Mailbox Monday & It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? (25/ 7)

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benjamin zephaniah, carlos ruiz zafon, cats cradle, charlotte perkins gilman, civil war, emila zola, herman hesse, ian fleming, irvine welsh, Its monday what are you reading?, jm barrie, kurt busiek, kurt vonnegut, margaret atwood, mark millar, marvels, matt moylan, meme, mohsin hamid, patricia melo, Paul Auster, Paul Gallico, paul jenkins, peter pan, raymond carver, roberto bolano, siddhartha, stephen galloway, streetfighter world warrior encyclopedia, the angel's game, the cellist of sarajevo, the dream, the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, the skating rink, the spy who loved me, the year of the flood, the yellow wallpaper, trainspotting, violette leduc, wolverine origins

Welcome to Monday Meme’s! (‘Mailbox Monday’ by Marcia at The Printed Page and ‘It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?’ by Sheila at The Book Journey are fun weekly meme’s that allow book-bloggers to share their reading progress and the books they have yet to read.

July has been a hectic month, but also fruitful in terms of books. Since I haven’t had time to post that often (due to my novel-writing) I’m taking this opportunity to pick up from where I left off in March. Here’s a review of the titles that have either wowed me, or left me a little disappointed:

Books Read | March/ April
(click for reviews)
Lost World by Patricia Melo (1/5)
Man in the Dark by Paul Auster (5/5)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano (4/5) – review pending
Kung Fu Trip by Benjamin Zephaniah (3/5)
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico (5/5)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (3/5) – review pending
The Informers by Brett Easton Ellis (3/5) – review pending
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1/5) – review pending
The Paper House: A Novel by Carlos Maria Dominguez (4/5) – review pending

Books Read | May/ June
(click for reviews)
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (4/5) – review pending
2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut (5/5)
The Lady and the Little Fox Fur by Violette LeDuc (1/5)
Peter Pan by JM Barrie (5/5)
The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories by Charlotte Gilman (4/5)
Beginners by Raymond Carver (5/5)
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (4/5)
The Dream by Emile Zola (5/5) – review pending
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Stephen Galloway (5/5)

 Other reviews:
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (4.5/5)

Books Read | July
Streetfighter: World Warrior Encyclopedia by Matt Moylan (4/5)
Marvels by Kurt Busiek (5/5)
Wolverine: Origins by Paul Jenkins (3/5)
Civil War by Mark Millar (3/5)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (5/5)

Currently Reading/ August Outlook

 

What a pick-n-mix! As someone who never just reads one book at a time, I’ve started off first with Bolano’s “The Skating Rink”, which is a strange mix of romance, political scamming, figure-skating and cold-blooded murder. This is my second Bolano book (gearing myself up for ‘2666’) and the story seems to be chugging along quite well, despite the weird elements he’s thrown together to make it. Meanwhile I’m also poking around in “Trainspotting”, which unbeknownst to me is written in a very thick Scottish accent! I’m slowly getting used to it (fitba = football, hame = home, jaykits = jackets). It would be useful to have a glossary, but on second thought might spoil all the fun. After all, the best thing about ‘The Clockwork Orange’ was the strange Russian street lingo.

The one I can’t let go of at the moment is “The Spy Who Loved Me”. It is quite cheesy (as most Fleming books are) and it does feel a lot like one of those guilty comfort reads. The Bond of the movies and the Bond of the novels are so very different! However if there is one book I class as top-grade reading material, it is the Atwood. I practically have to ration her out for fear of guzzling through her entire works. She is so AMAZING! “The Year of the Flood” is the second in the MaddAddam trilogy, the first being ‘Oryx and Crake’, and loosely follows on from it. I can’t wait to lose myself in the plot. Can’t imagine what Atwood has dreamed up for us dystopian fiction lovers. Oh bliss…

What are you planning to read this week?

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Book Review | ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’ by Stephen Galloway

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assassin, book review, Bosnia-Herzegovina, historical fiction, stephen galloway, Steven Galloway, the cellist of sarajevo, war

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“He knows the sniper will fire again, but he isn’t afraid. At this moment fear doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as bravery. There are no heroes, no villains, no cowards. There’s what he can do, and what he can’t. There’s right and wrong and nothing else. The world is binary. Shading will come later.”

It is as if I have read this book before. The story, the people within it, their strife seems so very familiar, so very ‘close’, that all through the book I couldn’t shake off that feeling of deja vu. I see within it echoes from every war novel/ film I have ever come across. From the first lyrical chapter right through to its devastating end, ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’ is a fictional masterpiece. Do not let the leanness of the prose fool you, nor the sparsity of its characters, for each sentence may at first feel like a random spray of shrapnel, but it is far from it. Every point Galloway makes, his observations about the ‘war machine’, the blood-crazed generals, the ‘men-on-the-hills’, their victims and the unsung heroes in the midst of this war-torn city all hit the bullseye. Like his character, the legendary sniper “Arrow”, Galloway never misses his literary mark.

“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”

Galloway’s aim is not to show war in its’ terrible mechanical glory, but rather to humanise it as much as he can. War is a difficult concept to understand; however the siege of Sarajevo is even harder, as the city quite literally caved in on itself and Galloway makes this painfully clear to us as he leads our eye down to street-level. And it is here that we are made to understand the confusion and fright of ordinary people, through the geographical decimation of their home town.

The narrative structure is simple. It alternates between three characters: Dragan (a baker), Kenan (husband and father of two) and Arrow (a young student-turned-sniper) and each tells a different side to the conflict. With Kenan we make the deadly journey to the only water supply in the city, dodging the random bullets from the ‘men on the hills’ while Dragan picks his own perilous way across shell-shocked streets and mortared bridges to his job at the bakery. Both men feel like ants who constantly fear the shadow of the boot above them. ‘Arrow’ on the other hand allows the reader to access the mind behind the cross-hairs that threaten the citizens of Sarajevo. While she is determined not to become like the ‘men on the hills’, she is however haunted by the question of just exactly who it is that she is becoming.

At the midst of this chaos is the Cellist, who at 2 o’clock every day sits out in the street and plays an adagio for every person that was killed by a mortar attack as they lined up for bread one morning. Twenty-two people were killed; for 22 days he chooses to risk his life to honour the memory of those who died, by placing himself in full glare of the snipers.

Needless to say, there are some shocking scenes of death and mutilation. But Galloway deftly picks through the rubble of a wrecked city, pushing aside torn limbs and broken bodies to find the wonderous speck of humanity amongst all the horror. What he does unearth and hold out for all to see are the incredible acts of bravery that can only be the product of a still-beating heart, a heart which will only reveal itself in the challenging glare of death.

View all my reviews

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