• 1001 BYMRBYD Challenge
  • About Zee
  • Book Challenges 2010
  • Rory Gilmore Reading List
  • Zee’s Book Reviews

Wordly Obsessions

~ … the occasional ramblings of a book addict …

Wordly Obsessions

Tag Archives: Balkan

Book Review | ‘A Partisan’s Daughter’ Louis De Bernieres

21 Monday Jun 2010

Posted by mywordlyobsessions in Book Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Partisan's Daughter, a partisans dauther, Balkan, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, communism, louis de bernieres, senor vivo and the coca lord, Tito, troublesome offspring of cardinal guzman, Yugoslavia, Zagreb


Currently Reading: ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ John Wyndham (1001 Books – March Read)
To Read: ‘The Lost Estate’ Alain Fournier
‘The Electric Church’ Jeff Somers
My first advice to you would be: don’t be fooled by the colourful cover. By all means admire it, but don’t think you are going to be treated to the literary delights of ‘Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord’ or ‘The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman‘. In fact, if you’ve developed a taste for the aforementioned culinary delights that de Bernieres was producing back in the 90’s, then you will be deeply disappointed. With ‘A Partisan’s Daughter‘ it seems de Bernieres lingual rainbow has faded somewhat. I always likened his novels to a painting with lots of colour and movement; but this one felt like he had a limited palette to work from. I suppose what I’m trying to say is, it’s not as inspired as for example, ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin‘. There was no iridescence, no effervescence. I, for one, didn’t care about the characters as much as I should of. In fact, I was pretty happy when it was finished, because it made me feel grey and dull. A thin gruel, indeed.
A Partisan's Daughter
So, this book is much more subdued compared to the spicy mediterranean novels of previous years. Another quality about him that I like is that De Bernieres has the wonderful ability to convey cultures, and people of those cultures with uncanny accuracy. The era this book is set in, and the countries it looks at (Thatcher-era Britain and the Yugoslavian Tito-era War) is a time plagued with boredom, hardship, monotony and most of all loneliness. It’s very hard for a writer to make a story interesting when it’s set during times like this. But I am pleased to say, De Bernieres pulls it off very well.What a reader is left with however, is another issue; an all-too-well feeling of war-torn Balkan humour and an aftertaste of dread for the 70’s that I have never previously had before. The story is supposed to emulate the style of the 1001 nights, in that Roza, our female protagonist, seduces Chris (boring pharmaceutical salesman) through accounts of her wild days as a partisan’s daughter, a mathematics student in Zagreb and her career as a prostitute.

As can be expected, De Bernieres writes all this with a humorous twist, that made me laugh out loud in some places, but I just got overwhelmed by the sheer boredom the characters were suffering from. ‘The Great White Loaf’, the shit brown Austin and ‘the Bob Dylan Upstairs’ will remain with me for years to come. But it’s a certain grottiness that permeates through the narrative that one could do without.

I give this 3/5 Stars.
Note: Do not read when ill/ suffering from depression or are altogether a bit down in the dumps. It’ll just make you feel worse.
Related articles
  • Red Dog star Koko dies (abc.net.au)
  • Louis de Bernieres: my tribute to Handel (telegraph.co.uk)
  • Monday Musings on Australian Literature: A challenge or two (whisperinggums.com)

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • More
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Like this:

Like Loading...

RSS Links

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 636 other subscribers

Blog Stats

  • 364,401 hits

My Visitors

free counters

Recent Posts

Top Posts

  • Hymn to Isis | (3rd-4th Century)
  • Famous Quotes | Edgar Allan Poe
  • Book Review | 'Heroes and Villains' by Angela Carter
  • Would You Like to Smell Like Your Favourite Author?
  • 'The Diary of A Young Girl' by Anne Frank
  • Book Review | 'First Love, Last Rites' by Ian McEwan
  • 10 Things You Should Know About Edgar Allan Poe
  • Book Review | 'The Room' by Hubert Selby Jr.
  • Book Review | 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams
  • Famous Quotes | Oscar-worthy Wilde Witticisms

The best of the best of the best…

Bookish tweets

  • 4 of 5 stars to The Sandman by Dirk Maggs goodreads.com/review/show/52… 1 day ago
  • RT @FreefromTorture: Still not deleting it standard.co.uk/news/uk/suella… 1 week ago
  • RT @BeckettUnite: • Firefighters don’t get subsidised food for saving lives • Nurses don’t get free parking for saving lives • Doctors don’… 1 week ago
  • RT @GNev2: They did! https://t.co/hWkIavggNN 3 weeks ago
  • RT @softmoonbow: The feminine urge to open a bookstore that is also a coffee shop and bakery and a flower shop 3 weeks ago
Follow @WordlyObsession

Pinning stuff on boards is fun!

Follow Me on Pinterest

What’s on the Shelf?

Reading Wishlist!!

WP Book Bloggers List

For finding things…

50 books a year 1001 book list angela carter audiobook Benjamin Lebert book challenge book review books che guevara childrens fiction chinua achebe comic books crazy Dr. Gonzo dystopian edgar allan poe fantasy fear and loathing Fiction frankenstein goodreads gothic fiction Grapes of Wrath gustave flaubert Haruki Murakami hubert selby jr humour hunter s thompson ian fleming Indian literature Its monday what are you reading? japan japanese japanese horror story jm coetzee John Steinbeck Jorge Luis Borges kazuo ishiguro kurt vonnegut l. frank baum literary fiction literature liz jensen love story meme midnights children oscar wilde Paul Auster peter ackroyd poetry readalong religion roberto bolano Robert Rankin romance rory gilmore reading list rum diary ryu murakami salman rushdie science fiction short story stephen king sylvia plath teaser tuesday the motorcycle diaries the rapture Tokyo toni morrison Top Ten Tuesday United States ursula le guin virginia woolf war wondrous words wednesday writing

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Wordly Obsessions
    • Join 156 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Wordly Obsessions
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: