Kenny_Shovel
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Posts posted by Kenny_Shovel
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Do you need to empathise with a books central character to fully enjoy the story? An eternal question, and one with a personal, highly subjective response. For me the answer is no - something confirmed by reading
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Thanks for the feedback. It's nice to know someone found the review of use.
Regards,
K_S
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Some novels announce their genius from the opening page – ‘Bleak House’ and ‘First Circle’ being good examples. Some take longer to build momentum and grab your attention. Others, like ‘The Assault’ by Harry Mulisch, provide an enjoyable read throughout, but it’s only when a highly satisfying denouement puts the final pieces of the puzzle in place that the book comes together, leaving you with the thought: ‘That was a damn good read’.
‘The Assault’ opens in German occupied Holland during the first few days of 1945. Liberation is close at hand, and the Dutch resistance takes their chance to exact revenge on a local policeman for collaboration. An assassination takes place outside a group of four remote houses as the man makes his way home. Knowing the Germans will burn down the house closest to the shooting, the occupiers drag the body through the January snow to the front of one of the neighbours. Twelve year old Anton Steenwijk watches as the body is dumped in front of his home and as his elder brother Peter attempts to move it on again just as the authorities arrive. Arrests are quickly made, and Anton finds himself in a police cell overnight, before being released into the custody of his Aunt and Uncle. It is from them that he learns his family has been killed in retaliation and his home destroyed.
The rest of the book follows Anton as he grows into adulthood, and tries to put the past behind him. But a series of encounters with people involved in the shooting keep dragging him back to that day, as he learns more about what actually happened, until, many years later, he finally learns the full truth.
‘The Assault’ takes the one overwhelming question of war – why? – and mixes it inventively with a more personal reflection on fate and the repercussions of our actions. Anton is reluctantly forced to face up to his past and ask some difficult questions. Why did the assassination take place where it did? Why was the body moved in front of his house rather than one of the others? Are we fated in life? Are events ultimately meaningless? Do we have our backs to the past whilst facing the future, or backs to the future whilst facing the past?
The result is a kind of human equivalent of a nuclear reaction. Circumstances - some of which have meaning, some of which are meaningless – come together to cause an event to happen, which itself leads to repercussions – some of which have meaning, some of which are meaningless.
When you finally put the book down, you are left with almost as many questions as Anton. Did the characters involved with the shooting act correctly? If they had acted differently would the resulting situation have been any better? Is it impossible to escape our past?
‘The Assault’ is a fine, thought provoking read and at 180 odd pages, a quick one too. It’s the first book I’ve read by Harry Mulisch - one of Holland’s leading writers and a nominee for the Man Booker International award this year - and it probably wont be the last.
K_S
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You might like 'The Night in Lisbon' by Erich Maria Remarque. I wrote a review here:
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Chinua Achebe has won the Man Booker International prize! Which is both, for me, surprising and very pleasing
It is indeed good news. I've read three books by Achebe, "Things Fall Apart", "No Longer at Ease" and "A Man of the People". All are wonderfully clear and concise novels conveying a balanced, honest and informative portrayal of the transition of a country from pre to post colonial times. He
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You seem to have identified some of the exact reasons I liked it, as I regard The Pyramid & Palace of Dreams are pretty much full on cautionary fairytales. Personally I
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Tut, heathens! If allegory isn
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Which would you reccomend as a followup to Broken April? (Since I've gotten over my ridiculous fear of dead Russian writers, Kadare just doesn't seem so scary either;) )
I mentioned before that my personal favourites are 'The Pyramid' & 'The Palace of Dreams'. Both beautifully written political allegories. If pushed I'd say 'The Pyramid'; you’d never think descriptions of pulling large chunks of stone could be so much fun.
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...a few that don't seem to be in print anymore like Chronicle in Stone...
Chronicle in Stone has been re-printed by Cannongate...in fact I'm reading it now...
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I'd suggest the novella Hadji Murad as a good 'in' to Tolstoy. A cracking story and the kind of detailed characterisation you'd expect from the Russian master; but much, much, shorter...
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Apparently the first person to think that Kafka's writing was funny, was Kafka himself. He was rather puzzled that others didn
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Sorry to hear this, I've read a couple of books by Kapuscinski. This is an old review I did of 'The Emperor':
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I love Czech literature. Writers from that region have a wonderful ability to talk about nothing and everything at the same time, all wrapped up in a warm dark humour that reveals a great love of life. Perhaps it
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Yeah, I'd pretty much go along with that. It's not his best book, but still a nice read. Interesting that he addresses the communist rule of Albania directly now, rather than with the elegories of 'The Pyrimid' and 'The Palace of Dreams'.
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Of all literary techniques, stream of consciousness is the one I have the most problem with. Unless the subject matter and author combine and try damn hard to catch my imagination, it
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I'm half way through chapter 4 of Arch of Triumph.....it is terrific!
I'll pencil in Arch of Triumph as my next Remarque then...
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There are any number of writers whose entire cannon is overlooked save for a single
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I'd probably rate Spring Flowers as the weakest of his books I've read. The Pyramid & The Palace Of Dreams are favourites.
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You were right, 'The General of the Dead Army' was excellent. I've also polished off 'Doruntine' as well, leaving 'The Concert' as my next Kadare.
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He's probably somewhere in my top ten favourite writers.
There are a few I don't have:
The Castle
Doruntine
The General of the Dead Army
Albanian Spring (which seems to be non-fiction)
As well as a few that don't seem to be in print anymore like Chronicle in Stone.
Anyway, I'll put down "The General of the Dead Army" as my next Kadare Purchase.
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I wouldn't if you don't really like the guy. But for the record, The Clay Machine-Gun & Oman Ra are both as good as Babylon, the Blue Lantern is a thought provoking collection of short stories and The Helmet of Horror an excellant take on an old story; my review of it can be found here.
http://www.bookandreader.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11240
The only one of his books I couldn't get into was The Life of Insects.
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Ok, I've read the following by Kadare:
Three Elegies for Kosova
Three Arched Bridge
Broken april
The Palace of Dreams
The File on H
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
The Pyrimid
The Successor
and I have The Concert on my TBR shelf.
What should I go for after that?
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So then Andy, have you read further Pelevin books or do you need pointing in the right direction?
Ismael Kadare
in General Fiction
Posted
A new book by Kadare has just been published by Cannongate:
Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories
Got it on Monday in London. It's a novella plus two short stories, using a couple of characters which appear in other Kadare books.