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Reviews (15)
22 Nov, 2017
The Birds Like Them
The birds like them. Very quick delivery.
23 May, 2018
Excellent
1 of 1 found this helpful One of favourite Albums
The only thing wrong with this near perfect CD, is that it omits a couple of tracks that were on the original double LP.
24 May, 2017
Interesting but too long
Most books I take a little while to get into, but this one I got interested in the story right away - Andras's journey to Paris, his arrival, his enrolment, his making friends & meeting Klara etc. However things soon slowed down and the final 2/3rds of the section on his time in Paris was much too long. It felt to me that the author was wallowing in the emotional angst of the ups and downs of Andras's relationship with Klara. Too mushy.
Things picked up again in the 2nd section when he was back in Hungary. From the historical point of view it was interesting to learn about life, not directly under Nazi rule, but in a country allied to Germany. But even this dragged a bit after while. It became a bit repetititive.
There were stages in the book where the action jumped forward and just a resume was given of what happened in the interregnum, this worked and was a device the author should have employed more.
The basic story was interesting and this was the main strength of the novel. The descriptions of suffering were communicated well. On the personal side of things, Andras came over as a nice chap, but we could have done without Andras incidentally being a star student. The character of Klara remained somewhat opaque.
Some of the events in the book were unbelievable.
It was interesting to learn from the Epilogue that the whole thing was somewhat biographical. You can see what drove the author to write. The trouble with being biographical is that the structure is - this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens etc etc. Novels give the author the ability to create a narrative arc. Because the author felt the need to be biographical, the book's structure was weakened.
Overall a decent read, but should have been edited down to shorter length.