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However, as a "thriller" it is relatively thrill-free (even when compared, as it often is, to the novels of LeCarre). There were only a few (short)instances when I was quickly moving along in the story, eager to find out what happens next. It was much more likely that I was eagerly turning pages to be done with a drawn-out section which "bogged-down" the progression of, in retrospect, a pretty clever story.
As mentioned in numerous reviews here, characterization and mood/atmosphere are terrific. Does Furst give a genuine feel to his recreation of Pre-war Europe? Absolutely. As a history primer, is it informative? To be sure. But is it a compelling story? Well, that's a more difficult question.
Unfortunately, for every scene of "authentic spy-craft" or short glimpses of "the big picture", there is a much LONGER description of the ruts in a Polish cart trail or the way your back feels after sleeping on a hay matress. I was left at the end of the book thinking, "This was a great story, and in someone else's hands, it could have been a great book, too" Hey, I even liked all the background on the inner workings of the Communist party and NKVD, but I really expected more tension and excitement (not explosions, gore and mayhem - but more intrigue and danger) and could have done without some of the tangential side-trips.
Maybe if I hadn't heard so much build-up, I'd have thought more highly of this book (though certainly NEVER would have thought it worthy of 5!!), but I expected more, a lot more.
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Dark Star tells the story of Andre Szara, a Polish Jew working as a correspondent for Pravda. Of course, Szara is much more than a journalist but is also pressed into service for the NKVD. Szara eventually runs a Soviet spy network in Paris, and 'controls' a Jewish German industrialist turned agent for Moscow. This is the simple version of the story... Szara's story is in fact a human story set against the horror of the purges. People drop around Szara, be it from Stalin or from Kristalnacht.
Furst also uses Szara as a personal foil against which to paint Stalin's guilt in general. Stalin is shown to be as much a partner or twin of Hitler than an innocent victim. Well, a lot of this is established history... the purges are painted as an anti-semitic pogrom, a way to clear the intelligentsia and Soviet government of Jews. In this, I think Furst is stretching. Sure, a lot of the Bolsheviks were Jews, and most of them died in the purges, but they had a lot of company. I think this is trying to paint order on something that was in fact largely random and arbitrary, except for a very small percentage of individuals.
In any case, Dark Star is not pretending to be a history book but instead a historical novel set against the backdrop of WWII. In this, the book succeeds. Furst does what he does best: he drops the reader head first into a highly detailed version of Europe on the eve of war... of the fear and horror of Hitler and Stalin.
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The novel follows the protagonist D'Artagnan as he tries to join the French king's elite bodyguard unit, the Musketeers. D'Artagnan befriends three current Musketeers (Porthos, Athos and Aramis) and what follows is a fast-paced literary romp as the four friends share a series of swashbuckling adventures in 17th century France. The plot is full of twists and turns but is cleverly developed and believable. Dumas expertly develops the characters, engaging the reader as the characters experience war, love and just about everything in between.
The edition I'm reviewing (the Illustrated Junior Library version) is highly abridged (300 pages vs over 600 pages) and has many beautiful illustrations, making an already fun novel even more accessible for young readers.
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He meets the Three Musketeers and they don't get off to such a great beginning as he finds himself preparing to fight a duel with all three of them. Eventually D'artagnan wins over Athos, Porthos, and Aramis and together the four set off on adventures to protect their majesty the queen (Anne of Austria) against the bad intentions of the cardinal.
It's all intigue and romance and swashbuckling! I loved it all, every sentence. And i love how M. Dumas twists history to his own literary devices.
I played hooky to finish reading this book!
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The plot outline is simple. The four musketeers - for there really are four - want to help the queen in her love for Lord Buckingham of England. All the rest is intrigue and adventure related to that. But the episodes are so funny, the chemistry between the characters so subtle and realistic, that it makes for a truly great read. Indeed, the characters of the musketeers are so well drawn, their inter-relations so complex, that a film or even a miniseries simply cannot do it justice. The glimpses at historical personnages is also fascinating, from Richelieu to Louis XIII. Finally, you get a flavor for the Paris of that epoch, just after the religious wars.
Highly recommended.
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The book takes Khristo from terrifying training in Moscow, to the sad lost cause of the Spanish Civil War (where he sees first hand how Germany used the alliance with Franco as a proving ground for new weapons and tactics), to occupied France, and eventually back through the Balkans. Khristo is a sympathetic character, but like many of Furst's leading men-indeed, this may be a feature of all spies and not Furst's fault-he is a little too enigmatic and withdrawn to fully capture the reader's heart. At the core of the book is a small cadre of friends from his training days, who, despite shifting allegiances and loyalties over the fifteen years or so, try as much as possible to help each other survive. Unfortunately, one of the weaknesses of the book, in it's episodic construction, is that in covering such a large swath of time and locations, it's hard to keep track of who in who (especially once you introduce cover identities and aliases), who they are working for (agencies and factions proliferate), and under what motivation.
Despite these difficulties, the book is certainly worth reading for its amazing level of detail and tension in set piece sequences, as well as it's ability to convey a sense of Europe gone mad-trapped between the equal horrors of fascism and Stalinist communism.
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Alan Furst's greatest skill perhaps lies in his ability to create an all-pervasive sense of Europe caught between the terrors of facism and Stalinism. "Night Soldiers" takes us from Bulgaria to the Soviet Union to Civil War Spain to France to Eastern Europe again. Mostly the story is seen through the eyes of Khristo Stoianev, initially a Bulgarian lad recruited into the Soviet NKVD, eventually a spy, a criminal, and a partisan. The emphasis is not on spy-thriller type "action" (although "Night Soldiers" does contain a healthy dose) as much as it is on covert operational technique (for which Furst's work deserves very high marks for authenticity). It may be that the book is a little overly ambitious, with Stoianev becoming ensnarled into an improbably broad range of events in several countries, but it provides an absorbing portrait of a continent gone mad.
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The one thing the book does extremely well is portray the lives of ordinary people during the war. The author seems to have a view of the mundane populace of an occupied country, and what they do or say or when they go on vacation. When they spy for de Milja, they do so for mundane reasons, for the most part, and their reactions when they get caught aren't heroic, for the most part, either. The novel is told in a series of grays (if they ever make a movie, it'll have to be black and white) with few if any colors in the landscape.
If I have a serious criticism, it's that there really isn't a plot. Instead, the story is basically a series of incidents involving a single individual, and if he'd structured it differently it could be a short story collection, plotwise. That's how connected the various plots are.
In spite of that, I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend the book.
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This novel tells the stories of de Milja's experiences as a spy in Warsaw, Paris and the Ukraine. It is episodic in character with each unit of the story essentially self-contained. The writing is fast-paced and hard-boiled as befitting a spy story. There were times when I thought the story flagged and lost my interest.
Alan Furst knows has subject matter and depicts well the fall of Warsaw and Paris and the activities of the Partisans in the Ukraine. The Nazi's failed invasions of Britain and the U.S.S.R. form the backdrop of the book and they are well-conveyed. I found the middle sections of the book the most interesting with good depictions of people and places, particularly low life in Paris.
The book is good to read because of the perspective it brings to WW II which is both unusual and realistic. The book is somewhat more than a spy novel due to Furst's attempt to develop and show growth in the character of his hero. This development occurs in the final section of the book which explores the confusing world of conflicting partisan resistance movements in the Ukraine. Oddly enough, the plotting and spying in this section are, to me, the weakest in the book.
De Milja changes in this way. In the prior sections of the story, Furst establishes him as a lover and a ladies man. There are occasions when De Milja takes a mistress in part to save his cover and many other occasions where he takes a lover only because he wants to do so. The connection between spying and amorous activities is an established one. There are tensions and risks in this line of work, and surely a feeling that one must enjoy what one can.
In the final chapter of the book, de Milja meets a young woman refuge named Sasha. She is not particularly beautiful or talented, but she is fleeing for her life, she is vulnerable, and she is available. De Milja saves her life, through great peril. Sasha lets it be known that she would be willing to, perhaps even interested in, sex with De Milja as they weave their way through danger.
Furst makes a great deal of de Milja not availaing himself of this opportunity. (Even though de Milja and Sasha need to bundle together in a car to keep warm at night.) I think this shows a development in de Milja's character from the rather free-wheeling womanizer he is in the earlier sections of the book. It also shows that he has developed some sense of looking at his female companion as an individual rather than as a pawn in a global game of war. I think we are meant to see de Milja as developing a quality of compassion in this portion of the story and a sense of connectedness to another person. He is willing to forgo sex, even when it is offered, welcome, and not even illicit in order to bring Sasha and himself to safety. It is buried in lots of war detail and not really prepared for during the body of the novel, but Furst shows development in the character of his hero.
This is why the book is slightly more than a spy story.
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The Polish Officer begins very ambitiously as the protagonist seeks to smuggle Poland's gold supply out of the country in September 1939; the daring exploits result from desperation, necessity, despair, honor, patriotism. The settings are well-drawn and the politics well-researched.
This is a period piece. Furst brings you to the time and place of the action with his writing. It is honest, gritty, and real. The book is not a single narrative, it is episodic -- like intertwined short stories or novellas. Thus the intensity can wax and wane. Nonetheless, if you are interested in the 1933-1941 time frame, espionage, Eastern Europeans under the shadow of war or all of the above, this is fine literature and highly recommended.
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If you are looking for an in-depth review of Bismarck's life, don't go here. But if you want a quick read that deals effectively with the greater issues of Bismarck's career, then this is it.
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Taylor, England's most flamboyant historian,# often broke the traditional bounds of the field. He brought history to television, radio and the newspapers. He closed the gap of the historical wait period by writing a history of the origins of War World II in 1961. His flashiness aside, he produced many historical masterpieces including Bismarck. In this work he goes beyond the face value of Bismarck's recorded statements and examines the actions, and subsequently his motives, to find the true character of this monumental figure. He develops the notion of a opportunistic and self-centered Bismarck as opposed to loyal servant of the king whose great foresight brought the unity of Germany.
One major theme of the book is chance. It is argued that it was stoke of luck that allowed Bismarck even enter the field of politics, the bad health of another deputy. Even his great foreign policy was based on providence. Repeatedly Taylor asserts that Bismarck had no plan, rather he would let events unfold and then act from there. Furthermore, when Bismarck intentionally carried a line of policy through it would normally backfire causing him more harm. Taylor remarks, the genius of Bismarck lie not in brilliant initiatives but in being able to recover from past blunders.
Closely related to the theme of chance is the notion that Bismarck had no enduring principles. His own greatness was the only value that he held to as he morphed from reactionary to liberal to conservative. He proudly boasted to the Reichstag "I have no fixed opinions... there are no eternal truths" (138). Beside his own will, the only other exception of complete devotion was his family. However, this might even be challenged. One the boldest claims of the book is that some of Bismarck's landmark achievements, unification and social reform, came as by-products for his bid to stay in power. Explicitly, his main motive for introducing bills was to split the Emperor and Reichstag and thus increase his power; and similarly his main motive for foreign policy was to split the Great Powers to increase Germany and subsequently his power.
In many respects it is a difficult task writing the biography of a man who is a deceptive diplomat. Bismarck's documents and speeches are overflowing with contradictions. It seems that Bismarck's policies stemmed from the hope of a desired outcome instead of personal convictions. Nonetheless, the historian has the difficult task of sifting through the political jargon to find the true motives of this complicated person. Taylor largely discredits Bismarck's talk of humble servitude towards the monarch and instead supports the Bismarck's claim of his own greatness. However, how can one claim certitude with a man who has changed his memoirs repeatedly, had no scruples in contradicting facts, and supported so many opposing principles? This is a contributing fact to the case that this debate will go on. As it does, Taylor's work will do much to help guide those who seek the motives and beliefs or the real Bismarck.
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Taylor, England's most flamboyant historian,# often broke the traditional bounds of the field. He brought history to television, radio and the newspapers. He closed the gap of the historical wait period by writing a history of the origins of War World II in 1961. His flashiness aside, he produced many historical masterpieces including Bismarck. In this work he goes beyond the face value of Bismarck's recorded statements and examines the actions, and subsequently his motives, to find the true character of this monumental figure. He develops the notion of a opportunistic and self-centered Bismarck as opposed to loyal servant of the king whose great foresight brought the unity of Germany.
One major theme of the book is chance. It is argued that it was stoke of luck that allowed Bismarck even enter the field of politics, the bad health of another deputy. Even his great foreign policy was based on providence. Repeatedly Taylor asserts that Bismarck had no plan, rather he would let events unfold and then act from there. Furthermore, when Bismarck intentionally carried a line of policy through it would normally backfire causing him more harm. Taylor remarks, the genius of Bismarck lie not in brilliant initiatives but in being able to recover from past blunders.
Closely related to the theme of chance is the notion that Bismarck had no enduring principles. His own greatness was the only value that he held to as he morphed from reactionary to liberal to conservative. He proudly boasted to the Reichstag "I have no fixed opinions... there are no eternal truths" (138). Beside his own will, the only other exception of complete devotion was his family. However, this might even be challenged. One the boldest claims of the book is that some of Bismarck's landmark achievements, unification and social reform, came as by-products for his bid to stay in power. Explicitly, his main motive for introducing bills was to split the Emperor and Reichstag and thus increase his power; and similarly his main motive for foreign policy was to split the Great Powers to increase Germany and subsequently his power.
In many respects it is a difficult task writing the biography of a man who is a deceptive diplomat. Bismarck's documents and speeches are overflowing with contradictions. It seems that Bismarck's policies stemmed from the hope of a desired outcome instead of personal convictions. Nonetheless, the historian has the difficult task of sifting through the political jargon to find the true motives of this complicated person. Taylor largely discredits Bismarck's talk of humble servitude towards the monarch and instead supports the Bismarck's claim of his own greatness. However, how can one claim certitude with a man who has changed his memoirs repeatedly, had no scruples in contradicting facts, and supported so many opposing principles? This is a contributing fact to the case that this debate will go on. As it does, Taylor's work will do much to help guide those who seek the motives and beliefs or the real Bismarck.
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The book may seem slightly off from his best because it is in feeling and in time like so many of his other novels; however, the story is enough different and these new characters enough in their own worlds that it remains compelling.
Furst captures the horror and wonder of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events, and their reaction to a world truly turned upside down. His attention to detail and history create a spirit of the time that makes it feel like you're there.
Truly another remarkable novel.
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The outstanding features of this book are severalfold. The dialogues are crisp, clean and believable. The characters are quirky but nicely sketched. Furst creates a very believable atmosphere of pre-war Europe. Everyone knows that war is coming, yet people still need to live their lives. Thus there is still a cafe society and the titled ex-pats still throw lavish parties. Meanwhile, poorer immigrants running from tyranny barely scratch out a living. Furst delivers his character to many interesting locations that are not prevelant in American fiction. Morath travels through the countryside of Hungary, Roumania and Czechoslavakia meeting up with Poles, Ukranians, Croats. One minute Morath is eating a grand banqet in an elegant eastern European chateau--the next he finds himself chained in a dank Roumanian prison.
Then there are the intrigues that Morath finds himself immersed in upon the bidding of his uncle. Morath never quite knows what the endgame is. Who is pulling the strings. How do his missions fit in the overall scheme. Therefore, the reader is also left guessing. Other reviewers have sited this as a weakness--I, on the other hand, view this as the great strength of the book. There are semi-powerful factions trying to forestall the inevitable and the puppeteers choose not to disclose to Morath how he fits into the larger puzzle. Ultimately, we all know how things turn out here. Nothing Morath and his uncle accomplish is going to save Europe from the calamity of WWII. Yet Morath and the reader are kept on edge trying to figure out what the heck is going on within his smaller universe. There are no tidy answers, because in real life there seldom are tidy little answers. This probably is not a book for someone who likes mystery and intrigue but needs to have the hero figure out all the puzzles and vanquish the badguys with a spine-tingling final flourish. That cannot happen given the historical backdrop to this book, for we all know that no matter what Morath and Uncle Polanyi are able to accomplish--World War II is going to happen: Paris will be occupied, London will be bombed, millions will die. But that does not mean that their effort is wasted or that the book is not extremely worthwhile. For those who are comfortable with unanswered questions and filling is some of the holes themselves, I highly recommend Kingdom of Shadows.
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Furst should consider writing another book or two with Casson. I love this character. He is a reluctant hero. What I enjoy about Furst's characters are their ambiguity, none of them are moralists.
After the first twenty pages of "World," I was hooked in, but I never felt that way with "Red Gold." I read it through, but never felt the book was fully realized. I agree with a previous reviewer, who said, that Furst was going through the motions. I felt that a bit too. Having said that though, Furst is such a fine writer, that it really is a quibble, overall he's one of the best writing in this genre.
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Casson has several thrilling adventures, amorous and violent. He hides in Paris, afraid of being recognised by old associates, but knows in his heart there is a war to be fought and, though he may be a reluctant warrior, he chooses to fight. Furst's novels all have a connection, the Brasserie Heininger, and it appears again here. So even though I get the feeling there are some missing chapters here, the war will continue in Furst's next novel.
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