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plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
3.0
Furst is a master at creating the atmosphere of the period about which he writes, the period just before and during World War II in Europe. This book's main character is a Polish/Soviet Jew foreign correspondent for Pravda who is recruited into the eerie and totally confusing world of espionage as Germany threatens to consume Europe and perhaps the world.
The plot to the novel is so convoluted, there is so much misdirection, that I found myself not knowing what I had just read or where the story would take me next. I decided that perhaps I just wasn't smart enough for this book.
The character of Andre Szara is an intriguing one. One can't really decide whether he is a hero or a villain or just an ordinary person trying to survive in extraordinary times.
When all seems lost near the end of the novel, Andre is saved once more and, finally, so is the poor reader as all is explicated. At last, one is able to understand what one has just read.
This is a book that kept my interest throughout, even when I wasn't sure what was happening, simply based on the power of the writing. It's not my normal cup of tea, but it would be great fun for fans of thrillers and espionage novels. Even I liked it.
The plot to the novel is so convoluted, there is so much misdirection, that I found myself not knowing what I had just read or where the story would take me next. I decided that perhaps I just wasn't smart enough for this book.
The character of Andre Szara is an intriguing one. One can't really decide whether he is a hero or a villain or just an ordinary person trying to survive in extraordinary times.
When all seems lost near the end of the novel, Andre is saved once more and, finally, so is the poor reader as all is explicated. At last, one is able to understand what one has just read.
This is a book that kept my interest throughout, even when I wasn't sure what was happening, simply based on the power of the writing. It's not my normal cup of tea, but it would be great fun for fans of thrillers and espionage novels. Even I liked it.
richardwells's review against another edition
5.0
It's been a long, long time since I've finished a book, slept on it, and started over the next day. Dark Star is so thick, and rich with plot, character, and place that there was no way I could get it the first time through, and even after the second reading I could go back for more. I've been on a bit of an Alan Furst tear: Night Soldiers, The Spies of Warsaw, and Spies of the Balkans, but this one takes the cake. Deep into the heart and mind of Russian intelligence, deep into the machinations of Hitler and Stalin, as deep as you can get into the soul of the protagonist, this is a hell of a book. Most of the other reviewers go over the story, check them out, but beyond the story this is history, philosophy, poetry, and damned good writing.
left_coast_justin's review against another edition
As usual with Furst's books, I learned quite a bit about European history of the 20th century -- he sneaks quite a bit of learning into his novels, and for this I am grateful.
I kept falling asleep while reading for this, but don't blame the author or the story -- it says much more about the state of my life in Oct. 2020 than it does about the book. So unfortunately there was a lot of plot development in the first half of the book that I only poorly retained, making the second half a little hard for me to get into.
I will refrain from assigning a star rating unless I get around to reading this again. I'm pretty sure that, under normal circumstances, I'd have enjoyed it quite a bit. (But with the caution that, like all spy novels with any hint of character development, people like to compare it to LeCarre, which simply isn't credible. Compare the love affairs -- I believe there were three -- of this protagonist compared with the agony of LeCarre's hero Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager, and they really aren't playing in the same stadium.)
I kept falling asleep while reading for this, but don't blame the author or the story -- it says much more about the state of my life in Oct. 2020 than it does about the book. So unfortunately there was a lot of plot development in the first half of the book that I only poorly retained, making the second half a little hard for me to get into.
I will refrain from assigning a star rating unless I get around to reading this again. I'm pretty sure that, under normal circumstances, I'd have enjoyed it quite a bit. (But with the caution that, like all spy novels with any hint of character development, people like to compare it to LeCarre, which simply isn't credible. Compare the love affairs -- I believe there were three -- of this protagonist compared with the agony of LeCarre's hero Jonathan Pine in The Night Manager, and they really aren't playing in the same stadium.)
darwin8u's review against another edition
5.0
Alan Furst's great historical espionage novel, Dark Star is a prewar epic of Europe's moral ambiguities and shifting loyalties. Told through the eyes of Pravda journalist and Luftmensch (and sometimes NKVD spy) André Szara, the story stretches from Paris to Berlin, Warsaw, and even down to Izmir. In this novel Furst examines ideas of trust and suspicion, love and hate, magnetism and repulsion.
It is a novel about the compromises good men make to survive, the power that a few evil men have over millions, and the sacrifices a few Luftmenschen make to save thousands. Ultimately, Dark Star is a story of the Russian and German nonaggression pact (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) at the beginning of WWII and how the Jewish members of Stalin's spy network were forced to make huge compromises to survive (most didn't survive) and how some were pushed into heroics because decency and the times demanded it.
The magic of this novel is that Furst is able to unweave the complicated nature of the prewar spy alliances and show all the different threads and colors and never lose the reader. His prose is amazing. His characters are nearly perfect. One of my favorite historical spy novels of all time.
It is a novel about the compromises good men make to survive, the power that a few evil men have over millions, and the sacrifices a few Luftmenschen make to save thousands. Ultimately, Dark Star is a story of the Russian and German nonaggression pact (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) at the beginning of WWII and how the Jewish members of Stalin's spy network were forced to make huge compromises to survive (most didn't survive) and how some were pushed into heroics because decency and the times demanded it.
The magic of this novel is that Furst is able to unweave the complicated nature of the prewar spy alliances and show all the different threads and colors and never lose the reader. His prose is amazing. His characters are nearly perfect. One of my favorite historical spy novels of all time.
ssindc's review against another edition
2.0
A nicely crafted, at times lyrical, and periodically fascinating piece of historical (gentleman spy) fiction surrounding the Euro-Russian lead-up to World War II that ... alas ... didn't truly speak to me and never fully captured my attention. My sense is that I'm in the minority on this one. Ah, well.
It's an impressive piece of work - it just didn't move (or engage, or grab) me, nor did it hold my interest. On a more positive note, the slow rate of consumption meant that the book helped me pass time on nine (9) flights (total airtime exceeding 40 hours), with stops (either hotels or airports) in nine different countries. (OK, since I started this book, I finished three others and started another two ... but I stuck with it, and I can't say I'm sorry that I read it.) In other words, I've been carrying this book around for a long time, and it's literally been around the world in the process.
I see the attraction in covering - and I respect the author's efforts to include - such a wide range of events and characters, but, for me, it diluted the story's momentum, the driving force, the animating ... well, you get the idea.
I've had better luck with other Furst books in the Night Soldiers series (which, of course, isn't really a serial) - and, in comparison, they were published much later in his career, and (... and maybe this accounts for my reaction) were not only shorter (e.g., less dense), but far less ambitious in scope (or, in other words, far more limited or contained).
It's an impressive piece of work - it just didn't move (or engage, or grab) me, nor did it hold my interest. On a more positive note, the slow rate of consumption meant that the book helped me pass time on nine (9) flights (total airtime exceeding 40 hours), with stops (either hotels or airports) in nine different countries. (OK, since I started this book, I finished three others and started another two ... but I stuck with it, and I can't say I'm sorry that I read it.) In other words, I've been carrying this book around for a long time, and it's literally been around the world in the process.
I see the attraction in covering - and I respect the author's efforts to include - such a wide range of events and characters, but, for me, it diluted the story's momentum, the driving force, the animating ... well, you get the idea.
I've had better luck with other Furst books in the Night Soldiers series (which, of course, isn't really a serial) - and, in comparison, they were published much later in his career, and (... and maybe this accounts for my reaction) were not only shorter (e.g., less dense), but far less ambitious in scope (or, in other words, far more limited or contained).
2wheeledconveyance's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
mathewsnyder's review against another edition
5.0
I have previously reviewed Alan Furst's remarkable work in The Polish Officer, a book so enjoyable I happily returned to Furst's European espionage thrills and passion in Dark Star.
It's a dense and murky novel, a bit of an acquired taste like a fine Parisian coffee. In it, seasoned Soviet journalist André Szara evolves from reluctant party participant to full fledged spy master and ultimately romantic rogue. Like Furst's other protagonists I've read, he's an affable sort, a kind of European observer thrust into events he knows are far beyond his control.
Here, though, Furst's gloves are off. Szara stumbles his way dejectedly amid NKVD (Stalin's secret police, whose badges bear the titular star) machinations. His every move, he knows, is being watched. He faces death, quite directly it turns out, throughout his absurdly lucky run from a Belgian port to Prague, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, the Polish countryside, Vilnius, and Geneva. Szara's self-preservation is a matter of instinct, of a clever Russian fully aware of the paradoxes of his country who scrambles at the merest whiff of doubt or worry. And, he becomes the inside observer to the worst slaughters in history.
Szara is a Polish Jew, and Furst trickles in Szara's history with pogroms of eastern Europe. These, too, explain Szara's instinct for survival, and hint at his tragic penchant for romance, having lost a young wife in the echoes of the Revolution. But it is the grind between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and the increasingly obvious plight of fellow Jews, that Furst makes his bleakest portraits of pre-war Europe. Szara experiences Kristallnacht first-hand in one tense scene. Meanwhile, he's smitten by the Jewess of his espionage contact in Berlin, who reports on Germany's war machine. Later, Szara moonlights with a mysterious French aristocrat to secure British certificates allowing Jews to flee to Palestine. So woven are these events into Szara's instinctual European existence that Furst almost sneaks in any idea that Szara is any kind of hero for the Jewish plight. It's master stroke, in my view, because it reveals the plain humanity of Jews in these locales, and the insane mentality that they do not belong.
Blended with this commentary is Szara's role as NKVD handler at precisely the time Stalin purges the agency of its leaders. Furst haunts Szara with these distant events, leaving the journalist-spy alone, or with the odd comrade, to puzzle through disappearances and his own inexplicable survival. It is a byzantine dance Furst lets Szara -- and readers -- decipher. The effect is both that of thrilling urgency and dense puzzlement, even frustration. Who's pulling these strings, and why? Will Szara ever know?
The answer is a question of moral courage for Szara, and he refuses to be one of many who asks "Za chto?" -- "What for?" or "Why?" -- with a gun in his back. He decides to leverage his borrowed time with payback and a little redemption worthy of his romantic soul.
The novel is filled with Furst's trademark minor characters, European heroes and villains so elegantly conceived in mere paragraphs before their often tragic exits or quiet perseverance. Dark Star bursts with such lovable souls. And, of course, Furst reveals his other trademark -- a vibrant setting pulsing with life, color and sensation. He's at his best detailing Paris. Smoky cafés and night time rains, or sweltering arrondissements and fried potato smells. Berlin becomes a surreal landscape, and the Polish countryside almost beautiful amid the ruin of the blitzkrieg.
It's the gamut of Furst's best writing, but comes at a heavy price. The book is dense with characters and subtle plots, and the topic heavy and troubling. It's a book that pulls you insistently, not happily. A rich, acquired taste that delivers not refreshment, but rather bittersweet heartache.
It's a dense and murky novel, a bit of an acquired taste like a fine Parisian coffee. In it, seasoned Soviet journalist André Szara evolves from reluctant party participant to full fledged spy master and ultimately romantic rogue. Like Furst's other protagonists I've read, he's an affable sort, a kind of European observer thrust into events he knows are far beyond his control.
Here, though, Furst's gloves are off. Szara stumbles his way dejectedly amid NKVD (Stalin's secret police, whose badges bear the titular star) machinations. His every move, he knows, is being watched. He faces death, quite directly it turns out, throughout his absurdly lucky run from a Belgian port to Prague, Moscow, Berlin, Paris, the Polish countryside, Vilnius, and Geneva. Szara's self-preservation is a matter of instinct, of a clever Russian fully aware of the paradoxes of his country who scrambles at the merest whiff of doubt or worry. And, he becomes the inside observer to the worst slaughters in history.
Szara is a Polish Jew, and Furst trickles in Szara's history with pogroms of eastern Europe. These, too, explain Szara's instinct for survival, and hint at his tragic penchant for romance, having lost a young wife in the echoes of the Revolution. But it is the grind between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and the increasingly obvious plight of fellow Jews, that Furst makes his bleakest portraits of pre-war Europe. Szara experiences Kristallnacht first-hand in one tense scene. Meanwhile, he's smitten by the Jewess of his espionage contact in Berlin, who reports on Germany's war machine. Later, Szara moonlights with a mysterious French aristocrat to secure British certificates allowing Jews to flee to Palestine. So woven are these events into Szara's instinctual European existence that Furst almost sneaks in any idea that Szara is any kind of hero for the Jewish plight. It's master stroke, in my view, because it reveals the plain humanity of Jews in these locales, and the insane mentality that they do not belong.
Blended with this commentary is Szara's role as NKVD handler at precisely the time Stalin purges the agency of its leaders. Furst haunts Szara with these distant events, leaving the journalist-spy alone, or with the odd comrade, to puzzle through disappearances and his own inexplicable survival. It is a byzantine dance Furst lets Szara -- and readers -- decipher. The effect is both that of thrilling urgency and dense puzzlement, even frustration. Who's pulling these strings, and why? Will Szara ever know?
The answer is a question of moral courage for Szara, and he refuses to be one of many who asks "Za chto?" -- "What for?" or "Why?" -- with a gun in his back. He decides to leverage his borrowed time with payback and a little redemption worthy of his romantic soul.
The novel is filled with Furst's trademark minor characters, European heroes and villains so elegantly conceived in mere paragraphs before their often tragic exits or quiet perseverance. Dark Star bursts with such lovable souls. And, of course, Furst reveals his other trademark -- a vibrant setting pulsing with life, color and sensation. He's at his best detailing Paris. Smoky cafés and night time rains, or sweltering arrondissements and fried potato smells. Berlin becomes a surreal landscape, and the Polish countryside almost beautiful amid the ruin of the blitzkrieg.
It's the gamut of Furst's best writing, but comes at a heavy price. The book is dense with characters and subtle plots, and the topic heavy and troubling. It's a book that pulls you insistently, not happily. A rich, acquired taste that delivers not refreshment, but rather bittersweet heartache.
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