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The new novel from the acclaimed author of Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a love story at once raw and sweetly funny, wry and heartbreakingly sad. Chris is bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. In his forties, he's a stranger to the 1970s youth culture of London, a stranger to himself on the night he invites a hooker into his car. Roza is Yugoslavian, recently moved to London, the daughter of one of Tito's partisans. She's in her twenties, but has already lived a life filled with danger, misadventure, romance, and tragedy. And though she's not a hooker, when she's propositioned by Chris, she gets into his car anyway. Over the next few months Roza tells Chris the stories of her past. She's a fast-talking Scheherazade, saving her own life by telling it to Chris. And he takes in her tales as if they were oxygen in an otherwise airless world. But is Roza telling the truth? Does Chris hear the stories through the filter of his own need? Does it even matter? This deeply moving novel of their unlikely love - narrated in the moment and through recollection, each of their voices deftly realised - is also a brilliantly subtle commentary on storytelling: its seductions and powers, and its ultimately unavoidable dangers.… (more)
User reviews
The novel is set in London with many references to Cold War Yugoslavia. I didn't learn that much about the country reading this book apart from getting a sense of the simmering tensions between different ethnic groups, the precursor to the more recent war. Much of the book actually deals with Roza's sexual awakening and is somewhat coarse and shocking. A few hints are dropped that Roza's stories might be a fabrication but they are compelling to the reader as much as they are to Chris. The book ends with us being none the wiser as to the motives of Roza in her developing relationship with Chris and whether or not she has been telling the truth.
Chris is a very weak character. He contributes little to the story and has lived a dull, predictable life. His greatest weakness is that he seems to take no responsibilty for himself. He seems to have no respect for his wife as an individual, referring to her as the 'Great White Loaf'. His wife has obviously given up trying but it takes two to make a marriage work. Chris feels taken for granted but it doesn't occur to him that his wife might feel the same. Presumably somebody is cleaning their home, shopping for food, ironing his shirts and cooking his meals, not to mention raising a teenage daughter - never the easiest job - and yet he describes her as lazy. At the end of the book Chris shows his true colours - he blames the alcohol for his unforgiveable behaviour towards Roza but I think that it's typical of him.
In the end this book doesn't seem to achieve an awful lot. I've heard that the character of the Bob Dylan Upstairs is based on de Bernieres himself. Perhaps this is the book he has always wanted to write. Unfortunately it is not the book I have always wanted to read.
I feel this does succeed precisely because it is limited by its structure and setting.
Chris is a medical salesman who appears to be having a midlife crisis, he becomes obsessed with a younger immigrant woman called Roza, who encourages him to visit her. These visits consist of
I personally felt this book would have been improved if Chris had been the only narrator, rather than jumping between both Chris and Roza. This would have added to the mystery of Roza and gave a broader understanding of Chris's feelings.
The book has two narrators, Chris and Roza. From the Roza chapters we find that she is making up stories, however, we never come to know if it's all made up or just partially. Actually it was quite unclear to me why De Bernieres used Roza as a second (direct) narrator. It seems weird that Roza is telling her side of the story, looking backwards, but suddenly disappears as a narrator towards the end of the book.
All in all, I didn't like this book as much as Captain Corelli and the Latin American trilogy. The double narrators bothered me, and the dramatic story of Roza is undermined by the suggestion that it isn't true anyway. (Well, in the end this is fiction of course, so why be bothered?) However, De Bernieres is a very good storyteller, who captures you by his style and his sense of humour, by his quick short scenes. So it was a pleasant read after all.
Tension between ethnic groups in Yugoslavia is a motiv in the book, but it never becomes clear to what purpose.
The ending is melodramatic, and one wonders how Chris could go on believing that Roza is a prostitute, after their apparent acquaintance developing over a peroid of about 6 - 8 months. As Roza's stories seem to have no purpose, the story becomes tedious and one tends to lose interest.
The first book I read of Louis De Bernieres was "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", which has tremendous scope and I enjoyed immensely. I then turned to his earlier novels, which I did not like at all. In magic realism nothing is real, and therefore all is meaningless, in my opinion. "Red Dog" was clearly a failure, and this book, is not much of a success either. It seems Mr. De Bernieres is trying to find a new tune, but cannot equal his earlier success.
Once I reached the middle third things speeded up, and I found it more enjoyable. Books by this author are always full of intelligence with frequent humorous sideswipes (I particularly liked the Yugoslavian horse named “Russia” ‘because it was very big, a complete liability and always going where it wasn’t wanted’). He is also bold in his choice of subject matters and the plot of this visits some very dark places.
Not my favourite by him, but still good and relatively accessible compared to his other work.
Chris is out of love with his boring wife, whom he calls the great white loaf. He
In between their storytelling evenings, held in a decrepit squat, life goes on. Cultural and historical dates and images pop up every chapter, telling the passage of time. Even the old London man walking with the “passion proteins” sign makes an appearance (to my delight, as I used to see him all the time around the place).
Roza teases Chris, wielding her sexual power until he can think of nothing else. The tension rises until the inevitable crisis.
The book is written in the voices of Roza and Chris, in present time and in the past and it is at times hard to orient oneself. But it’s such a delightful read, you just can’t put it down!
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823.914 |