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thisamtheplace's review against another edition
5.0
This was my last book of 2020 and felt like a palate cleanser for the year ahead - I think this would also be an excellent slump-breaker too as it is both a very quick and easy read and is written in such an enchanting way.
We are following Anselm who is convinced by his new wife to abandon his life as a soldier and take on a civilian post as a weights and measures Inspector near the Russian border. A disciplined military man, Anselm becomes gradually more and more unmoored by this new and unfamiliar environment and the corruption around him. Whilst this is quite a simple story of the 'descent of a good man', I was captivated by the folkloric writing style that made this almost a fairy story of the mundane. Beyond this, it felt like Roth was playing with agency as Anselm appears to have no control over his actions and the other characters almost feel like props or actors being directed. At one point, the leading lady is even described as 'like a flower which someone has seated at a table rather than placed on it'. The landscape and nature also eerily mirror Anselm's behaviour and emotions and I am still not sure where the causality lies between the two. It was very strange, but I liked it!
'He had no liking for civilian clothing, he felt rather like a snail constrained to abandon the house which it has built out of its own saliva'
We are following Anselm who is convinced by his new wife to abandon his life as a soldier and take on a civilian post as a weights and measures Inspector near the Russian border. A disciplined military man, Anselm becomes gradually more and more unmoored by this new and unfamiliar environment and the corruption around him. Whilst this is quite a simple story of the 'descent of a good man', I was captivated by the folkloric writing style that made this almost a fairy story of the mundane. Beyond this, it felt like Roth was playing with agency as Anselm appears to have no control over his actions and the other characters almost feel like props or actors being directed. At one point, the leading lady is even described as 'like a flower which someone has seated at a table rather than placed on it'. The landscape and nature also eerily mirror Anselm's behaviour and emotions and I am still not sure where the causality lies between the two. It was very strange, but I liked it!
'He had no liking for civilian clothing, he felt rather like a snail constrained to abandon the house which it has built out of its own saliva'
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