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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
The book starts, for me, a bit confusingly - the beginning was quite hard to get through, just as we are beginning to meet the main character and understand his quite complicated situation the author has him "seeing" something that "would be" and its all woven through the beginning so that was not at all enjoyable for me. The book then slowly got better, and then somewhere between the halfway point maybe 2/3 through the book the pace just skyrocketed and it was all action. A good book, though I liked "The Prodigal Spy" better.
Leaving Berlin is the last novel that was picked for the Richard and Judy Autumn book club 2015 here in the UK and I approached this book with slight trepidation I'm afraid to say as I'm not really a huge fan of espionage novels. Could this book change my mind? Well, it had its moments for sure and there were some points where I thought I was going to give it four stars but then others where I have to be honest, I was fighting to stay awake. I kept reading because of those four star moments but unfortunately it has averaged out to be an "okay" read for me.
The premise is instantly intriguing - a Jewish writer who fled to America to escape the Nazi's is back in Berlin and treated almost like royalty by the city's culture team who are desperate for young novelists, playwrights etc to come back to Germany and develop a new country, pure and dignified and as far away from fascism as they can possibly imagine. The country is completely divided (just before the wall went up which thoroughly separated the country in two), the Russians have taken control of the East side and a new brand of politics, socialism, is creeping across the nation.
Coming home to post World War II Berlin is a big shock for our writer, Alex Meier, but none so big as the reason he is actually here - as a spy for the CIA in America who have a vested interest in what the Soviet Union is up to. If he completes his mission, Alex is guaranteed a safe return to America and the opportunity to be with his young son is too huge a chance not to take up. Almost immediately things do not go entirely according to plan and Alex finds himself a wanted man in a very dangerous time where questioning authority can still lead to curious disappearances. Furthermore, discovering that he has to spy on the only woman he has really loved, Irene, who is involved with a top Russian serviceman is a huge blow for Alex but again, something he has to weigh up against the chance of getting back to America and being with his son. Then, when an enemy of the state and former friend of Alex's appears, desperate for his help, he has to seriously think about where his real loyalties lie.
This book had oodles of potential and I'm sorely disappointed that I was let down in parts. There were some intriguing characters, particularly Alex and Irene but there were others that just seemed to pass me by, perhaps there were too many or some that didn't hold my interest, I'm not sure but it did drag down occasional passages which greatly affected the flow of this novel, in general. Don't get me wrong, there were some fantastic action-packed sequences that made me hold my breath in anticipation but then it was followed by dialogue that seemed clunky at times and a bit unbelievable at others. I've only just started learning about the history of Germany post World War II and it's absolutely fascinating which is what drew me to reading this book initially, and it's also pretty obvious the author has done his research, but overall I just wish it had held my attention the whole way through. However, I think fans of espionage will absolutely love this offering from Joseph Kanon.
For my full review please see my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
The premise is instantly intriguing - a Jewish writer who fled to America to escape the Nazi's is back in Berlin and treated almost like royalty by the city's culture team who are desperate for young novelists, playwrights etc to come back to Germany and develop a new country, pure and dignified and as far away from fascism as they can possibly imagine. The country is completely divided (just before the wall went up which thoroughly separated the country in two), the Russians have taken control of the East side and a new brand of politics, socialism, is creeping across the nation.
Coming home to post World War II Berlin is a big shock for our writer, Alex Meier, but none so big as the reason he is actually here - as a spy for the CIA in America who have a vested interest in what the Soviet Union is up to. If he completes his mission, Alex is guaranteed a safe return to America and the opportunity to be with his young son is too huge a chance not to take up. Almost immediately things do not go entirely according to plan and Alex finds himself a wanted man in a very dangerous time where questioning authority can still lead to curious disappearances. Furthermore, discovering that he has to spy on the only woman he has really loved, Irene, who is involved with a top Russian serviceman is a huge blow for Alex but again, something he has to weigh up against the chance of getting back to America and being with his son. Then, when an enemy of the state and former friend of Alex's appears, desperate for his help, he has to seriously think about where his real loyalties lie.
This book had oodles of potential and I'm sorely disappointed that I was let down in parts. There were some intriguing characters, particularly Alex and Irene but there were others that just seemed to pass me by, perhaps there were too many or some that didn't hold my interest, I'm not sure but it did drag down occasional passages which greatly affected the flow of this novel, in general. Don't get me wrong, there were some fantastic action-packed sequences that made me hold my breath in anticipation but then it was followed by dialogue that seemed clunky at times and a bit unbelievable at others. I've only just started learning about the history of Germany post World War II and it's absolutely fascinating which is what drew me to reading this book initially, and it's also pretty obvious the author has done his research, but overall I just wish it had held my attention the whole way through. However, I think fans of espionage will absolutely love this offering from Joseph Kanon.
For my full review please see my blog at http://www.bibliobeth.com
I really wanted to like Leaving Berlin, but I wasn't able to connect with the characters or the plot. None of the primary characters felt fully formed, and the story was jumpy and difficult to follow in places. I did like the style of writing so I would be interested to read more by Joseph Kanon.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Sloppy writing. Needed better editing.
I enjoyed how Kanon mixed in all of the cultural and historical elements of the time, but I felt like I couldn't get my head into this book to really enjoy it. I found the pace of the book to be weird and the ending unsettling.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
I’ve read a few of Kanon’s other books, and I always find them a bit slow but full of memorable settings and interesting points in history. Leaving Berlin was one of his more tightly paced novels, I thought. The setting of post-war Berlin is always an interesting, with multiple countries with different goals all trying to operate on top of one another in a single divided city.
If you end up enjoying this one, you might also like The Good German. The setting is the same, and some of the other elements were so similar that I spent parts of this book wondering whether I’d already read it at some point. Turns out I hadn’t — my brain was remembering similar elements from The Good German.
If you end up enjoying this one, you might also like The Good German. The setting is the same, and some of the other elements were so similar that I spent parts of this book wondering whether I’d already read it at some point. Turns out I hadn’t — my brain was remembering similar elements from The Good German.
As somebody who has been to Berlin many times, both pre- but mostly post-"Wende", the scenery of the dilapidated topography of post-war Berlin was what was most striking. As well as the chaos, the uncertainty, the paranoia, and the madness of several governmental and philosophical ideas warring with each other. This is all well-captured in this book, weaved into the architecture of the fallen and the rebuilding. The story's main characters mainly captured this, but it was hard for me to see the main character Meier as ever being in as full of danger as was made out, which took away from the suspense it was trying to build. The double-crossings and betrayals were well played out with a pretty neat wrap-up in the last 50 pages, although even that had an edge of hurry and convenience to it in an otherwise beautifully painted landscape. So while I loved reading about Berlin and the tumult after the war, and the language/writing itself was very good, I rated it lower than I otherwise would have simply because I just never quite got taken in with the suspense and intrigue. A fun and quick read, but ultimately not quite as edge-of-the seat for the genre.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Reminiscent of Ludlum's work. Great thriller yet intelligently laid out.