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A review by jiibii
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
5.0
" 'What the fuck is wrong with you people?' he asked me. 'Why do you have to lie about everything? Hide everything? Why not just tell the truth? What the fuck is wrong with simply being honest with people form the start?' "
Once in a while you stumble upon a book that is just so masterful, so ingenious, that you have to sit back and either let all that you feel wash over you or try to sit down and convey what those feelings are. Or, like in this instance, a careful mix of both. Having had this happen multiple times in the past, I must say I had given up on ever finding a book that would mark me as deeply as past books have, said unconscious decision being accompanied by the rather stupid and immature thought that I had already read everything that would one day come to scar me, and that no other books that came after those marks would ever live up to them.
Well folks, this book, thoroughly, gloriously and thankfully, blasted all that nonsense to smithereens. I knew that this was going to be very good, hence me having saved it for a time when I would need a bloody good narrative. I don't remember the last time 600 pages went by so fast...
Besides the obvious and necessary criticism, ever-present in the whole novel, towards the retrograde, bigoted and narrow-minded way of thinking that is usually brought on by religious oppression, the chronicle of the triumph of equality that is made along the book is something to behold. From 1945 all the way to 2015, one would say that it's two different planets this book takes place in, not in a continuous time period in a single one. It takes mastery, years of craft-honing, to be able to tell a 70 year-long story, and not once, not even once, making any part of it dragging or boring. All hats should go out to this man. It is impossible for the reader not to fall in love with this array of protagonists, the same way it is impossible not to hate them for the wrongness they've committed unto themselves and unto others. So, on top of narrating through so much time, [a:John Boyne|7195|John Boyne|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1439062965p2/7195.jpg] splendidly makes his characters oh so desperately, oh so masterfully human.
Furthermore, one grows to be so attached to these characters. You do, after all, accompany them throughout most of their lives, and are there for their most crucial moments. Like any work of fiction that so successfully chronicles a life and everything that that entails, you grow nostalgic at how things come to a close, besides it making you reflect upon your own life-path, where it's trailed before and what's left to venture ahead; where you want it to end. Perhaps it is the natural result of having a life, however fictional, be presented, in its entirety, to you.
Having turned the last page, I felt as if I had lived this story a thousand times over, even though I never had. I felt like I had always known these people's stories and had already suffered, laughed, cried and loved amongst them. Even though this story was brand new, it felt so familiar, but never in a redundant way; in a comforting one, as if I was coming home to these characters and their journeys. My heartstrings haven't been this viciously attached to a story, to a narrative, to characters, their journey and their trials, in a very long time.
It is an epic ode to the necessity of change, of respect, of acceptance and of letting the other be happy. Anyone can see so clearly the pain, the suffering and the trauma that hatred brings towards people who have done absolutely nothing besides having loved. Like any great tale, it destroys the idea that love should be met with hatred and fear, and does that in the most enticing, heartbreaking and breathtaking of ways. It leaves you in utter awe. It truly is a masterpiece, the way this whole book so clearly captured the things it did, in the ways it did.
All that's left now, friends, is for you to pick up this spectacular book. I swear you won't be sorry.
Cyril Avery will remain with me for a very long time, just as with anyone who reads his story.
---- fresh-off reading blurb ----
I cannot even form a single coherent thought after finishing this besides holy fucking shit that was the best thing my eyes have read in a long time , and even the coherence of that particular thought is questionable, to say the least. When my cheeks are dry and my heart is still I'll need to come back and correctly assess all that I'm feeling because wow ... just wow. my emotions are rampant right about now.
Read this, folks.
Once in a while you stumble upon a book that is just so masterful, so ingenious, that you have to sit back and either let all that you feel wash over you or try to sit down and convey what those feelings are. Or, like in this instance, a careful mix of both. Having had this happen multiple times in the past, I must say I had given up on ever finding a book that would mark me as deeply as past books have, said unconscious decision being accompanied by the rather stupid and immature thought that I had already read everything that would one day come to scar me, and that no other books that came after those marks would ever live up to them.
Well folks, this book, thoroughly, gloriously and thankfully, blasted all that nonsense to smithereens. I knew that this was going to be very good, hence me having saved it for a time when I would need a bloody good narrative. I don't remember the last time 600 pages went by so fast...
Besides the obvious and necessary criticism, ever-present in the whole novel, towards the retrograde, bigoted and narrow-minded way of thinking that is usually brought on by religious oppression, the chronicle of the triumph of equality that is made along the book is something to behold. From 1945 all the way to 2015, one would say that it's two different planets this book takes place in, not in a continuous time period in a single one. It takes mastery, years of craft-honing, to be able to tell a 70 year-long story, and not once, not even once, making any part of it dragging or boring. All hats should go out to this man. It is impossible for the reader not to fall in love with this array of protagonists, the same way it is impossible not to hate them for the wrongness they've committed unto themselves and unto others. So, on top of narrating through so much time, [a:John Boyne|7195|John Boyne|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1439062965p2/7195.jpg] splendidly makes his characters oh so desperately, oh so masterfully human.
Furthermore, one grows to be so attached to these characters. You do, after all, accompany them throughout most of their lives, and are there for their most crucial moments. Like any work of fiction that so successfully chronicles a life and everything that that entails, you grow nostalgic at how things come to a close, besides it making you reflect upon your own life-path, where it's trailed before and what's left to venture ahead; where you want it to end. Perhaps it is the natural result of having a life, however fictional, be presented, in its entirety, to you.
Having turned the last page, I felt as if I had lived this story a thousand times over, even though I never had. I felt like I had always known these people's stories and had already suffered, laughed, cried and loved amongst them. Even though this story was brand new, it felt so familiar, but never in a redundant way; in a comforting one, as if I was coming home to these characters and their journeys. My heartstrings haven't been this viciously attached to a story, to a narrative, to characters, their journey and their trials, in a very long time.
It is an epic ode to the necessity of change, of respect, of acceptance and of letting the other be happy. Anyone can see so clearly the pain, the suffering and the trauma that hatred brings towards people who have done absolutely nothing besides having loved. Like any great tale, it destroys the idea that love should be met with hatred and fear, and does that in the most enticing, heartbreaking and breathtaking of ways. It leaves you in utter awe. It truly is a masterpiece, the way this whole book so clearly captured the things it did, in the ways it did.
All that's left now, friends, is for you to pick up this spectacular book. I swear you won't be sorry.
Cyril Avery will remain with me for a very long time, just as with anyone who reads his story.
---- fresh-off reading blurb ----
I cannot even form a single coherent thought after finishing this besides holy fucking shit that was the best thing my eyes have read in a long time , and even the coherence of that particular thought is questionable, to say the least. When my cheeks are dry and my heart is still I'll need to come back and correctly assess all that I'm feeling because wow ... just wow. my emotions are rampant right about now.
Read this, folks.