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The Speed of Light
 
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The Speed of Light (Paperback)

by Javier Cercas (Author), Anne McLean (Translator)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £4.98 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this book with The Tenant and The Motive by Javier Cercas

The Speed of Light + The Tenant and The Motive
Price For Both: £12.97

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (6 Aug 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747585911
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747585916
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 310,519 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

'Cercas's writing has echoes of Scott Fitzgerald in the intense, shining clarity of its emotion, and of Faulkner' Independent 'A deeply affecting novel. A reflection on war, friendship, success and failure Cercas's novel carries a powerful warning for the war-hungry modern world' Scotland on Sunday 'Presents his narrator's foibles in a lucid, supple prose, well-matched to the novel's darker elements' Financial Times 'Engrossing it has verve and flair' Time Out


Scotland on Sunday

`A deeply affecting novel. A reflection on war, friendship,
success and failure ... Cercas's novel carries a powerful warning for the
war-hungry modern world'
See all Product Description

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The Speed of Light
60% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:    (0)
3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant novel, 23 Aug 2007
By J. H. Bretts "jerard1" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This was a terrific read - a gripping narrative full of surprises, with an intriguing mystery at its heart. It also manages to be about so many different things - the damage that war does, the power of evil, the nature of friendship, failure and success, the role of the writer - and yet tackles them all effortlessly. Cercas has a distinctive literary style too.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful exploration of friendship, 24 Jul 2009
By Feanor (London, UK) - See all my reviews
The Speed of Light is not really a crime novel, although there is crime in it. It is a rumination on the effects of war and war-crimes on a thoughtful intellectual. Its foundation is a horrific assault on women and children in a Vietnamese village by American special forces during the US campaign in Indo-China. The narrator is a Spaniard visiting as a research fellow at Urbana-Champaign, a young man who still has supreme confidence of his own literary ability, which is simultaneously undermined and energised by his encounter and subsequent friendship with a veteran of that same massacre (as he later finds out). Much of the book deals with literary criticism and the shadow of experience on writing; it also details in tawdry detail the fall from grace that inevitably follows success; the nature of friendship is examined in subtle detail. This is a densely written book with much superfluous detail and cascading clauses, and it careens from philosophy to conspiracy theory and back in staccato bursts. But the denouement once again disappoints - it is stereotyped and weak - involving deaths of loved ones as metaphor, and the ensuing search for redemption.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, 18 Dec 2007
By Paul Gilson "pg" (Japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
What a fantastic book. By far the best thing I've read in a long time: gripping, thought-provoking, sensitive, multifaceted. Totally masterful. Makes me wish I could read it in the original Spanish, but even so...
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