The Lazarus Project [Kindle Edition]

This is a really fascinating book. Like other good writers whose first language is not English (eg Nabokov, Conrad) Hemon brings to his work a freshness and vitality. His lead character's confusion between "sadness" and "sardines" is a particularly nice example. The chapters alternate between the 1900s and present day in Chicago. The earlier part of the book tells the story of a young Jewish (possible) Anarchist (Lazarus Averbuch) and his murder by the Chief of Police. Much of this strikes chords with today's situation - fear of terrorists, immigrants, police cover-ups, political bias of the press. This is based on actual events - although many of the facts remain uncertain.

The other part is the story of a would-be writer Brik who is planning a book on Lazarus and sets off on a journey to Europe to find out about his origins. But he himself has his own memories of the war following the break-up of Yugoslavia so he decides to include a visit to his home country. He is accompanied by a photographer friend whose own actions in the past do not bear too much scrutiny. Sometimes the story of Lazarus leeches into the modern day chapters. When this occurred I took it to mean that these parts were being imagined by Brik whereas the 1908 chapters were what actually happened.

The ending was somewhat ambivalent - but then life is often like that and some things do not end neatly. I am not sure about the photographs. The old ones from the Chicago archives were interesting but the modern ones were so poorly reproduced that I didn't know their purpose.

Giving this novel five stars may seem a little over the top because nothing is perfect but it's the most outstanding novel I have read for some time; and what's more a novel I might easily have missed.

Others have pointed out the multiple echoes and cross-currents between the two narrative strands and this is what I found the most fascinating aspect. The structure is seamless and the narrative compelling. Brik, the protagonist, is a kind of no-man in no-man's land, with no religion or allegiance. He is a kind of sponge. The more he sees and hears of cruelty and randomness the more he absorbs it until he ends up beating up a man and feels no regret. When his travelling companion, Rora, is brutally murdered, he believes it's a revenge killing. Rora's sister has other ideas. Her take on Rora's life is nothing like Brik's.

One of the many themes explored by this novel is the nature of truth and whether it matters. Perhaps the stories we make up are more true to us. Brik sets out to discover why Lazarus was murdered and why he was visiting the chief of police's house. He doesn't find any answers. Maybe it was a random case of being the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong or perhaps he was an anarchist. But what was an anarchist? For anarchist in 1908, read terrorist in 2009. The `war on terror' is no more intelligently thought-out than the fear of, and the hunt for, anarchists in Chicago in 1908.

Some of the reviewers here have complained that there's too much about the modern story and not enough about Lazarus. But isn't that the whole point? Brik has set out to discover truths about Lazarus he hasn't a hope of discovering. He doesn't even know the truth about himself. Reviewers here have also complained that Brik is not a nice person. He's not meant to be. He's a cork bobbing on the surface of a tide of humanity. And I believe in his marriage, although it is clear at the end of the novel that it is over and that he will settle in Sarajevo. Or maybe not. I think Hemon sees Brik as the dark and unattractive side of himself; a drifter, a depressive, a non-achiever and a leech.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone could find this novel boring. Despite its philosophical meanderings about displacement and belonging, it is very very funny. The situations Brik finds himself in, the amount of coffee he finds himself drinking and the motley crew of people he meets are all a mixture of despair and comedy. Hemon takes great delight in playing with the English language in the way only a non-native speaker can do. (I loved the bit where he describes thinking he could see a tin of `sadness' in the kitchen when it was in fact a tin of sardines. The Ford `Feces' he is driven in is another linguistic joke I enjoyed. (He does a lot of fun-poking at cars.)

This is a novel worthy of several re-reads. I could write an essay on it, but won't, you'll be pleased to hear! And to me, the photographs work well. The fact that they are grainy and hard to distinguish and that the new ones blend in with those from the archives is deliberate. It all adds to the sense of displacement and disassociation. Believe in nothing and expect nothing is the overall message. But even so, this is not a depressing read. The indomitability of the human spirit shines through.

Aleksander Hemon has constructed a novel of many levels. While on the surface it deals with a writer disillusioned with life in America, with all its inferences of distrust of foreigners, it digs deeper to see if that distrust is misplaced. After all America is the great immigrant state. Everyone, with the exception of the indigenous people is am immigrant at some level of their history. Drawing heavily on an actual shooting in 1908, the story revolves around Bric, a writer of Bosnian Serb descent and his journey to make sense of his own life. Using the historical background as a parallel with current anti-Islamic feeling in the US Hemon not unskillfully paints a picture of nations, including Ukraine and former Soviet Bloc countries with a rabid and unholy fear of things they don't or won't understand. A powerful book, only a slight lack of direction towards the end stops me from giving it 5 out of 5.