale. With merely simple and straightforward prose, Hobbs manages to create powerful imagery that enables the reader to comprehend the strong emotions and deeper meaning that lies buried within such simplistic prose.
This isn't a love story as it has been advertised. There's a budding romance at the beginning, but the majority of the book is about a man who is unjustly imprisoned and subjected to inhumane degrees of torture for over a decade and a half. It is the idea of love that helps him survive his ordeal. When it is revealed almost towards the end of the book that he has been imprisoned for over fifteen years, it dawned upon me that there's no hope for him when it comes back to getting his long-lost love. The girl probably has forgotten about him a few weeks after his imprisonment and might have been married and started her family by now. It was then that I realized this book wouldn't have the fairy tale ending I had been hoping for. For the hopeless romantics, the last chapter does offer an alternate ending imagined by the protagonist that offers some solace if you were looking for a miracle towards the end.
Do I regret reading this book? Absolutely not. Instead, I'm glad that I got introduced to this story by some strange happenstance. It is simple yet beautifully written. It is a very visual, thought-provoking, and emotional tale that managed to touch my heart.
April 18, 2020
Sako, jog liūdni žmonės savyje slepia didžiausią grožį. Ar tai tiesa, nežinau. Skaitydamas jaučiu, kaip į mane smelkiasi ilgesys, skausmas, liūdesys. Jaučiu. Išgyvenu. Galbūt ne kalėjimą, ne kankinimus, ne fizinį skausmą, gyvasties žūtį. Ne, tačiau visą kitą.
Liūdnas, tačiau labai gražus tekstas. Nors žodžiai paprasti, kasdieniški, bet jų sandara sukuria melancholišką griūtį.
Tai meilės laiškas. 160 puslapių meilės laiškas. Keliasdešimties metų gyvenimas. Praradimas. Galbūt viltis.
Viena gražiausių skaitytų knygų.
Liūdnas, tačiau labai gražus tekstas. Nors žodžiai paprasti, kasdieniški, bet jų sandara sukuria melancholišką griūtį.
Tai meilės laiškas. 160 puslapių meilės laiškas. Keliasdešimties metų gyvenimas. Praradimas. Galbūt viltis.
Viena gražiausių skaitytų knygų.
November 2, 2018
4.5 stars. Absolutely stunning. A harrowing novel written with a lyrical nudity that is somehow more lovely for its simplicity.
August 24, 2016
A Romeo Resurrected
Shakespeare's Romeo loved Juliet despite the opposition of their families, and his temerity resulted in both their deaths. When only 14, the unnamed narrator of this exquisite novella spends a summer night sitting chastely with a young girl in his father's pomegranate orchard, and he pays for this with fifteen years in prison. For these are the tribal areas in the mountains of Pakistan, and the girl's father is a powerful man. Written after his release, as his broken body slowly recuperates, this short book is a love letter to the girl, Saba, even though he knows he may never see her again.
I have had this title for over a year now on Kindle, but never got around to reading it. It was only when I came across a paper copy in my local library, as handsome as I have come to expect from Europa Editions, that I was impelled to pick it up. And the writing is every bit as beautiful as the exquisite filigree of leaves and branches that adorns the cover. Not merely because of Peter Hobbs' style, which is direct and evocative at the same time, but through the beauty of the Good Samaritan character who finds the narrator lying half-dead in a ditch, and nurses him back to health. This is a poet named Abbas, who lives alone with his young daughter in a house with a carefully-tended enclosed garden, a place that becomes as special to the writer as his father's old orchard, now overgrown:
======
*
Though I now understand from an article by the author that he served there for a while on British foreign service, before contracting an illness that laid him low for years—his equivalent to the prison term served by the protagonist here.
Shakespeare's Romeo loved Juliet despite the opposition of their families, and his temerity resulted in both their deaths. When only 14, the unnamed narrator of this exquisite novella spends a summer night sitting chastely with a young girl in his father's pomegranate orchard, and he pays for this with fifteen years in prison. For these are the tribal areas in the mountains of Pakistan, and the girl's father is a powerful man. Written after his release, as his broken body slowly recuperates, this short book is a love letter to the girl, Saba, even though he knows he may never see her again.
I have had this title for over a year now on Kindle, but never got around to reading it. It was only when I came across a paper copy in my local library, as handsome as I have come to expect from Europa Editions, that I was impelled to pick it up. And the writing is every bit as beautiful as the exquisite filigree of leaves and branches that adorns the cover. Not merely because of Peter Hobbs' style, which is direct and evocative at the same time, but through the beauty of the Good Samaritan character who finds the narrator lying half-dead in a ditch, and nurses him back to health. This is a poet named Abbas, who lives alone with his young daughter in a house with a carefully-tended enclosed garden, a place that becomes as special to the writer as his father's old orchard, now overgrown:
On the left-hand side, in one of the thick streams of mortar that affixes the stones of the wall, a script flows, carved in beautiful handwriting. The alphabet is familiar to me, but the words are foreign. It is Persian, Abbas has told me, a line of poetry that reads: "If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." He told me that this word, "pairidaeza," is from the old Persian, and originally referred to a walled area, a garden. So in my first weeks in this place I have come to understand that not all enclosed spaces are prisons, and that some are for safety: some are sanctuaries.It is amazing that Peter Hobbs is English and not a lifelong resident of this place.* He writes in prose but is clearly a poet, distilling a spiritual essence that one feels as absolutely true to the culture, although making no claim to being correct in detail. All the same, this is far from airy fantasy. The stink and degradation of the prison is real enough, and the book is set in the years before and after the American invasion of Afghanistan, when both Taliban fighters and American pursuers were passing freely over the border. Yet somehow, in the midst of all this turmoil, Hobbs creates a romantic idyll, a love story in which the Romeo, at least, manages to survive the tomb and return to life.
======
*
Though I now understand from an article by the author that he served there for a while on British foreign service, before contracting an illness that laid him low for years—his equivalent to the prison term served by the protagonist here.
April 8, 2012
It was the scent of roses...
the smell faint but so sweet, and it came to my dulled senses as powerfully a any narcotic."
A young man returns to the orchard of his childhood, and, as he reconnects with the colours, the scents, the taste of the fruit, and the view far down into the valley, images from the past return, happy ones of his youth, his first, innocent feelings of love, and sad and painful ones from the long time away from the orchard and village down the hill. Peter Hobbs's novella, In the Orchard, the Swallows, captures the reader from the first sentences with their subtle tone and the beautiful depiction of place and vista. Very quickly we sense that during the intervening years, between childhood and now - fifteen long years - much has happened to the young man, events and encounters that demand all his energy to absorb and process so that he can slowly heal. He is weak, bruised in body and soul, and would have died if he had not been found by the gentle and generous Abbas...
Having been confined for a long time, "I would crane my neck upwards, blinking into the light, looking for the swallows." They symbolize for him the freedom he had lost but his yearning for it had not diminished. "And when I raised my head and saw them flying free, there was a feeling in my heart of something I had not known for a long time. It was joy, and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt, because it reminded me of everything we no longer owned." There is another constant thought that keeps him company and the will to survive the tortures he is subjected to: the vivid image of his beloved, Saba, the girl he felt so innocently in love with at the tender age of 14...
In fact, the novel is an ode to Love, a journal addressed to the beloved in which he recounts not only his suffering during the years away and his return, but also his memories of a happy youth and how Saba's image kept him focused on life and now keeps him company as he is on the slow road to recovery...Memory or dream? "Perhaps one day I will come to choose that it was true, so that it will become a memory, and I will forget that it was just dream."
Hobb's brief novel is written with gentleness and intensity, haunting and brutally direct at times, relaxing at others. It will remain one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. While references are made to northern Pakistan, the story could easily be imagined in other countries in the region and beyond. Hobbs's personal story has given insights into the human body and psyche and their ability to survive and heal that are captivatingly transposed into his novel. I rarely am taken by book covers, but this one attracted me from the first glance at it.
the smell faint but so sweet, and it came to my dulled senses as powerfully a any narcotic."
A young man returns to the orchard of his childhood, and, as he reconnects with the colours, the scents, the taste of the fruit, and the view far down into the valley, images from the past return, happy ones of his youth, his first, innocent feelings of love, and sad and painful ones from the long time away from the orchard and village down the hill. Peter Hobbs's novella, In the Orchard, the Swallows, captures the reader from the first sentences with their subtle tone and the beautiful depiction of place and vista. Very quickly we sense that during the intervening years, between childhood and now - fifteen long years - much has happened to the young man, events and encounters that demand all his energy to absorb and process so that he can slowly heal. He is weak, bruised in body and soul, and would have died if he had not been found by the gentle and generous Abbas...
Having been confined for a long time, "I would crane my neck upwards, blinking into the light, looking for the swallows." They symbolize for him the freedom he had lost but his yearning for it had not diminished. "And when I raised my head and saw them flying free, there was a feeling in my heart of something I had not known for a long time. It was joy, and it was the most painful thing I have ever felt, because it reminded me of everything we no longer owned." There is another constant thought that keeps him company and the will to survive the tortures he is subjected to: the vivid image of his beloved, Saba, the girl he felt so innocently in love with at the tender age of 14...
In fact, the novel is an ode to Love, a journal addressed to the beloved in which he recounts not only his suffering during the years away and his return, but also his memories of a happy youth and how Saba's image kept him focused on life and now keeps him company as he is on the slow road to recovery...Memory or dream? "Perhaps one day I will come to choose that it was true, so that it will become a memory, and I will forget that it was just dream."
Hobb's brief novel is written with gentleness and intensity, haunting and brutally direct at times, relaxing at others. It will remain one of the most beautiful books I have read in a while. While references are made to northern Pakistan, the story could easily be imagined in other countries in the region and beyond. Hobbs's personal story has given insights into the human body and psyche and their ability to survive and heal that are captivatingly transposed into his novel. I rarely am taken by book covers, but this one attracted me from the first glance at it.
September 2, 2024
iyileşme hakkında olsa da kapağının vaat ettiği gibi naif bir kitap...
June 22, 2012
My friend Johanna recommended this book to me. I read the description of it and I got the impression that the book was a bit boring and not something I would like. I expected some kind of a Bollywood movie in the form of a book.
I was wrong.
The story in this book is not described with big words. The voice of the anonymous storyteller is soft and calm, and the language and descriptions is like a beautiful painting. I was very positive surprised!
The story itself is not very complicated. It could have been told in only one chapter. But a lot would have been lost, because this book is not about facts. It is about finding peace with one self despite horrible experiences.
The story is sad. A 14 year old boy is flirting with a girl he likes. The father of the girl does not like it and uses his influence to get the boy to "disappear". Nobody knows that he is being held in a prison.
After 15 years the boy is released.
The story teller, the boy, realizes that his love for the girl has helped him through the troubled times in prison. He understands that thinking and dreaming about the girl was his tool to survive and not give up. But out in the free he has to face the reality. As he writes - love from only one side is madness. He has to find other tools to face life, he can not expect the girl to even remember him any more, and certainly not have any feelings for him.
OK, I admit, from my description it might sound like the story is written for a Bollywood movie. But that is a false impression. The book is really well written, the language, words and sentences are almost like a poem, and it is easy to create your own movie in your head when reading the book. This is what makes this book stand out from the crowd. And that is why you should read this book.
Read it it slowly and enjoy!
I was wrong.
The story in this book is not described with big words. The voice of the anonymous storyteller is soft and calm, and the language and descriptions is like a beautiful painting. I was very positive surprised!
The story itself is not very complicated. It could have been told in only one chapter. But a lot would have been lost, because this book is not about facts. It is about finding peace with one self despite horrible experiences.
The story is sad. A 14 year old boy is flirting with a girl he likes. The father of the girl does not like it and uses his influence to get the boy to "disappear". Nobody knows that he is being held in a prison.
After 15 years the boy is released.
The story teller, the boy, realizes that his love for the girl has helped him through the troubled times in prison. He understands that thinking and dreaming about the girl was his tool to survive and not give up. But out in the free he has to face the reality. As he writes - love from only one side is madness. He has to find other tools to face life, he can not expect the girl to even remember him any more, and certainly not have any feelings for him.
OK, I admit, from my description it might sound like the story is written for a Bollywood movie. But that is a false impression. The book is really well written, the language, words and sentences are almost like a poem, and it is easy to create your own movie in your head when reading the book. This is what makes this book stand out from the crowd. And that is why you should read this book.
Read it it slowly and enjoy!
October 30, 2013
139 pages of utter bliss!! What more could a reader want? The way that Peter Hobbs (an Englishman) could write so convincingly of a Pakistani young boy and his love of a young girl is beyond belief! I literally could not move from my chair...I carried it along with me all day just to be able to glimpse and read one more word, sentence or paragraph. This treasure trove of a story must not be missed! I was deeply affected by this story and hope that Peter Hobbs keeps on writing and keeps on showing us how very good he really is! I was totally blown away!
January 27, 2013
Worth reading for the emotional impact of the final chapter. To be read while eating pomegranates.
March 17, 2019
"Boredom is something I no longer experience. It is gone from me, lost during these years of enforced stillness."
May 9, 2018
For the length of this novel by Peter Hobbs, I could not get over the emotion that came over me while reading In the Orchard, the Swallows. The simplicity of the writing describing the details of events the main character endures in each chapter will break your heart. Yet, he makes you feel so hopeful. I am so glad that I picked up this little book. It will not be forgotten.
“Perhaps you have put the past behind you, and whatever regrets you might have had have been set aside, because you do not see their purpose. Time softens all griefs, they say, and it is useless to dwell on the lives that might have been. We are granted only one life, and one life is enough. Whom do such regrets profit? What do they achieve, except to bring us unhappiness?”
― Peter Hobbs, In the Orchard, the Swallows
“Love must be shared, or else it is just madness.”
― Peter Hobbs, In the Orchard, the Swallows
“Perhaps you have put the past behind you, and whatever regrets you might have had have been set aside, because you do not see their purpose. Time softens all griefs, they say, and it is useless to dwell on the lives that might have been. We are granted only one life, and one life is enough. Whom do such regrets profit? What do they achieve, except to bring us unhappiness?”
― Peter Hobbs, In the Orchard, the Swallows
“Love must be shared, or else it is just madness.”
― Peter Hobbs, In the Orchard, the Swallows
December 24, 2022
This is a very sad and beautiful novella, about finding peace and beauty in even the most horrible circumstances.
May 5, 2018
If I had to sum up this perfect little book in one word, it would be "pure." Everything is stripped down to the bare bones of what makes us who we are, and that core is displayed beautifully here. No pretense, no hiding or making it look nice, just pure. The truth is, the world's full of horrible, unbearable things, and it's also full of the most glorious joy and beauty. It's all here in one tiny story. I think I saw a description on the cover that compared this book to "cut glass," and that's exactly it. Tiny, sharp enough to wound, reflective, and brilliant.
September 29, 2015
Very beautifully written and brutal at the same time.
How can a simple act be judged heavily and unjustly? Power do brings out the ugliness of people.
I love how this book takes a little bit verses from Qur'an and Hadith. Very beautiful. Also, how the writer took a simple act and turned it into something much much beautiful and 'poetic' was very brilliantly done.
(I really do want to know more about a jail mate kid named, Karim. The way he told his stories and tales to the author really intrigued me to know more about his background story and such.)
So much feels.
I love it.
How can a simple act be judged heavily and unjustly? Power do brings out the ugliness of people.
I love how this book takes a little bit verses from Qur'an and Hadith. Very beautiful. Also, how the writer took a simple act and turned it into something much much beautiful and 'poetic' was very brilliantly done.
(I really do want to know more about a jail mate kid named, Karim. The way he told his stories and tales to the author really intrigued me to know more about his background story and such.)
So much feels.
I love it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2019
Read for Pakistan - #Aroundtheworldin80books
The ending is very unsatisfactory. But overall a good read.
The ending is very unsatisfactory. But overall a good read.
November 1, 2021
Beautiful language … a negligible boring plot
(NB: the narrator sounds too European, which is somehow confusing)
(NB: the narrator sounds too European, which is somehow confusing)
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