In the early seventies, a group of young dissidents in Budapest signal their break with the system by forming the Gabriel Club. 17 years later, they are reunited when a disturbingly lifelike effigy of their founding member is discovered floating in the Danube.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Ilona David
Format:Paperback
I thought this book was very interesting. What was most important to me was that it didn't patronize the reader. Most writers from the West who write about Eastern Europe and especially about Soviet-era Eastern Europe do so badly and they are patronizing (for instance, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections). It's not just about getting facts wrong, it's about an attitude of superiority and superficiality which is immediately apparent to anyone who's actually from the region. I liked this book because it didn't do that. It got the details right, and it empathized with the plight of the ordinary person, especially the ordinary young person, who doesn't always have the resources to be heroic in the Western manner. I'm not defending passivity. I'm simply pointing out that not everyone could be a political dissident in the commonly understood sense of the term. People had families, they had responsibilties to parents and children, they had to get on with their lives the best they could and that often forced them to make their peace with the authorities whose values they despised. Sometimes they even succumbed to the kind of propaganda who's value is not unknown in the West. Not everyone can be strong, even if they are educated, and not everyone can see through the lies on radio or television and take a stand. Pit an individual against a regime and you will only get one outspoken Sakharov and one outspoken Havel, but they are the moral leaders, and there are many others "under the ground" who are equally important for the cause of freedom for the simple fact that they don't give up living their ordinary lives, they don't kill themselves in despair, they don't emigrate, they simply go on and hope for a better day when the regime will be gone, like all regimes.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This really is a technical masterpiece, an English teacher's delight. Its a satisfying and unusual read on many levels: its location, its narrative and the clever way in which the author uses gender, tenses, time and distance. It is indeed a difficult book; I'd compare it to starting your skiing career on the intermediate slopes, or jumping into a pool at the deep end, but once youre in and swimming, its great! Its been close to a year since I read this and its still fresh as a daisy in my memory. I strongly recommend it!!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book creates atmosphere impressively, but has its shortcomings. A rear-cover comment calls it "unabashedly literary"; I would say it is perhaps "deliberately and pretentiously literary".
Loaded with quotations and references to classic idealistic literature and art, and overstuffed with long, convoluted passages of abstruse dialogue, this book's nice, twisty plot takes a long time to develop and is often ambiguous. The ambiguity is sometimes obviously deliberate, sometimes not.
On the good side, the author has very effectively fragmented the plot, hopping back and forth between one character and another, the past and the present, reality and dreams. And the surreal atmosphere is very effective.
This is not an easy or simple read. But all in all, after its ambiguous ending, I found myself wondering if it was worth it.
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3.7 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Devastatingly Good!
In this mesmerizing, ferociously atmospheric first novel, the setting is Budapest, the subject a group of implacable young men and women whose moral integrity is out of keeping... Read more
Published on 8 Dec 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
Impressive
There's an honesty about this book that is deeply impressive. The writer has made no attempt to hide the warts and flaws of those who believed in the communist ideology and made... Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2004 by Peter Cayster
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Romantic Manifesto?
A superb work, intensely impressionistic, in parts almost like a romantic manifesto. I've lived in Budapest, and my thoughts on the post-communist situation correspond to the ones... Read more
Published on 3 July 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tragic but True
This amazing novel is a tragic masterpiece. I am from Poland and well aware that the situation differed in other parts of Eastern Europe such as Hungary where the Gabriel Club... Read more
Published on 20 April 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring
I liked the book. I thought it was well-written and brought a unique time in history vividly to life. Read more
Published on 16 April 2001
1.0 out of 5 stars
Vagueness
This book is pretentious, long-winded, and unconvincing. There are parts that are good, but what's the point? Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Admirable Book
Thanks to the Hungarian friend who recommended this book to me at last year's fantastic Krakow Poetry Festival. Read more
Published on 26 Jan 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishing!
Unapologetically series, unabashedly passionate, unashamedly erudite, this intensely driven novel is by far one of the best books I've read in years! Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Psychology and the book
This challenging novel combines Jungian psychology and surrealisme to use the dream as the gateway between the conscious and the unconscious. Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intense
This book is serious, intense, deep and dark. I found it quite disturbing at times and hard to read, but yet I couldn't put it down. Read more
Published on 27 July 2000 by Simon C McCrum
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