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A review by jersy
Der Fall Kurilow by Irène Némirovsky
1.0
This book is such a wasted opportunity. The blurb made me think it's a deep look into the relationship of what would eventually be killer and victim, but it's not. The protagonist is more of a observer than part of any story, which could be interesting but just isn't here because his observations are not often of that much value.
The book is kind of about Kurilows political life, kind of about his marriage, kind of about Leon being a "revolutionary", but it's not enough about any of these things and deals too superficially with these aspects.
The assassination plot seems only to be there so there is a plot, but Leon doesn't really plan, there is not much of a motivation in him. The politics were just not done in a way that was interesting to me, even though were was potential, just not enough page time. And the marriage could have made for an interesting little book, but all the narrator ever seemed to comment on it amounted to "she's ugly, but at least they care for each other".
The book handled all of its ideas so boringly, but the worst (and the reason I'm rating it only 1 star) is: It seems like the author could have made this a book with an impact but she chose not to. Really, there were some sentences that made her look so skilled and able to make this an intense character study (also, the potential of the premise!), but she didn't seem interested in this story?
It's such a short book but instead of using page time for developing characters and relationships properly (which I got the impression she was able to) there was filler in the form of a frame story in the future and some chapters of random stuff Leon did before being sent to Kurilow. Why is there filler in a ≈190p book?
The book just felt too shallow and it reminds me why I once thought short books are not worth reading Like, if the author didn't even know what to write about that, why should I read it? - Of course this thinking is bullshit but it's what I thought back than and it must have been because of books like this.
The book is kind of about Kurilows political life, kind of about his marriage, kind of about Leon being a "revolutionary", but it's not enough about any of these things and deals too superficially with these aspects.
The assassination plot seems only to be there so there is a plot, but Leon doesn't really plan, there is not much of a motivation in him. The politics were just not done in a way that was interesting to me, even though were was potential, just not enough page time. And the marriage could have made for an interesting little book, but all the narrator ever seemed to comment on it amounted to "she's ugly, but at least they care for each other".
The book handled all of its ideas so boringly, but the worst (and the reason I'm rating it only 1 star) is: It seems like the author could have made this a book with an impact but she chose not to. Really, there were some sentences that made her look so skilled and able to make this an intense character study (also, the potential of the premise!), but she didn't seem interested in this story?
It's such a short book but instead of using page time for developing characters and relationships properly (which I got the impression she was able to) there was filler in the form of a frame story in the future and some chapters of random stuff Leon did before being sent to Kurilow. Why is there filler in a ≈190p book?
The book just felt too shallow and it reminds me why I once thought short books are not worth reading Like, if the author didn't even know what to write about that, why should I read it? - Of course this thinking is bullshit but it's what I thought back than and it must have been because of books like this.