User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
You know that special moment when you encounter a book that completely cocoons you in its web, with you never wanting to leave? Tasting Sunlight is quite simply one of those books, making it all the harder to construct any rational review that can totally convey the inherent beauty and pleasure of becoming lost in this powerful and utterly mesmeric story. Ewald Arenz’s writing is absolutely exquisite and wonderfully translated by Rachel Ward, leading me to pause throughout and re-read certain passages, which is something I very rarely do, and only further reinforced my perception of this book as one to savour and fully appreciate as something really rather special indeed…
Focussing on the tentative understanding that grows between two women separated by age and experience, with more than one flash point along the way, and moments of captivating raw emotion. I was quite simply enthralled by this book, recognising in both characters, their struggle to gain confidence and carve out a place for themselves in the world away from the judgement and false sympathy of others, To see them gain strength from their individual experiences, and striving not to be overwhelmed by the darker aspects of their lives was a harsh journey but truly satisfying. With very few exceptions, I have rarely encountered a male author who seems so effortlessly to characterise women so realistically, attuned so closely to the moments of doubt and self questioning that these women experience, with a flawless attention to the minutiae of their lives and experience, that are gradually revealed so sublimely as the story unfolds.
I emerged from this book truly feeling that I knew both of these characters intimately, both through their interactions with each other and others, but also with the sharp perspective we gain of both through their individual critiques of their own flaws and weaknesses- sometimes misguided, sometimes painfully truthful. There are moments of extreme pathos, balanced beautifully with glimmers of unexpected humour, all tethered to, and heightened by Arenz’s utterly sympathetic and realistic depiction of the natural world surrounding these two lost souls.
Having read a lot of fiction set within rural communities, Arenz captures perfectly the insular closed world that Liss resides in, and that Sally has to navigate and begin to understand as an incomer. His rendering of the countryside and the seasons that dictate Liss’ rural life is intoxicating, focussing sometimes on the smallest details of smell, sight and touch. He writes so that we too can imagine the heady aromas of the pear orchards, the incessant work and buzz of the beehives, the physical strength of manual tasks like potato harvesting, and most importantly to recognise Liss’ own symbiotic relationship with the land, and Sally’s growing appreciation and understanding of this environment. Aside from the obvious trauma lurking behind Liss’ character, we see her at her strongest when going about her daily tasks, and turning educator to impart some of this knowledge to Sally too. Sally in turn, seems to grow and prosper from this new lease of life, and the taste of freedom it offers to her.
It’s always so much more difficult to review a book that has so totally consumed you, and brought such an intense and satisfying reading experience as Tasting Sunlight has. This book encapsulates what I love about reading, where I have experienced characters with completely different lives to my own, but individual aspects of their lives resonated strongly with me, as I’m sure they will with other readers. I finished the book feeling that they had both had me rooting for them throughout, and that their story of self discovery and acceptance of themselves, and each other, would continue to develop beyond the final pages. A truly sublime novel, and one that I can confidently say will roll around in the back of your mind well after finishing it. Highly recommended.
Rating: really liked it
Liss lives alone on a farm in a small village in rural Germany. Her days are taken up with tending the crops and livestock, and managing the forest and vineyard that belong to the farm. Her life is a solitary one, partly by choice but also because she is shunned by most of the villagers for reasons that will only gradually become apparent. It’s also a life governed by the rhythm of the seasons. Sally’s unexpected arrival disrupts the settled routine of Liss’s life.
Initially it appears Sally is the damaged individual and Liss a source of strength and calm. Liss seems instinctively to understand how to respond to Sally allowing her to make her own decisions about when to eat, when to talk and when to participate in the life of the farm. Liss introduces Sally to different aspects of farming life such as harvesting potatoes and grapes or tending bee hives. I was struck by how some of the activities can be seen as metaphors for healing. For example, as Liss marks the trees in the forest that need to be thinned she says, ‘Sometimes you want a sapling to have enough light to grow… Then you have to make space.’ By taking her in, Liss provides Sally with that space but it doesn’t come without personal risk.
We learn that Liss too has been damaged by experiences in her past and discovering her story begins to dominate both Sally’s and the reader’s thoughts. I liked that we see a kind of role reversal with Sally becoming the one to provide support and encouragement. One particular scene that sticks in my mind is when Liss and Sally visit the pear orchard originally laid out in rigid lines by Liss’s controlling father. It’s a place Liss has avoided because of the memories it evokes but Sally’s take on the now overgrown orchard is quite different: ‘It’s like a punishment for trying to force growing things into a mould’. Both Sally and Liss have battled to gain control over their lives from those who want to forge them into a particular shape. Indeed, they have both at some point felt themselves caught in the ‘wrong’ lives, lashing out in anger as a result.
Although there is darkness in the book, there is also a sense of hope inspired by the cycle of nature. ‘The seed was already in the ground. Even when everything looked empty and picked and finished.’ The book’s title brilliantly conveys the process of emerging from darkness into light.
Tasting Sunlight is a beautiful story of friendship, resilience and the healing power of nature.
Rating: really liked it
Tasting Sunlight should be available on prescription. It’s one of those rare books that you finish with a huge, satisfying sigh. On a personal level, this book really struck a chord. It was a timely reminder to appreciate nature and all it can do for us, it can inspire, soothe, and enchant us in equal measures. I found Tasting Sunlight a memorising read, with themes of love, friendships and the power of nature to help and restore. This is a book I would happily read over and over again.
Set in rural Germany, the story revolves around Sally, an anorexic teenager who escapes from a clinic and forms an unlikely friendship with Liss, a farmer who has got used to living a solitary life. They are two wounded souls damaged by life, but as they work the land and experience the power of nature, both women start to heal and learn the importance of friendship and acceptance. Whilst simply told this is a book with so many layers, you eagerly turn the pages to learn more about Sally and Liss past, hoping they can heal each other.
One thing that I adored about Tasting Sunlight was how strongly Arenz evokes the senses with his lyrical descriptions of the farm, land and nature. I swear I could taste the newly dug potatoes, smell the freshly cut hay. These richly depicted scenes calmed my soul and warmed my heart. Sally and Liss are different as the shifting seasons, but their shared heartbreak and loneliness bind them together.
The author has created characters that will remain in the hearts of its readers long after they reach the last page. One thing I loved about this book is the way Arenz gently explores the two characters’ backstory. It’s emotive and allows the reader to experience a myriad of emotions. Tasting Sunlight is a beautiful novel, it’s intelligent, thoughtful and one that’s full of heart. Highly, highly recommend.
Rating: really liked it
I have been reading books for a very long time; fifty years or so and during that time I have read a lot of books, thousands and thousands of books.
Every now and again, a book comes along and shakes me to my core. Tasting Sunlight did that to me and this is a book that I will never ever forget. It is not just the story, or the characters, it is the whole reading experience as Arenz masterfully and beautifully reveals these two women to his reader.
Set in rural Germany, amongst the fields of crops and orchards of fruit, this is a captivating and quite magical story of a most unlikely friendship. It spans the generations and the classes and shows that a true and non judgemental friendship can heal hearts.
Sally has run away, again, from the clinic where she is being treated for anorexia. She meets Liss. Liss lives alone, running the family farm. She's mid forties and says very little. She does not judge, or ask questions, she just accepts. Sally intends to stay with Liss for just a few days, but this soon turns into weeks and these two extraordinary females slowly but surely get to know each other.
The writing is simple and is filled with the the magic of nature. As Liss teaches Sally about the ripening and harvesting of pears, to the care of bee hives and the collecting of a potato crop, the reader is totally captivated and enchanted. Whilst simply written, the story is multi layered and complex and this author has done an incredible job with character creation; the reader instantly loves both of them. It becomes the reader's ineluctable fate to become part of this novel themselves, to urge these women along and to discover the truths of their existence.
Tasting Sunlight is the perfect story for our time. It is uplifting and healing. The novel pulsates with the tastes and smells of nature and Sally and Liss' own stories linger within the head for so long afterwards. It is perfectly translated by Rachel Ward.
Truly exceptional, a novel with heart and with characters and setting that are alluring, beautifully created and totally enchanting.
Rating: really liked it
Sensitive and charming, this is the story of two damaged women and their relationship with nature and each other. Sally has run away from a clinic where she is being treated for anorexia. She feels trapped and angry, hostile to the prying and pressure from others. She stops at a farm owned by the reclusive Liss. As Sally helps Liss with the physical work on the farm, she begins to appreciate the peace and warmth of the environment and she starts to build a friendship with Liss.
This was an uplifting and sweet story. The lyrical descriptions of the countryside - the pear trees, vineyards and farmyard - provide a soothing background against which the painful experiences of the two protagonists unfold. Arenz skilfully and sparingly evokes the thoughts and emotions that accompany the secrets that Liss and Sally gradually reveal to each other.
An evocative and unusual book that goes straight to the heart, I thought it was magical.
Rating: really liked it
one of my favourite books of the year!
Rating: really liked it
At first, I was taken aback by the vulgar language (mainly) in the first half of the book and I was waiting for major events to happen,as the plot seemed a bit chewy (though never boring). The second half of the book turned everything around for me. I especially resonated with the sense of contentment and fulfilment humans get out of manual labor and farming - as I have often experienced myself - and I loved the descriptions about this realisation in the main character.
Rating: really liked it
I know I’m not the first to describe this book as magical, but that is the perfect adjective for it.
Seventeen-year-old Sally runs away from a clinic where she was being treated for anorexia. She meets Liss, a woman in her forties, who lives alone on a large farm. Liss offers Sally a place to stay. Gradually Sally helps Liss with various tasks on the farm and a friendship develops between the two. As their backstories are slowly revealed, it becomes obvious that both are in need of healing.
Sally likes Liss almost immediately because she doesn’t ask probing questions, accepts her as she is, and expects nothing of her. She gives Sally peace and quiet and space, all the things she feels she doesn’t have in her life. She has a difficult relationship with her parents who keep trying to shape her life in a way that is a mirror image of theirs: “How was it possible to be the child of parents who were just wrong for you, right from the start?”
Liss sees much of her younger self in Sally. When she was young, she too was not allowed to make her own choices; she too feels she had not “grown up in the right soil.” Her father was very controlling: “’Reading was out of order. Listening to music was out of order. Leaving things as they are was right out of order. You can tie trees to a stake to make them grow straight. All his life he thought you could do that to people too.’”
The two main characters are so authentic. Both are flawed; they share an anger at the world which has forced restricted lives on them “Because it’s not acceptable for everything just to grow however it likes.” Yet there is in them a deep humanity. For instance, Liss sees Sally’s intelligence: “it was like she wasn’t doing it for the first time. . . . she grasped what it was about so quickly. You didn’t often have to show her things.” For her part, Sally accepts Liss’s reticence: “to be honest, she didn’t like always being asked things either. It was OK. She got that. . . .It was OK.”
Also authentic is the development of the friendship. Initially they are tentative around each other. Liss hesitates to ask questions because “Every question and every answer spun a thread” and “One thread becomes threads and threads become cords and cords are woven into a net.” For her part, Sally is distrustful since she has found adults to be insincere; she describes their “soft, sympathetic, empathetic voices” trying to hide their “fake wall of professional niceness and warmth and understanding.” Gradually they come to enjoy each other’s company: “Sometimes it felt good to work together. Because the other person ensured that you recognized your own place in the whole. All of a sudden, you had a significance in a whole, and weren’t simply existing.”
The book emphasizes the power of nature to heal. As Sally and Liss pick potatoes, tend to bees, pick pears, and harvest grapes, they follow the rhythms of nature. Sally realizes how the countryside has become real to her: “Maybe it had been all the points of contact with the earth. When had she ever had her hands in the soil before? Bees on her skin? When had she stood in a tree?” While on the farm, a beautiful autumn day leaves her thinking “It was as though the world wanted to show her once more how beautiful it could be, how many colours it had, how fresh it could smell.” The two women who both are non-conformists find comfort in nature: “’That’s the lovely thing about nature. It doesn’t conform to what we think is right. Even if some people try to force it to grow the way they like it.’” As I read, I often thought of the poems of Wordsworth and Coleridge which have a similar message about the beauty and power of the natural world.
Nature is described in beautiful lyrical prose. The view from a ruined castle is detailed: “It was as though you could see across the whole country. The river was a never-ending ribbon that at some point just melted into the horizon. Towns and villages lay scattered between the vineyards, which went on forever. Right in the distance, to the north, rose a row of mountains, a shade darker than the mist. It was a picture like still water; as if you were quenching a thirst that you hadn’t previously noticed.” The writing is so evocative that not only can we see the views, we can also feel the wind, taste the pears, hear the cackling of the chickens, and smell the fermenting fruit. I can’t read German, but nothing seems to have been lost in translation. Reading the novel is like tasting sunlight, so the title is perfect!
The ending is heart-warming. The dance scene in the penultimate chapter, especially when the icing sugar is mentioned, made me want to dance along. Just as the hard work on the farm is not minimized, there is also not an easy solution to all problems, but the “’two will look after each other, yes!’”
This will undoubtedly be on my list of favourite books read this year.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Rating: really liked it
Novel set in BAVARIA
You Tube REVIEW: https://youtu.be/ftf1Se5Ah9Q
This is a delightfully poignant and bucolic novel, with a touch of de Maupassant, maudlin in parts, uplifting in others.
Sally is a young woman being treated for anorexia who has had enough of parental and medical intervention. She takes off and lands on Liss’ smallholding. Liss demands nothing of her, she weighs up the situation, leaves her be and gradually Sally starts to help around the farm. As Sally unfurls from her emotional exile, Liss encourages her to accompany her through the pear orchard, where together they sample the various varieties, some as old as the hills in which they grow (in fact in German the novel is called Alte Sorten – Old Varieties); they take jaunts on an old tractor, harvest potatoes and organise the harvest of the Riesling grape, which specifically has to be picked when the temperatures are cool.
The novel is rooted in southern German tradition. Imagine those wonderfully solid house that you see when you head south towards the Alps, heavy stone walls, solid pitched roofs and farming equipment dotting the landscape. Vineyards and pastures, cow bells clanking, pine forests layering their fragrance on the landscape. You can almost smell the hay and manure as Liss goes about her daily chores of harvesting, bottling and pickling and heaving herself on to her old fashioned tractor.
She of course has a backstory and gradually Sally discovers what it is. The clues soon fall into place as we, the readers, are taken on this journey of friendship and learning.The colours of Autumn – September and October, when the novel is set – are painted in rich and evocative tones.
This is a relatively easy novel to read, written with subtlety by an author who clearly delights in capturing the landscape around him. It does of course have difficult themes that ground it in human experience. A very good read.
Rating: really liked it
This book follows two women: middle-aged Liss and a teenager called Sally.
Sally runs away from a rehabilitation clinic, where she was treated for anorexia. A chance encounter with Liss results in her staying at Liss’s farm, where she lives alone. She is very quiet, hardworking and nothing seems to phase her – she remains calm in stressful situations.
Sally ends up staying far longer than she intended and she soon helps Liss with various jobs on the farm: harvesting potatoes and pears, baking bread, and even looking after the bees. An unexpected friendship blooms between the two women and Sally finds herself enjoying living in the countryside and she starts eating again.
Can she stay there forever?
You’ll have to read this book for yourselves to find out. I truly enjoyed this story. It explores the issues of friendship, the healing power of nature, and how our past can affect our future.
I really liked both characters: Sally who arrives angry, but then a change happens within her, she matures whilst working on the farm, and she ends up loving the peace and tranquility that nature offers.
I was intrigued by Liss, as from time to time, the reader was offered a short glimpse into her past. When I found out her story, I was moved and understood why Liss wanted to remain alone.
Overall, it’s a beautifully written poignant novel that will leave a special place in your heart.
I definitely recommend it.
Rating: really liked it
This is not my normal go-to book but after I heard rave reviews from Anne, I had to give it a chance.
This was a touching story of two people trying to find their way back into the world. Liss, a forty-something living in the shadow of her past and Sally running away from her present, and they collide.
I found farm life fascinating and simple. A life where you have a routine, you stick to the routine and all is right with the world. A way to escape when you need to from the monotonous wears of life and people!
The book is at a nice steady pace, as you enjoy the riches around you. The smells, the taste, the bees (!) and there is a moment, where you sit back relax and take a breath. That is what this book is like, a sigh of welcome relief as we watch two women find their way. They both need to heal and forgive and I would like to think that there is a reconciliation at the end for one of them. So much hope in this book, and a lot of just being, which I love. They are just being in that moment, they are just being on that farm. Nothing exists outside of that and it's magical.
The book only covers about a month in their lives but the growth is just amazing. It was beautiful to see and I like to think that once that book is closed, they continue to grow. Just mesmerising.
Rating: really liked it
This book was gifted to me at Christmas and I was really happy to have a German book that was already approved by a friend. I think this book helped me improve my German a lot. The way the book is written made it easy to read and understand what was going on. The characters felt real. The two main characters had both experienced trauma and the way they acted made me feel like the author really understood how trauma can affect people's behaviour and emotions. The characters are not polished or surface-deep. They don't always do smart things, but what they did made sense to me. My favourite things about the book are firstly that it is not predictable, and secondly that the characters tend to do the right thing, even if it is not the easiest thing. On top of this, the setting of the book, in the countryside, was really enjoyable for me. I found it funny that I learned lots of new 'farm' words in German. The book allowed me to imagine how life would be as a farmer, being closer to nature and away from the drama associated with being among people all the time!
Rating: really liked it
Beautifully written, captivating and mesmerising.
Arenz certainly has a way with his writing style, his words gently drawing you into the story, enveloping you in warmth and friendship.
Seemlessly translated into English, nothing appears to have been lost with the original beauty of the text.
Characterisations are flawed, credible and the friendship formed between Sally and Liss was without judgement, is genuine and healing for the soul.
With a stunning backdrop of orchards in rural Germany, the story felt so enhanced because I was able to visualise every scene.
Tasting Sunlight is a highly enjoyable, thought provoking read, full of emotion, and one everyone needs to read
Many thanks to Random Things Tours for my tour spot.
Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: really liked it
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Love the friendship between Sally and Liss. I could relate so much to the story and the protagonists. The story touched my heart and I would recommend it to everybody, who feels missunderstood in our society!
Rating: really liked it
wow, makes you wanna live more mindful and better!
