The Breaking of Eggs [Hardcover]

 

 

Create your own review

The choices people make and their consequences form the bedrock from which is carved this poignant and absorbing novel. Feliks Zhukovski is 61, lives in Paris, having for many years spent his time travelling in the eastern bloc and writing a guide book for those who wished and were allowed to visit there. A staunch left winger in political terms, he believes in the communist ideal and promulgates it within his guide. However, when circumstances force a sale of the rights to his publication,his past unfolds and unravels as he discovers many truths that he believed in both political and personal are hollow and empty. He is forced to confront many people who have shaped wittingly or not his adult life and in doing so his perceptions change.

This journey is both sad and uplifting by turns and proved an outstanding read. This story is fiction, but could so easily be mirrored in the real lives of countless others. I found Jim Powell a fine and distinctive voice, bringing this story to life, and I recommend it very highly indeed.

What is most extraordinary about Jim Powell's novel is not just its ambition, but the modest means through which The Breaking of Eggs covers that vast range of human experience that defines the world we live in today. It's through the simple yet contradictory character of Feliks Zhukovski that Powell finds the perfect perspective to view the modern world, consider how we have arrived there and contemplate where we are likely to go. A 61 year-old man of Polish origin living in Paris in 1991, Feliks has witnessed the seismic changes that have come about after the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the fall of Soviet bloc Communism, but while the world moves on and takes it all in its stride, Feliks finds it much harder to redefine himself and his place within this new world.

Having made a modest living as a travel writer and publisher of a guide to eastern bloc countries, the changes are difficult enough to accept for a man with leftist leanings who was once a member of the Communist party, but with the sudden new interest that there now is in his guides, Feliks also has to consider an offer for them made by an imperialist capitalist business from America. Feliks however takes the opportunity of a meeting to discuss the sale in New York to look for his older half-brother Woodrow, from whom he was separated from during the war. Confronting issues that are antithetical to everything he believes in comes as something of a shock to the system, but the organisation of the trip to America brings to light several revelations about his past that force Feliks, at this late stage in his life, to re-evaluate those former fundamental certainties and ideals that have defined his existence.

Although it deals with coming to terms with the past, in many ways The Breaking of Eggs is more about the world we live in today, taking a look at the bigger picture of the impact of the Second World War and the Cold War, but doing so through small intimate stories of people who lived through the period. Considering the respective positions of life as it is lived in America, in western Europe and in the former Eastern Bloc, each of those personal human experiences is very different, but each of them have come to define who those people are and have consequently shaped the world we see around us today. The novel ambitiously takes in all these perspectives and tries to reconcile them, or at least put them into a context where the distortions of personal experience and blind belief in imperfect ideologies can be reconsidered and put in their rightful place, without diminishing their importance. It may not be possible to build a perfect society without the breaking of some eggs, but it's important that those sacrifices that have been made in flawed attempts are acknowledged and are not allowed to be shamefully hidden away.

It's a consideration of and accommodation with the past that is necessary in order to fully understand who we are now, and where we want to go. The scope of what The Breaking of Eggs covers through the experience and reawakening of Feliks then is vast and incredibly ambitious, but related with the utmost simplicity and delicacy, with genuine consideration for the personal, human experience, it puts into context the extraordinary changes that Europe and we as a people have gone through during and since the war. Through the stories of Feliks, Woody, and of their extended rediscovered family and friends, it's clear that differences remain, but they are not necessarily irreconcilable if we can find a way to live with ourselves and live in the present. It a fine sentiment, and The Breaking of Eggs makes it seem not just idealistic, but essential and possible.

The story of this book is that of an expatriate Pole coming to terms with the end of communism. It plods along at a fairly pedestrian pace, flagging up any plot twists long before they happen, making the life-changing sequence of events that happen to the protagonist after the fall of the Berlin wall seem ridiculous and unlikely.
I found the first three quarters of the book to be a somewhat monochrome look at the protagonist's coming to terms with these changes. The characters lack distinctive voices, the narrator fails to excite, and it all plods along without really exciting the reader. In the final quarter of the book things start to come to life as the human elements collide, creating the kind of crashing, chaotic ground-shifting atmosphere and narrative that the rest of the book aspired to and would have benefited from.
The protagonist's reflections on politics, truth, love and life and how 20th century Europeans developed their perspectives on all of these things move to another level for this final quarter, elevating the book and making the trawl through the previous 200-odd pages worthwhile.
It will be of interest to anyone intrigued by the political upheavals in Europe after World War II and beyond the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in how those who played a part in supporting now-undermined political systems came to terms with their demolition.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 26 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Book
A book that I enjoyed very much. Very well written, couldn't lay it down. The main character goes through an amazing development after having been locked up for many decades... Read more

Published 4 months ago by Hanne

1.0 out of 5 stars Self-indulgent
I was given this book as a present, and all I can say is that I'm glad I didn't spend my own money on this. It was terrible and I couldn't wait to get to the end of it. Read more

Published 5 months ago by happy haggis

5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking of Eggs
Excellent read.
Very informative although the book is fiction.
The book concentrates on the life of the character,Felix a 60+ year old man living in Paris. Read more

Published 9 months ago by suen

4.0 out of 5 stars The Breaking of Eggs
A really good read, which held my interest. It is well-told with many moving moments but also with touches of humour.

Published 9 months ago by lizziebee

4.0 out of 5 stars Me And My Life
I bought this after a TV recommendation. However, what drove my purchase was the fact that it was a first novel by an author of my own age. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Seatinthestalls

1.0 out of 5 stars Subjective, shallow nonsense!
Before reading this confused, meandering novel it would be wise to bear in mind that the author is a staunch Thatcherite who stood as a Tory candidate in the 1980s. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Mark G. Goacher

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific novel, blending international and personal history - outstanding!
I'm still 'digesting' this book. It was such a gripping novel with a unique protagonist in 61 year-old Feliks Zhukovski. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Timothy J. Bazzett

4.0 out of 5 stars Binding the ravelled
An involving character study of Leftist, Feliks Zhukovski.

Having lived a life not-so-splendidly in isolation from both family and any deep emotional attachment,... Read more

Published 17 months ago by B. Yeoh

4.0 out of 5 stars Wobbly plot, but highly readable account of life in the Eastern Bloc
This is a thoroughly enjoyable novel centred around a 61 year old Pole by the name of Feliks Zhukovski who has spent his adult life travelling around the eastern bloc as author of... Read more

Published 19 months ago by M. J. Farncombe

5.0 out of 5 stars Amusing, but makes you think!
This is a beautifully crafted, wonderfully characterised novel, full of wry humour, wit & charm. It did make me think about what happened after the Iron Curtain rusted away, but... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Graeme Stewart

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 26 customer reviews on Amazon.co.uk

Search Listmania!