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The Absolutist by John Boyne

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carlyg123's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thoroughly engaging, as I have come to expect and enjoy from a Boyne book.

Interesting to see how some concepts were handled in earlier writing.

clairereeds's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.75

suvata's review against another edition

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5.0

#OUABC 2024 Reading Challenge: 40 Prompts (31. A book that takes place during wartime)

• 351 pages • first pub 2011 • fiction • historical • lgbtqia+ • emotional • reflective • sad • 5 Stars

I have read most all of John Boyne’s novels. In fact, he is probably my second favorite contemporary author. I don’t know why I waited so long to read this one, but it is, by far, my absolute favorite. I wish everyone would read this book.

It is September 1919, and twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the Great War.

But in 1917, Will laid down his guns on the battlefield and declared himself a conscientious objector, an act which has brought shame and dishonour on the Bancroft family.

The Absolutist is a masterful, unforgettable tale of passion, jealousy, heroism, and betrayal set in one of the most gruesome trenches of France during World War I.

#TheAbsolutist #JohnBoyne #Bookstagram

dennyhb's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

csgiansante's review against another edition

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3.0

A little mellowdramatic, but easy enough to read. More on the 3.5 side of things. The author knows how to land the ending.

linda_1410's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

What is courage? What is cowardice? How can you tell the difference between the two?

I didn't realize when I picked this up from Audible Plus that this was the same author who wrote The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I did find out very shortly after I started listening to this. I haven't read that book, but I did watch the movie and had issues with it, especially the ending, which felt manipulative as hell. So I was curious where I would end up on this book.

Tristan is a gay man fighting in WWI. During boot camp, he meets and befriends Will. At first, they both seem to be on the same side of the war effort, but as they witness how conscientious objectors are treated, sometimes even

murdered in the middle of the night

, a wedge starts to form between them over how they see the war and whether the violence of it is justified. There is also the possibility of something more than just friendship, but it's the early 1900s and they're on the war front, so exploring that possibility is difficult at best,

made worse by Will's internalized homophobia. He gets pretty ugly about it.

And as the war drags on and they witness war crimes and their own commander's spiral into madness, things just descend into desperation.

There are a various different ways that courage/cowardice is explored. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone today, with the benefit of 100+ years of hindsight, who would say that WWI was a necessary war or a just war. With that hindsight, it's easier for a modern reader to see the points being made by those who chose not to fight in it, and I like to think that most would recognize the courage it takes to stand up against the crowd and say no, I won't fight. Of course, back then, that was seen as cowardice. (So was PTSD.) And the punishments for cowardice ranged from being handed the grunt jobs such a litter bearer or medic, or being put up against a wall in front of a firing squad, not to mention all the verbal abuse from the soldiers and everyone else around you. But was it really anymore courageous to disagree with the war effort and say nothing, to go out with your gun and kill or be killed? With the inclusion of a gay MC, there's also the examination of cowardice and courage when it comes to simply being yourself and being honest, at least to yourself and those you can confide in, about who you are, versus hiding from that behind words of anger and disgust.

This book is non-linear, told in "present day" after the war, and in flashbacks to the war. Tristan has looked up the sister of a fallen friend to return some letters to her, but he's holding something else back, something he doesn't want to look at too closely. As the story goes back and forth, you get hints of what that is, and even when I figured out the role he played in it, I didn't anticipate how he ended up in that role.

The ending is jarring, and not because I didn't guess it entirely correct (I actually prefer it when that happens), but more so because I kept thinking of The Boy with the Stripped Pajamas and how that ended, how it redirected your attention away from the larger, true tragedy of the Holocaust to focus on the tragedy (of his own making) of the SS commandant's family and the convoluted way the author forced that conclusion to come about. Here I am again left wondering what the real focus of this is. I really had to sit and wonder what point the author was trying to make at the end of this book in revealing that

Tristan was so enraged by Will's final words to him, rejecting any notion of love between them, that he willingly picked up a gun and joined the firing squad that killed him.

I'm all for flawed characters and for them having to grapple with their mistakes, but I can't help but feel like this ending wasn't really earned and that it was there merely for the sake of heightened dramatic effect. Not to mention that any sympathy the average reader might have managed to scrape up for Tristan's troubles regarding his sexuality probably went right out the window for a lot of readers, instead confirming their biases that the gays are evil. Then again, a reader so biased probably wouldn't have made it that far into the book. But it does leave me wondering who the target audience for this was.

Anyway, I'm giving it four stars because I did like how it examined the issues of courage and cowardice, as well as the homophobia of the times. It stumbled and dropped the ball at the end, but not enough for me to drop the rating any more than that.

The narrator did a pretty good job with the text, though there could have been more effort put into the voices. There were some technical issues very early on with the audio quality that were still there even after I deleted it and re-downloaded from Audible, but the rest of the recording was clean of such issues.