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Рай #2
Вратите
Втората част от трилогията "Рай" - "Вратите" - е смела покана към читателите да влязат в огъня; да загребат с шепи жар и да изгорят в магията на разтърсваща история, вдъхновена от реални исторически събития. Пепел, Кръв и Пеперуди. Любов, която преминава през животитие и ни застига. Книга, която нито утолява жаждата, нито стопля сърцето - това е история, която може да ви удави и изпепели.
434 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2015
12 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Радослав Гизгинджиев
16 books264 followersМоже да ме последвате в Инстаграм: https://www.instagram.com/radoslav_gi...
Фейсбук: https://www.facebook.com/RadoslavGizg...
Официален сайт: https://www.radoslavgizgindzhiev.com/
Фейсбук: https://www.facebook.com/RadoslavGizg...
Официален сайт: https://www.radoslavgizgindzhiev.com/
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 8, 2020
Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
I think it's pretty obvious that I'm living away from Bulgaria, as it seems I've lost touch with what's trendy there. A friend of mine recently introduced me to a list of books that are all the rage among Bulgarian readers (a specific group of them, I'd assume, based on the types of books) - Where the Crawdads Sing, The Mistress of God (?), The Tattooist of Auschwitz (which I already read because of her recommendation) - I thought I noticed a trend among those, namely weak writing and pseudo-inspirational and motivational musings on life.
...And then another friend came along and started gushing about her favourite trilogy of recent years, the Heaven trilogy by Radoslav Gizgindzhiev.
Fast-forward to a week later, I've already read the second book, The Doors and am in the process of reading the final book, The Butterflies. (My friend didn't have the first book, but she told me it's the worst, in her opinion, and it's not necessary in order to read the other two.) Additionally, I've watched an interview with the author, and based on those three factors, I'd like to say: Gizgindzhiev plans on having this book translated and distributed internationally. If you're a foreigner who's curious about contemporary Bulgarian literature, please look further.
The Doors is the book which would appear in the dictionary next to "self-gratification". It's one of the first things I noticed about it and my opinion of the book plummeted instantaneously. To be precise, not only did the author put a picture of himself, made up as a character in the book, on the cover, which is cringe level 999, not only did he insert himself in the book as the antihero everyone should love, not only did he quote half of the previous book in this one, but he also put himself, as his character, on a pedestal for writing the previous book which appears in this book and which everyone loves. Mindfuck? Yes, indeed.
Radoslav appears in his own book as Kaloyan, the author of Heaven, the first book of the Heaven trilogy (so, get it, he wrote Heaven, then wrote The Doors and wrote Heaven inside The Doors as a popular book at the time), who is dark and mysterious, attracts to people but at the same time they are a bit intimidated and afraid of him, because he is edgy and dangerous. In truth though, he only ever does bad things to bad people and even tries to protect a poor angel girl by keeping her away from his own dark side. So he's nothing short of a sexy vigilante! (I'm eye-rolling so bad, my eyes are looking at the back of my skull.)
Now, let's back up. What IS The Doors?
The book tells the story of karma, religious and esoteric beliefs, reincarnation, curses, magic, slaughter, death and betrayal. It starts with the Batak massacre (this I advise you to read, it's a dark chapter of Bulgarian history, which should be known), where a woman makes a promise to the Devil. Generation after generation, people are reincarnated carrying her sin and playing her role, as well as the roles of the other participants of this event. Additionally, we have a group of nestinari (Anastenaria, an incredible piece of Bulgarian folklore that you should read up about), whose fates are similarly flowing throughout time and rebirth.
So far, the book had big potential. From this perspective I did like what it was trying to accomplish - the author had dug up a lot of rituals and creatures, as well as bits of the beliefs of the Bulgarian people, which are nearly forgotten today, lost in modernization. Not least of all, we had a glimpse into the life in Strandzha, one of the most mysterious and interesting mountain regions of Bulgaria and an important core of a folklore tradition that pre-dates Christianity in the Bulgarian lands, and mixes pagan rituals with Christian and Islamic beliefs.
And just then, the book fell totally apart. It was not enough to have 4-5 people mixed up in this, it was not okay to have a couple of folklore elements, the author could not leave it at one big curse.
Instead, we got:
1. Around 18 characters (I didn't bother to count, the author said so in the interview I watched), some of which have repeating names, so if you're trying to follow and remember all of them, their previous selves, their parents, their grandparents (because it's all super important), I do wish you good luck. I focused on 6 characters, and totally left the rest slide, because they were all so shallow and badly written there was no need to care too much.
2. Two or three different curses, still not sure, because the book doesn't really reveal anything much.
3. Approximately 15 types of people and creatures (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but however many they were, they were too much):
- the martyrs/evliya/angel people - good but lead sad lives;
- the jinns - good or bad;
- the grey people - born dead? Without a soul? But kinda good?
- those who are soulless/without a butterfly (i.e. everyone's soul is a butterfly which stands above their head but some people don't have it), and therefore truly evil;
- the wolf people (not werewolves, mind you), who were born on the so-called "Dirty days" (in Bulgaria, between Christmas and 7th of January, but can vary based on the region);
- healer guys who can kill cancer?
As you can see I have many question marks to myself, because all of these are mentioned extremely briefly without any background as to why they exist the way they do.
As to the length of the book, it's a dead giveaway what kind of a book this is. We have around 430 pages, which would be enough to develop an okay story with enough detail, right? Well, not if, once you crack the book open, you see that the font is as big as your pinkie (huge letters and thick white paper are my cue for a bad book which tries to seem bigger and fancier), half the book is a repetition of the previous book and the author often writes page after page of thoughts about life that make no sense. There are several occasions where we have pages of questions that should lead the reader to a pseudo-intellectual analysis of life and its meaning. Yet, this is basically what the book is:
1. The author's attempts to say something smart: "What is it that unites us all?
Our common questions? Or our common answers? The things we see, or the things we feel?
Will we manage to see the answers in the most simple things around us?
In the image in the mirror, in which we meet our own eyes? Will we manage to find the answers in the sleeping face of the person we love? Will we see them in the crazy man who talks to himself on the street? In the bread we buy every day? In the walls of sin which surround us, which bleed?"
- It goes like that for two pages and a half. Makes zero sense, is overly dramatic, goes from bread to the apocalypse, and from love to the the common shared past of the world, on and on and on.
2. Plain bad writing: "My nightmares have nothing to do with your stories - I dream of different things. My dreams are related neither to my grandfather, nor to our fathers - I would even say that have nothing to do with them." - A direct translation, without substituting words for synonymous ones. Are you sure, friend? Don't they have anything to do with them or do they have nothing to do with them? Maybe you should have repeated it once or twice more for good measure.
3. Lack of proofreading: "Нещата, които виждаме или нещата, които чувстваме?" - find where the comma is missing, dear author.
4. Yoda's syntax: "Боян е купил на една българка картина от Париж." - не означава съвсем, че е купил картина, нарисувана от българка, а че e купил картина oт Париж, която да даде на някоя, случайна или не, българка - да си има.
This one is hard to translate, but there was another example which is equally Yoda-like in English and translates to something like "Tears from her eyes were flowing." The issue is not very rare either, half of the characters talk like that, it's pretty awful. No idea if it's an attempt to sound more like street talk, or to seem more archaic in the speech of some of the characters.
That being said, I'm a horrible masochist, and in addition to that, I don't want to sadden my poor friend who gave me the books and was really passionate about them, so I'll of course read the next one, too.
(Quarantine: Book 21)
I think it's pretty obvious that I'm living away from Bulgaria, as it seems I've lost touch with what's trendy there. A friend of mine recently introduced me to a list of books that are all the rage among Bulgarian readers (a specific group of them, I'd assume, based on the types of books) - Where the Crawdads Sing, The Mistress of God (?), The Tattooist of Auschwitz (which I already read because of her recommendation) - I thought I noticed a trend among those, namely weak writing and pseudo-inspirational and motivational musings on life.
...And then another friend came along and started gushing about her favourite trilogy of recent years, the Heaven trilogy by Radoslav Gizgindzhiev.
Fast-forward to a week later, I've already read the second book, The Doors and am in the process of reading the final book, The Butterflies. (My friend didn't have the first book, but she told me it's the worst, in her opinion, and it's not necessary in order to read the other two.) Additionally, I've watched an interview with the author, and based on those three factors, I'd like to say: Gizgindzhiev plans on having this book translated and distributed internationally. If you're a foreigner who's curious about contemporary Bulgarian literature, please look further.
The Doors is the book which would appear in the dictionary next to "self-gratification". It's one of the first things I noticed about it and my opinion of the book plummeted instantaneously. To be precise, not only did the author put a picture of himself, made up as a character in the book, on the cover, which is cringe level 999, not only did he insert himself in the book as the antihero everyone should love, not only did he quote half of the previous book in this one, but he also put himself, as his character, on a pedestal for writing the previous book which appears in this book and which everyone loves. Mindfuck? Yes, indeed.
Radoslav appears in his own book as Kaloyan, the author of Heaven, the first book of the Heaven trilogy (so, get it, he wrote Heaven, then wrote The Doors and wrote Heaven inside The Doors as a popular book at the time), who is dark and mysterious, attracts to people but at the same time they are a bit intimidated and afraid of him, because he is edgy and dangerous. In truth though, he only ever does bad things to bad people and even tries to protect a poor angel girl by keeping her away from his own dark side. So he's nothing short of a sexy vigilante! (I'm eye-rolling so bad, my eyes are looking at the back of my skull.)
Now, let's back up. What IS The Doors?
The book tells the story of karma, religious and esoteric beliefs, reincarnation, curses, magic, slaughter, death and betrayal. It starts with the Batak massacre (this I advise you to read, it's a dark chapter of Bulgarian history, which should be known), where a woman makes a promise to the Devil. Generation after generation, people are reincarnated carrying her sin and playing her role, as well as the roles of the other participants of this event. Additionally, we have a group of nestinari (Anastenaria, an incredible piece of Bulgarian folklore that you should read up about), whose fates are similarly flowing throughout time and rebirth.
So far, the book had big potential. From this perspective I did like what it was trying to accomplish - the author had dug up a lot of rituals and creatures, as well as bits of the beliefs of the Bulgarian people, which are nearly forgotten today, lost in modernization. Not least of all, we had a glimpse into the life in Strandzha, one of the most mysterious and interesting mountain regions of Bulgaria and an important core of a folklore tradition that pre-dates Christianity in the Bulgarian lands, and mixes pagan rituals with Christian and Islamic beliefs.
And just then, the book fell totally apart. It was not enough to have 4-5 people mixed up in this, it was not okay to have a couple of folklore elements, the author could not leave it at one big curse.
Instead, we got:
1. Around 18 characters (I didn't bother to count, the author said so in the interview I watched), some of which have repeating names, so if you're trying to follow and remember all of them, their previous selves, their parents, their grandparents (because it's all super important), I do wish you good luck. I focused on 6 characters, and totally left the rest slide, because they were all so shallow and badly written there was no need to care too much.
2. Two or three different curses, still not sure, because the book doesn't really reveal anything much.
3. Approximately 15 types of people and creatures (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but however many they were, they were too much):
- the martyrs/evliya/angel people - good but lead sad lives;
- the jinns - good or bad;
- the grey people - born dead? Without a soul? But kinda good?
- those who are soulless/without a butterfly (i.e. everyone's soul is a butterfly which stands above their head but some people don't have it), and therefore truly evil;
- the wolf people (not werewolves, mind you), who were born on the so-called "Dirty days" (in Bulgaria, between Christmas and 7th of January, but can vary based on the region);
- healer guys who can kill cancer?
As you can see I have many question marks to myself, because all of these are mentioned extremely briefly without any background as to why they exist the way they do.
As to the length of the book, it's a dead giveaway what kind of a book this is. We have around 430 pages, which would be enough to develop an okay story with enough detail, right? Well, not if, once you crack the book open, you see that the font is as big as your pinkie (huge letters and thick white paper are my cue for a bad book which tries to seem bigger and fancier), half the book is a repetition of the previous book and the author often writes page after page of thoughts about life that make no sense. There are several occasions where we have pages of questions that should lead the reader to a pseudo-intellectual analysis of life and its meaning. Yet, this is basically what the book is:
1. The author's attempts to say something smart: "What is it that unites us all?
Our common questions? Or our common answers? The things we see, or the things we feel?
Will we manage to see the answers in the most simple things around us?
In the image in the mirror, in which we meet our own eyes? Will we manage to find the answers in the sleeping face of the person we love? Will we see them in the crazy man who talks to himself on the street? In the bread we buy every day? In the walls of sin which surround us, which bleed?"
- It goes like that for two pages and a half. Makes zero sense, is overly dramatic, goes from bread to the apocalypse, and from love to the the common shared past of the world, on and on and on.
2. Plain bad writing: "My nightmares have nothing to do with your stories - I dream of different things. My dreams are related neither to my grandfather, nor to our fathers - I would even say that have nothing to do with them." - A direct translation, without substituting words for synonymous ones. Are you sure, friend? Don't they have anything to do with them or do they have nothing to do with them? Maybe you should have repeated it once or twice more for good measure.
3. Lack of proofreading: "Нещата, които виждаме или нещата, които чувстваме?" - find where the comma is missing, dear author.
4. Yoda's syntax: "Боян е купил на една българка картина от Париж." - не означава съвсем, че е купил картина, нарисувана от българка, а че e купил картина oт Париж, която да даде на някоя, случайна или не, българка - да си има.
This one is hard to translate, but there was another example which is equally Yoda-like in English and translates to something like "Tears from her eyes were flowing." The issue is not very rare either, half of the characters talk like that, it's pretty awful. No idea if it's an attempt to sound more like street talk, or to seem more archaic in the speech of some of the characters.
That being said, I'm a horrible masochist, and in addition to that, I don't want to sadden my poor friend who gave me the books and was really passionate about them, so I'll of course read the next one, too.
(Quarantine: Book 21)
March 14, 2017
Трилогията Рай за мен е гениална. Това е най-хубавият български роман, който съм чела. Първата част просто те грабва с красотата на думите и емоциите, описани в нея. Втората и третата част прочетох бавно, защото всеки път, след като оставях книгата настрана, в мен имаше ураган от емоции. Особено втората за мен беше тежка. Трябваше ми време да се успокоя, за да продължа. В най-пречистващия смисъл на думата. Третата ме изпълни с повече любов, отколкото която и да е друга прочетена книга. Всеки емоционален човек, който прочете тази поредица или който вече я е прочел, ще разбере точно за какво говоря. В тази книга, както и във всичко, което Радослав пише, има дълбочина, която не е характерна за толкова млад човек. Това ме изненада най-много в книгите, те сякаш са написани от човек в друго измерение. Пак повтарям - гениална книга. Няма нищо подобно на българския пазар - персонажите, историята и това изключително красиво и емоционално боравене с думите.
December 6, 2017
Видео ревю тук - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwpPU... <3 <3
За романите на Радослав винаги е трудно да говоря, защото ми е беден речникът и гамата на моите светоусещания, колкото и широка да вярвам, че е - определено отстъпва през неговите Светове.
Да ви предам чувствата, които книгите му пораждат у мен, в няколко думи, било то на хартия или в клип, е на практика невъзможно, защото когато говоря за него има два варианта - или „мълча“, защото предпочитам да усещам фините нишки на посланията му с душата си или думите ми се изливат като цунами – хаотично, бурно, емоционално.
Не е изненада, че този клип е дълъг, повярвайте опитах да не ви отегчавам прекалено, но когато говорим за трилогията „Рай“, трябва да й отдадем заслуженото. Така че аз отказах да поставя ограничение на мисълта си, докато снимах ревю за „Вратите“.
Искрено се надявам този роман да достигне до повече хора и те да имат възможността да изпитат това, което всички ние, челите го, усещаме – а именно – СВЪРЗАНОСТ!
За романите на Радослав винаги е трудно да говоря, защото ми е беден речникът и гамата на моите светоусещания, колкото и широка да вярвам, че е - определено отстъпва през неговите Светове.
Да ви предам чувствата, които книгите му пораждат у мен, в няколко думи, било то на хартия или в клип, е на практика невъзможно, защото когато говоря за него има два варианта - или „мълча“, защото предпочитам да усещам фините нишки на посланията му с душата си или думите ми се изливат като цунами – хаотично, бурно, емоционално.
Не е изненада, че този клип е дълъг, повярвайте опитах да не ви отегчавам прекалено, но когато говорим за трилогията „Рай“, трябва да й отдадем заслуженото. Така че аз отказах да поставя ограничение на мисълта си, докато снимах ревю за „Вратите“.
Искрено се надявам този роман да достигне до повече хора и те да имат възможността да изпитат това, което всички ние, челите го, усещаме – а именно – СВЪРЗАНОСТ!
April 3, 2015
За разлика от „Рай“ — „Вратите“ ще ни предложат една още по-богата и сложна, многопластова история. Ще ни предложат повече мистика, повече герои и съдби. Зад вратите ще намерим нашите страхове, за да се изправим срещу тях и да ги преборим.
Романът навлиза доста надълбоко в света на магическия реализъм. Ще четем за топаци, устрели, тъмни сенки, прераждане, проклятия, фолклор — всичко това умело вплетено в съдбите на вече познатите ни герои. Но романът засяга и исторически нишки, теми като баташкото клане, нестинарите и Възродителния процес.
Изключително трудно е да се пише за толкова много герои и съдби, които ще срещнем във „Вратите“. Изключително трудно е да се води история, която се случва паралелно в различни времеви отрязъци — векове назад във времето, но и сега, в настоящето.
Романът навлиза доста надълбоко в света на магическия реализъм. Ще четем за топаци, устрели, тъмни сенки, прераждане, проклятия, фолклор — всичко това умело вплетено в съдбите на вече познатите ни герои. Но романът засяга и исторически нишки, теми като баташкото клане, нестинарите и Възродителния процес.
Изключително трудно е да се пише за толкова много герои и съдби, които ще срещнем във „Вратите“. Изключително трудно е да се води история, която се случва паралелно в различни времеви отрязъци — векове назад във времето, но и сега, в настоящето.
July 24, 2024
Вероятността човек да се удави в тази книга е голяма. Да се удави между привидно 'насипаните' по хаотичен начин образи. Но ако човек си позволи лукса да се довери на автора, ще забележи, че едва забележимо, той като с една кука, започва, някъде там, да заплита героите един за друг, един за друг, докато не се получи един шедьовър - черен, мрачен, дълбок, задушаващ, но истински. Мистерия, преплетена с исторически факти, български легенди и митове и почуда, откъде на един човек фантазията му работи до такава степен, че да оплете всичко това в едно цяло и то разбира се - успешно (поне за мен). Моят личен интерес, за да се върна към тази трилогия, беше развитието на Калоян. Образ, който ще стане ясно как и по какъв начин е стигнал до там, докъдето е стигнал в ЛЕПИРИ и НЕДРА. Но се появява още един образ - Албена (майка му, Сивата майка), който е не по-малко интересен и многопластов. Радослав Гизгинджиев отново взривява невронните ми мрежи по много и колосални начини, канейки ме да тръгна с него през... вратите. А той търпеливо стои и чака, дори дава избор: "Е, твое е решението дали ще ме последваш или не, ако искаш, можеш да оставиш и затвориш книгата още тук, на първите страници!". А аз, аз нямам търпение за ПЕПЕРУДИТЕ (РАЙ 3)...
За пореден път ще напиша, че неговите книги трябва да се изучават в училище, защото има какво да се научи от тях - за литература, за философия, дори за физика. И дано най-накрая баналното 'с това, авторът е искал да каже...' се изпари. Вярвам, че той каквото е искал да каже, го е казал. А който разбрал, разбрал. Нямам претенцията, че съм разбрал всичко, но след всяка негова книга, искам да седна с този човек, да ми отдели едни 5-6 часа и да разпитвам и слушам... за душите на хората в РАЙ.
За пореден път ще напиша, че неговите книги трябва да се изучават в училище, защото има какво да се научи от тях - за литература, за философия, дори за физика. И дано най-накрая баналното 'с това, авторът е искал да каже...' се изпари. Вярвам, че той каквото е искал да каже, го е казал. А който разбрал, разбрал. Нямам претенцията, че съм разбрал всичко, но след всяка негова книга, искам да седна с този човек, да ми отдели едни 5-6 часа и да разпитвам и слушам... за душите на хората в РАЙ.
July 31, 2023
Останах, за пореден път, силно впечатлена от творбата на Радослав Гизгинджиев. Подобно и на другите му романи, които съм чела, този също ме остави дълбоко замислена за живота, за смъртта, за случайните неслучайности и всичко, което ни се случва ежедневно, но не си даваме сметка, че то оставя траен отпечатък.
Досега не съм попадала на толкова отличаващ се стил на писане, който едновременно е ненатрапчив, но провокиращ разсъждения.
Силно препоръчвам на всеки, който се е сблъсквал с житейски проблеми и има желание да научи повече не само за себе си, но и за хората около него. Със сигурност има какво да си вземете от поредицата "Рай".
Досега не съм попадала на толкова отличаващ се стил на писане, който едновременно е ненатрапчив, но провокиращ разсъждения.
Силно препоръчвам на всеки, който се е сблъсквал с житейски проблеми и има желание да научи повече не само за себе си, но и за хората около него. Със сигурност има какво да си вземете от поредицата "Рай".
March 15, 2022
Няма как са се направи ревю на тази книга. Авторът е уникален и ако вече сте прочели първата книга сте наясно, че нищо не е ясно поне до средата. Странно е усещането докато чета книгите му. Първоначално се изсипва много и хаотично информация. В последствие някак имената започват да се свързват и историите придобиват логика, а накрая се оказва, че самата история нямам никакво значение. Остават само мислите, логиката и разсъжденията.
November 15, 2024
Отново не знам как да събера мислите си, за да опиша всичко, което искам. Книгите ме намират в много правилен момент. Нещата, които са описани вътре резонират с моето моментно състояние. Дават ми дори отговори на моите въпроси. Няма случайности , дори да ни се виждат като такива. Г-н Гизгинджиев идва от някое друго измерение, за да ни предостави толкова много информация, чрез книгите си.
August 20, 2019
Радвам се, че чета подобни книги от български автор! Уникален талант!
July 17, 2022
Страхотна книга, докосва ти душата… Определено след нея всичко е различно …. Огромна благидарност към автора за невероятната книга!
August 18, 2022
Изключително дълбока книга ❤️
September 14, 2022
Страхотна книга! Много по-добра от първата.
July 1, 2025
Силно притегляща книга с красив и потъващ замисъл. Емоциите на героите са толкова точно описани, че се потопих във всяка една. Страхотен замисъл...отново!
January 27, 2016
5 звезди са малко...
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