| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
`very atmospheric' --Historical Novels Review
Review
‘This is a double headed story that is both sad and compelling.’ - Time Out, Nina Caplan:
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Child 44 this ain't!,
By
This review is from: The Innocent (Paperback)
I bought this book off the back of a good review in The Observer, having just read and enjoyed Child 44. Although both paint a fascinating picture of the Soviet era, they are both very different novels. Child 44 is a good solid twisty-turny thriller. The Innocent is a beautifully constructed yet simple tale of how an extraordinary environment affects the lives of ordinary people doing ordinary things with extraordinary consequences. Some of the observations in the narrative are so perceptive I found myself, on several occasions, stopping and pondering what I'd read. In effect it is book about your life, my life, and the life of the people next door, but set in a real world backdrop so unreal we could never imagine living in it. Highly recommended.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Profound book,
By
This review is from: The Innocent (Paperback)
Although a comparatively short book this is moving and profound. Clearly a great deal of research lies behind the book but it is not in any sense didactic. Rather it is a thoroughly engaging reflection on the moral compromises and costs of collaborating with powerful authorities. Although the book is set in Stalinist Russia is not peculiar to that era but has a more general relevance to any forms of authority whether large business corporations or state secret police. That said it is does convey the arbitrariness of power and decision-making in state centralist societies in oblique and often seemingly tangential episodes. The multiple time frames are handled very adroitly so that overall this amounts to the work of an extremely accomplished writer whose future work will be eagerly awaited.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anyone can be guilty of something,
By
This review is from: The Innocent (Paperback)
This short novel was called a thriller by Metro, but I can't imagine why. But it is a thought-provoking book. If it convinces you of anything it is how arbitrarily power was excercised for unexplained reasons. In an intensely politicised society individuals are in constant uncertainty about how a superior layer of the Stalinist hierarchy might apply "historical materialism" to interpret any aspect of their lives, even when there seems to be little point in doing so other than to maintain that perpetual sense of uncertainty.
The book illustrates so well the resignation of everyone to their circumstances, whether they be arrest, exile, depressing environmental or housing conditions, and the sense of personal directionlessness and joylessness. Everyone is innocent but can so easily be guilty of something.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
