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The Visible World (Paperback)

by Mark Slouka (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Portobello Books Ltd; New edition edition (1 Jan 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0552083054
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846270864
  • ASIN: 1846270863
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 76,329 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
More innovative fiction from the critically esteemed Slouka (God's Fool, 2002, etc.): a subtle, nimble novel that's part fictional memoir, part literary thriller/romance.The American child of Czech-born Anton'n and Ivana, our unnamed narrator grows up amid affection but also enduring mystery. He eavesdrops on his parents' get-togethers with fellow emigres, revels in their folktales and anecdotes of Czechoslovakia, but increasingly wonders about the nagging lacunae. Most of all, he's vexed by his mother's implacable sadness and intrigued by Anton'n's quiet acceptance of it. Ivana eventually commits suicide, and her 37-year-old son goes to Czechoslovakia, armed with clues, artifacts and snippets he hopes will help him make sense of himself by making sense of his parents. Here the text takes an odd, delightful turn. Balked in his effort to unearth facts, the narrator turns to fiction. In the book's second half, he invents a love triangle involving his parents and a member of the Czech Resistance. Tomas was, in this imagining, one of the partisans who in 1942 assassinated notorious Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotektor of Czechoslovakia, and then hid in a catacomb, waiting for an opportunity to escape while the Nazis massacred their countrymen in reprisal. Marred only slightly by the romance's hokey, fairytale quality, this love song to the narrator's parents is deftly structured, lyrical and earnest.An eloquent testament to the power of storytelling. (Kirkus Reviews)

Sunday Times
`A haunting and cleverly constructed narrative'

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews
5 star:
 (13)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (9)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars elegiac, restrained and resonant, 13 April 2008
By Roman Clodia (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This book has had quite mixed reviews that fall into the either very high or very low and I think that's an accurate estimate of how any individual reader will respond. I have to say that I think it's an odd choice for R&J because they tend to choose the obvious 'good reads' that are fairly superficial and, in my opinion, instantly forgettable. This, however, is neither.

As another reviwer here has said, the wartime love story genre usually tends to be full of over-ripe emotions, and (soap) operatic story-lines - this isn't. It's an immensely subtle, elegiac and emotionally-restrained tale of a man's search for a past.

In three parts, the first part is a memoir of an unnamed narrator growing up with Czech emigrant parents in New York. This is both charming and dark with shadows that will stretch into the future.
The second part is a brief intermezzo which takes him to Prague as an adult where he meets various veterans of the war who tell a variety of stories that intersect with, but are not, the story of his parents.
The third part, called a novel, is the narrator's fictional imaginging of what might have been his mother's story and her love for a man who wasn't his father, set in the tense years of 1942.

For a relatively short book (250 pages) this touches all kinds of important themes: the fragility of identity, the extent to which we ever 'know' anyone, even the people closest to us, memory and the fictionalision of our own lives, love, idealism, death.

It's not a strightforward linear narrative which might be one the things that some readers have found problematic, but that is itself one of the themes of the book: the way the past and present are mosaics that shift to tell different stories depending on our own perspective.

Overall I found this is moving book written in confident sometimes poetic but always unpretentious prose that is all the more moving for its very emotional restraint. I started it yesterday afternoon and finished it by midnight. A strong recommendation.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars great read and a stunning, rememorable love story, 7 Mar 2008
Thank goodness for Richard and Judy, I read but I would never have picked up this book if not for them.
Yes, the first half is a little slow but do stick with it, the love story that is the second half is amazing. I read other reviews and was slightly put off by comments on the beautiful prose and great writing, books like this I tend to find hard going and too wordy. This is not one of them. For anyone who has loved and lost or been in a one-sided relationship, read this. Also, the writing describes so well, you can imagine being there, you can see the places visited so clearly in your head that they exist and you feel the pain/love/loss so well that you feel empty when you finish.
Great.
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59 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to love this book, but it left me wanting, 10 Feb 2008
By Brida "izumi" (Worcs) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
I came to this book through the Richard & Judy bookclub. Admittedly, it is probably a book I never would have picked up to read otherwise, had it not on their list. But, as I read other reviews for it on Amazon before turning to it, I became quite eager to begin its journey. The positive feedback suggested that it was an engrossing love story, set against the turmoil of war. On the back cover, a couple of sentences from the novel itself also piqued my interest:-
"My mother knew a man during the war. Theirs was a love story, and like any good love story, it left blood on the floor and wreckage in its wake."

However, upon beginning THE VISIBLE WORLD, I slowly began to lose interest.

The book begins with the narrator discussing his early life. His family are Czech, and his homeland seems vague and distant to him - just as the past can so often be. His memory is fragmentary, but there is one issue that seems to hold everything together - that his mother loved another man before she married his father. As you read the first part of the book, you get the sense that he is desperately trying to undertsand his family's history; not just their personal history but also their history in terms of race and culture, and the effects that the war had on them. The second part of the book is the love story - the stroy about his mother and the man that she loved.

Writing this review now, I am quite torn between wanting to express how poignant this book can be and between a sense of disappontment. What I loved about it was how Slouka was able to explore the idea of family members being strangers to those they live with - how circumstances like a World War can make people do extraordinary things; for themselves and their country.
My disappointment comes from my expectations not being met. I think the first part of the book failed to keep my interest enough for me to really care about the love story part. THE VISIBLE WORLD is a slow developer, so
I cannot truly say that it gripped without letting go.
Perhaps my expectations were too high and I was bound to be disappointed. Maybe Slouka's writing style simply does not work for me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A boring read.
I really wanted this to be a good book and Mark Slouka has obviously got a talent for writing BUT I just couldn't get into the characters or the settings. Read more
Published 20 days ago by DS

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful writing skills
Let's just say that I was very tempted to give this book four stars for the amazing writing of the author. Read more
Published 20 days ago by Rocknrollmommy

5.0 out of 5 stars Visible World - a masterly evocation
There are those who say 'good books' must be difficult to read. In general I don't agree with that, but in this case, this book is both good, in several senses, and difficult to... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Kay Sexton

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should read thisbook...
Remarkable and, at times, quite beautiful prose, raise this book to a literary level beyond just another war story. Read more
Published 6 months ago by B. Richmond-O'Neill

3.0 out of 5 stars Dreamy tragic love tale
I found The Visible World to be an entracing and tragic tale of lost love, war and its aftermath. The author grows up in a loving household but is aware of some sadness and... Read more
Published 7 months ago by J. Cronin

3.0 out of 5 stars Slow
I found this book very hard going. Not one of my best reads. The story of a man who returns to his parents Czech homeland. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Carol

4.0 out of 5 stars Memories from Another World
The story itself is not remarkable, although it is intriguing. A young man's childhood memories as he tries to piece together the story of his parents' past. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Lotus Eater

4.0 out of 5 stars vivid memories of second generations
This book is not for readers who expect a straight narrative, but for everyone who enjoys an emotive and beautiful writing. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Blanche du Bois

5.0 out of 5 stars Unmissable
I simply cannot understand the negative reviews here, unless they have been written by youngsters who are not yet sophisticated enough to appreciate it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by E. S. Williams

3.0 out of 5 stars Moments of beauty
A man looks back at the lives of his parents and the events in the second world war that brought them together. Read more
Published 13 months ago by DDH255

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