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Review
`This is an exciting and memorable read. The theme of silent, regret-filled horror is beautifully, chillingly captured.'
--Observer
`impressive' --Sunday Times
`Still in his mid-thirties, Szalay will surely soon be adding more prizes to his Betty Trask.'
--Sunday Times
--Observer
`impressive' --Sunday Times
`Still in his mid-thirties, Szalay will surely soon be adding more prizes to his Betty Trask.'
--Sunday Times
Book Description
David Szalay, winner of the Betty Trask Prize 2008, returns with a searing and gripping thriller set in Communist Russia - the breathtaking next stage of a major literary career.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format: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
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
Format: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.
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.
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