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mathewsnyder 's review for:
Dark Star
by Alan Furst
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.