A review by marty_s
Scarlet Sails by Alexander Grin

1.0

Read this as a kid and I think I liked it, but this time not so much. It's got a fairy-tale plot, but not much of one, and knowing what happens already it just didn't hold my interest. Insofar as the hero had a personality at all (the characters are more like archetypes), he was kind of pompous and annoying. The translation (from Russian) seemed a bit awkward in parts, and some of the images and metaphors didn't really work too well for me -- like "She noticed nothing along the way, as when she carried a hen which required all her attention." This was totally out of the blue -- it's not as if they mentioned that she often carried hens around or something. The attempts at humor don't translate too well either. Usually they're in the form of a really corny scene with some "colorful" minor character who misunderstands what's going on.