I stumbled across this novel while searching for something else by Patrick McGuinness in the Southampton Library catalogue (although I think it might have been reviewed briefly on the Culture Show at some point), and I think part of the success of the work is that it tells a story that is just off the radar of experience and so has a powerful freshness. Even from the memory of a a child of eight the vivid images that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall are clear in mind, and enriched by multiple retellings both in 'fact' and 'ficton', but the move here to the same period in Romania places the drama in an area of ignorance, the sum total of my knowledge of all Romania's history I think comes from the snap shot of Blue Peter appeals for their orphanages.
The story's insights into human nature unfold to be at equal measures heart warming and disheartening, we find there is no black or white, our 'heroes' find that corruption and compromises seem to be the essence of survival, but also the within the darkest of moments (and people) there are still the glimmers of redemption.
Through the dialogue between the characters there at moments of philosophising over the nature of freedom, but thankfully McGuinness leaves these moments, like the rest of the novel, inconclusive, if perhaps pointing gently to that fact that communism's fall should never have been read as capitalism's vindication - there can be no simple either/or in life. It is a thoughtful work without being 'worthy'.
Unusually having read the book I found it is reviewed in the latest edition of Planet, where great emphasis is placed on the fact the central character and narrator is never named - something I completely failed to notice while reading it - to the extent that I almost disbelieved the review, I was sure I knew his name, it is there on the tip of my tongue but just out of reach. If that says more about me or the book I don't know!
No comments:
Post a Comment