The Cellist of Sarajevo came highly recommended, but I had my reservations. How could a thirty-two year old professor from Canada give any sort of justice to the Bosnian War, and do so in a mere 200 pages? The conflict is much too recent to easily dismiss any inaccuracies in the text. And it's diffi...
In 1992, civil war breaks out in Sarajevo. The violence of war often brings out the worst in us, breeding evil, greed, selfishness and corruption. Before long, the people become inured to the death and destruction around them and soon begin to view it almost as normal life. If they don’t accept it, ...
“The Confabulist” is a historically rich and ingeniously told story about illusion and the ways tricks of magic can for better or worst alter what we perceive and give credence to. The clever and entertaining narrative portrays the vivid alluring world of a first class magic show and weaves together...
A great story, well-told. The sections about Houdini are great historical fiction -- loosely based on facts, just factual enough to be believable, but truly fiction. The character Houdini is always questioning himself, always questioning reality, even as he plays with it to entertain others. The ...
The Confabulist by Steven Galloway is a fictionalized story of Harry Houdini and a man named Martin Strauss. The question what is real and what is an illusion lies at the heart of this book. The book has a magical quality about it and a circular approach weaving past and present and reality and illu...
Confabulation (definition): In psychology a confabulation is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive (Wikipedia). The Confabulist is an intriguing story that combines th...
* I received this as an ARC in a Goodreads “First Reads” Giveaway *Martin Strauss suffers from a condition called “tinnitus”. This condition blurs his memory and often it is difficult for him to distinguish real memories from those his mind fabricates. He is often confused, but one thing that is v...
Opening line: “It screamed downward, splitting air and sky without effort.” A few years ago while I was travelling in Europe I met a guy from Sarajevo and we became friends. At one point he asked me if I knew anything about what had happened in his country. I replied, only what I had seen on the ...
This novel has such powerful images. The horrors that occurred during the siege of Sarajevo and what people went through on a daily basis just to get around in the city are vividly depicted in this wonderful book. And ironically, the cellist is not really even a main character even though he is th...
I didn't finish it, but I readily admit that it compels one to keep reading. It simply seemed that descriptions and events were kept deliberately muted, to compel one to build hopes and expectation that conflict was impending. The descriptions of sniper preparations are are also done with entirely t...
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