Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book was a slog for me, much like the journey the main character Rafael Pinto embarks upon across Europe and Asia at the outset of World War I and up through the early days of World War II. The storytelling and historical context were rich and layered. I think the book will be appealing to other readers who are more familiar with this genre.
I received an advance reader copy of The world and All that It Holds from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I received an advance reader copy of The world and All that It Holds from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Closing out 2022 with a Jan 2023 audio arc. I wish I hadn’t flown through this as fast as I did, because there is so much of it—love story, refugee story, war story, ghost story. It’s thick. It’s good.
The writing style made it so hard to follow what was going on.
The World And All That It Holds by Aleksander Hemon felt almost reminiscent of Brian Friel's play, Translations. It's about religion, corruption and bloody wars while examining two people from different sides with a language barrier…who surprisingly have a connection between them both.
The novel starts off in Sarajevo in 1914, when shots ring out and World War I begins. It changes the course of protagonist Rafael Pinto's life as he travels across time and conflict to find a twin flame in another Bosnian soldier named Osman. The novel ranges across the 20th century, from Sarajevo, Tashkent to Shanghai, following the life of Pinto, a Sephardic Jew, his lover and their daughter across the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Communist Revolution.
It's a very challenging read, with many foreign phrases and sentences. While this was my first time reading the author's work, I still had to read Hemon's bibliography to get a better idea. But the concept of macaronic language, a bilingual mix of ways to communicate, and how the dialect of our characters express their love for each other fascinated me.
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really loved this book. It reminded me a lot of Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad, for a Eurasian context: following one person through the mostly-historical wreckage of a swathe of time and place.
So there's a lot of brutal moments, as befits a life going through WW1's eastern front, the Russian revolution, 1930's Shanghai, etc. There's also a ton of beauty in Rafo's relationships - some lifelong, some brief. There is also plenty of humor, metaphysical wandering, etc. It's an epic scale of a book in only 300 or so pages. There's a lot to take in, in the book (including its own accompanying soundtrack!)) and in the world that it depicts. I was surprised by how, well, worldly it was in comparison to the smaller lives depicted in Hemon's previous books. This one really sees a lot, and is incredibly rich in detail. I'd go so far as to call it a vital read - at least for dads with Eurasian interests, I guess.
So there's a lot of brutal moments, as befits a life going through WW1's eastern front, the Russian revolution, 1930's Shanghai, etc. There's also a ton of beauty in Rafo's relationships - some lifelong, some brief. There is also plenty of humor, metaphysical wandering, etc. It's an epic scale of a book in only 300 or so pages. There's a lot to take in, in the book (including its own accompanying soundtrack!)) and in the world that it depicts. I was surprised by how, well, worldly it was in comparison to the smaller lives depicted in Hemon's previous books. This one really sees a lot, and is incredibly rich in detail. I'd go so far as to call it a vital read - at least for dads with Eurasian interests, I guess.