Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die Verschlinger: Ein Roman
Für wen es gedacht ist
Readers who love family sagas, sharp-tongued social comedy, music and poetry, and stories about mothers and daughters, art and sacrifice. It suits anyone who enjoys travel through old Europe and a heroine who feels everything deeply.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
The Devourers is a novel by Annie Vivanti, who wrote in English and Italian and died in 1942. It follows three generations of women in one family, from a nursery in Hertfordshire to concert halls across Europe. Each woman is loved, served and slowly used up by the people around her.
The story begins with a baby who cries that she is hungry. A young widow, her gifted daughter and her granddaughter each learn what it costs to live beside genius. You meet poets, a stage actress, a handsome fortune hunter, a gruff English mine owner and a devoted German governess.
The book gives you a quick, sharp, often comic picture of Italy, England, America and Bohemia across many years, and a close look at the love of mothers for their children. It also asks what genius takes from those who stand near it. Let us begin in the Grey House, where a small girl with braids is told that a baby is coming to take her room.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A baby takes over the Grey HouseFree
- 2A widow, a hat and a forgotten baby
- 3Nancy, the poems and the German poets
- 4The cough, the grandfather and the lost child
- 5Nino, Villari and the great passion
- 6Fame, flattery and two suitors
- 7A marriage built on a handsome profile
- 8Monte Carlo, New York and Mrs Doyle
- 9Eve, the Unknown and the Ogre
- 10What the book is really about
Punkt 1 von 10
A baby takes over the Grey House
The novel opens in the Grey House in Hertfordshire. Edith Avory, a small girl in braids, runs home from a party to meet her new niece. She expects a baby with yellow hair and a blue bow. She finds a red-faced infant with black hair, a stern nurse named Wilson, and a young mother in black.
The mother is Valeria, an Italian girl whose English husband, Tom, has just died. Edith must give up her own room, because the baby needs it. A gardener's joke about her nose being out of joint sends her running to ask the gardener's boy, Jim Brown, what is wrong with it.
The household is crowded with the old and the dead. Edith's grandfather is gentle and forgetful, and he cannot keep Tom the father and Tom the son apart. Edith's mother is in mourning. At night the baby screams, and the whole house bends to her needs.
The chapter sets the pattern of the book. A child arrives, and the grown people rearrange their lives around her. Even in these first pages, nobody asks whether the baby wants all this attention. It is simply given.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Die Verschlinger: Ein Roman
What is The Devourers about?
It follows Nancy, a gifted girl who becomes a famous poet, and then her daughter Anne-Marie, a violin prodigy. It shows how those who love genius give up their own lives to feed it, across England, Italy, America and Bohemia.
What does the title The Devourers mean?
The Devourers are people of genius who unknowingly take everything from those around them. The Devoured are the mothers, friends and helpers who give up their own plans for the gifted child. The book shows both sides.
Who are Nancy and Anne-Marie?
Nancy is the daughter of an English painter and an Italian mother, known first as a child poet. Anne-Marie is Nancy's daughter, who grows into a violin prodigy and gives concerts for kings and crowds.
Who wrote The Devourers and when?
Annie Vivanti wrote it. She was an Italian-English author who died in 1942. The story runs across many years, from a Hertfordshire country house to Milan, New York, Prague and the great concert halls.
Is The Devourers easy to read?
It has a lively, quick voice, short chapters and plenty of humour. Scenes move briskly from comedy to feeling, and its warm, ironic narrator makes the three generations of characters easy to follow.