A wonderful depiction of rural life

This book was recommended on “A Good Read” on Radio 4 and I really enjoyed it. It is a study of the relationship between two damaged women who help each other to heal. The story is set on a farm in a small village. It is a wonderful insight into rural life and the rhythms of existence on a farm.

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Great characters

Easy to become invested in these two women. A wonderful insight into the benefits of multi generational friendship.

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A beautiful picture

Country, farm life, human struggles and a strong friendship growing and cementing. I loved it.

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Not to be missed!

If I hadn’t been lying awake at 3am recently, I would not have tuned into the World Service and heard Ewald Arenz’s spell-binding novel Tasting Sunlight being discussed with readers phoning in from all over the world with their questions for an author I had never heard of. I would have missed one of the best experiences of my extremely long life of listening to audiobooks!

Ewald Arenz has published around twenty novels to acclaim in Germany, but he was in his mid- fifties before Alte Sorten (the book’s German title) was published in hardback in 2019 followed by the stratospheric success of the paperback. It is only with the translation into English by Rachel Ward that Tasting Sunlight has hit readers in the English speaking market the majority of whom. like me, know nothing of current novels written in German.

The scenario of Tasting Sunlight is simple. Seventeen year-old Sally has run away from the clinic, one of a succession of such places which her doting - but to Sally controlling - parents have sent her in a vain attempt to cure her of anorexia and self-harming. On her flight, full of rebellious anger, mental pain and confusion, she stumbles into long established family farmland now worked single-handedly by reclusive middle-aged Liss . This is no bucolic idyll, but Franconia where Ewald Arenz grew up, and where the soil is unforgiving and farming is hard. We learn only gradually how Liss’s own tempestuous past keys into her understanding of this young damaged adolescent.

Liss gives Sally refuge and together, at first with few words spoken, the troubled runaway begins to help Liss with daily tasks, absorbing as she does so the healing presence of the earth and sky. Transcendent in all its various forms, nature is beautifully painted. We are inside Sally’s head filled with her frustrations and rage, which the author is able to create with such astonishing reality from his long experience as a gymnasium (sixth form college) teacher. Surely but subtly the relationship between the Liss and Sally develops as the labour on the farm merged with the natural world transforms and heals. After Sally has been in her sanctuary for three weeks, the narrative develops dramatically in ways I don’t want to spoil.

The German title Alte Sorten refers to the ‘old varieties’ of pears grown on the farm, the blissfully sweet fruit which when Sally first bites into one she thinks it tastes of sunlight, giving the book its English title. This pear-tasting scene and the section describing the gathering of grapes in the vineyard are especially iridescent. The German title also suggests one of the book’s subtly communicated but most powerful themes: the positive role of tradition and the experience of age needed for the raising of fulfilled and mentally healthy young people.

The wrong choice of narrator could have damaged Tasting Sunlight which is quite unlike current novels by authors living in Britain. Julie Barrie comes from Yorkshire and has a Geordie mother but she has created a young voice with a suggestion of a non-English accent, enough to remind us that we are in another country but , as the phone-ins on the World Service showed, the themes are universal in their appeal.

Tasting Sunlight is not the only novel by Ewald Arentz available on Audible. Originally published in 2021 One Grand Summer (der Grosse Sommer)is the second of the author’s novels to be translated by Rachel Ward and, I am delighted to see, has been on Audible since July 2024.

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A good story but wrong narrator this time.

I heard the author on the World Book Club and it was wonderful. The story is interesting but, for me, the narrator just wasn't right as the voice of Sally was irritating.It was a shame the author did not read it.However I will probably read more of his books.

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