El puente de Clay / Bridge of Clay (Spanish Edition)
Más de diez años después de La ladrona de libros, el extraordinario best seller que conquistó a diez millones de lectores, Markus Zusak vuelve con una saga familiar inolvidable y arrolladora, inspirada en el arte y la cultura clasica.
Los cinco hermanos Dunbar viven en un hogar sin adultos, cuidando los unos de los otros, luchando por sobrevivir en un mundo que los ha abandonado, hasta que su padre, el hombre que los dejó sin mirar atrás, vuelve a casa. ¿Por qué ha regresado?
Matthew, cínico y poético, es quien lleva las riendas de la familia; Rory, siempre falta a clase; Henry, una máquina de hacer dinero, y el pequeño Tomy, coleccionista de mascotas que ha colonizado la casa con animales disfuncionales, como la mula Aquiles y Rosy, el border collie. Y luego está el silencioso Clay, perseguido por un suceso del que no se puede hablar. Pero la historia se remonta tiempo atrás: a ese abuelo cuya pasión por los antiguos griegos aún llena de color sus vidas, y a los padres, que se conocieron gracias a un piano extraviado. Clay tratará de revelar su trágico secreto y de construir un puente para salvar a su familia y salvarse también a sí mismo.
Los elogios con los que The New York Times recibió La ladrona de libros, la primera gran novela de Zusak, siguen vigentes para El puente de Clay: «Los lectores jóvenes necesitan este tipo de alternativas a la rigidez ideológica, así como exploraciones sobre la importancia de las historias. Y, pensándolo bien, también los adultos.»
La crítica ha dicho:
«El tipo de libro que puede cambiarte la vida.»
The New York Times
«La ladrona de libros deslumbra por sus extraordinarios personajes, su capacidad de emocionar sin clichés y, ante todo, por su omnipresente reflexión sobre el valor de las palabras.»
Ricard Ruiz Garzón, El Periódicode Catalunya
«Elegante, filosófica, conmovedora, bella e importante.»
Kirkus Reviews
«Merece estar junto al Diario de Ana Frank en nuestra biblioteca.»
USA Today
«Una saga familiar tan emocionante como arrolladora. Sin duda, uno de los fenómenos editoriales de esta temporada.»
Alter Ego
«Con un modo de narrar poco común, ágil, no lineal, a veces caótico, Zusak consigue captar la atención del lector desde el principio.»
Encarnación Herraiz, Aceprensa
«Una narrativa extraordinaria.»
SLJ
«Zusak no endulza nada, pero logra que un tema aparentemente triste resulte tolerable tal como lo hizo Kurt Vonnegut en Matadero cinco: con un humor sombrío, reconfortante.»
Time Magazine
«Un gran logro. [...] Un libro desafiante en extensión y tema.»
Publishers Weekly
«Uno de los libros más esperados en años.»
The Wall Street Journal
«Markus Zusak supera las expectativas -ya de por sí altas dado el éxito de La ladrona de libros- y nos lleva a través del desafío que supone la pérdida y de la alegría de ser amado: nos enseña lo que significa vivir. Un libro para saborear, una lectura placentera, una voz que permanecerá viva: eso sí es saber contar historias.»
Jackie Law, Bookmunch
«Memorable.»
Patricia Nicol, The Sunday Times
«Vale la pena esperar cuando lo que llega es El puente de Clay, menudo festín de libro. Una historia ideal para perderse en las noches de otoño.»
Charlotte Heathcote, The Sunday Express
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
★ An Amazon Best Children's Book of the Year selection
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The unforgettable, New York Times bestselling family saga from Markus Zusak, the storyteller who gave us the extraordinary bestseller THE BOOK THIEF, lauded by the New York Times as "the kind of book that can be life-changing."
"One of those monumental books that can draw you across space and time into another family’s experience in the most profound way." --The Washington Post
"Mystical and loaded with heart, it's another gorgeous tearjerker from a rising master of them." --Entertainment Weekly
“Devastating, demanding and deeply moving.” —Wall Street Journal
The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance.
At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.
The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
Written in powerfully inventive language and bursting with heart, BRIDGE OF CLAY is signature Zusak.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
Bridge of Clay by Marcus Zusak
534 pages
What’s it about?
The five Dunbar boys are living on their own with a wide range of pets and very little supervision. Matthew is barely old enough to serve as guardian to the other four boys and chaos and order seem to exist in equal measures.
Towards the beginning of the book Matthew writes,
"Let me tell you about our brother.
The fourth Dunbar boy named Clay.
Everything happened to him.
We were all changed through him."
And so we are introduced to Clay. The heart of the book. This novel is about a family being held together by stories, love, and loyalty.
What did it make me think about?
This is a story of family- specifically a story of brothers. I will miss the Dunbar boys! They may be some of my favorite literary characters of late. I must add that although "The Book Thief" was a young adult book- this selection is not!
Should I read it?
OK- so this is one long, big, hot-mess of an extraordinary book. This one will not be for the faint of heart. You have to be willing to sacrifice to make it through this book and then you will be richly rewarded. Markus Zusak is a beautiful, brilliant writer and although I am not sure exactly what this book is- it touched my heart and I would highly recommend it to anyone willing to put in the effort!
Quote-
"People got it wrong.
They thought it was Penny's dash and our father leaving that made what we were- and sure, it definitely made us rowdier and harder and hardier, and gave us a sense of fight- but it isn't what made us tough. No, in the beginning it was something more.
It was the wooden, the upright.
The piano."
If you like this try-
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Beartown by Frederik Backman
This is a story about five brothers, a cat, a dog, a pigeon, a fish, and a mule. It sounds crazy, and it is crazy. Crazy beautiful. This beast of a book should have taken me weeks to finish, but I couldn't put it down. This is an abstract story, ethereal and ghostlike, but with roots of clay. (See what I did there??) Zusak writes through a haze. I had to reread many passages, sometimes never sure of what just happened, but for me, that's the beauty of the telling. The back and forth between past and present, the hints, the promises of what may or may not happen. And finally a tale that won't be forgotten.
#popsugarreadingchallenge (prompt #19)
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.