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213 of 230 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Tell her, brief is life but love is long" - Tennyson, 16 Jan 2008
RANDOM ACTS OF HEROIC LOVE is a fantastic debut novel by a very talented writer. Scheinmann spent six years writing his debut, and as you read, you can certainly see how it could be viewed as a labour of love. I think this book has been a cathartic experience for Scheinmann, and it just so happens to be a tremendous piece of work.
The book esentially follows two stories - one is of Mortiz Daniecki in 1917. As a survivor of the war, he is captured and put into a POW camp. Yet this is not where his story ends, for what keeps Mortiz fighting to get through the war and back home is the young love he has left behind there, Lotte. Before Moritz heads off to be a soldier, they share a kiss together and it is this kiss that spurs Moritz on; the memory of her sustains him and gives him reason to live. Once he escapes from the camp, Moritz then faces an arduous journey walking his way home, to his love and the life he had before.
The second story is set in 1992 and follows Leo Deakin. At the age of 25, Leo wakes up in hospital having survived a crash whilst travelling in South America. Upon waking, Leo discovers that his girlfriend Eleni did not survive the crash, but he cannot remember anything about it. As he struggles to rebuild his memory of what happened, whilst coming to terms with his loss, you follow him on this journey.
Through these two stories, Scheinmann has managed to explore the many issues of bereavement, love, survival, hope and travelling on physical aswell as philosophical journies in great depth and to great effect. Even if you have never lost a loved one, or been separated from your love, I am sure that you will be able to appreciate and understand the power of the emotions behind this extraordinary novel. What makes it even more so remarkable is that the journey Moritz makes across Russia was actually undertaken by Scheinmann's grandfather. Leo's experience of losing his partner at a young age is also another experience related to Scheinmann, so this knowledge shows just how much of his soul he has exposed within these pages.
I would recommend RANDOM ACTS OF HEROIC LOVE to anyone who believes in the power of love. This is a great book, it shall stay with you long after you have closed the pages.
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81 of 88 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Absorbing Read, 14 Feb 2008
I loved this book from the first page right through to the last. It is essentially two stories in one novel and I was totally hooked from the first page. Each story was thoroughly absorbing and appear to be completely separate from each other (one is set in 1917 the other in 1995, one is a Russian solider and one is an English student) and the ending is absolutely fitting in their conclusion. Brilliantly written - each of the two narrative voices remain seperate throughout the book and each are thoroughly convincing.
If you are a romantic person, or you are looking for some validation of your own love for someone or if you are just a plain old believer in the power of love this is the book for you. It is a love story that isn't a sex story and is passionate without being slushy. I would recommend it to romantics and hard-hearts alike.
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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.' (Shakespeare). 2 beautiful love stories.., 14 Mar 2008
Five stars are not enough! 'Random Acts of Heroic Love', is an incredible debut novel from Danny Scheinmann. A labour of love in itself; in his acknowledgements the author says it took six years and numerous drafts to get it right, but all that painstaking work has paid dividends. It's a wonderfully rich, insightful and wrenchingly emotional novel.
The story begins in 1992 with Leo, a young PhD student, waking up in an Ecuadorian clinic to find that his girlfriend Eleni is dead. Eleni. His soulmate. The other half of his whole. She's been killed in a bus crash they were in - the only victim of the crash. Leo's loss, and his attempt to go on living, picking up the pieces of his previous existence, without Eleni, is just one half of the book. Leo turns to Physics to try and find some answers and interspersed throughout the pages of the novel are facsimile pages from a journal Leo was keeping to help him get through Eleni's death... One of the quotes Leo finds is the one I used for the title of my review.
The other story, which picks up at chapter 3, is every bit as heart-wrenching. It is the story of another young man from Galicia, Moritz Daniecki, caught up in the war on the Russian Front as a soldier from 1914 through to 1917. In 1914 before the outbreak of war, young Moritz meets the love of his life, Lotte, and they declare their love for each other before Moritz goes to war. During the war he suffers unbearable conditions before finally escaping from a prisoner of war camp in Sibera. Moritz tells the story of how he is driven across the Siberian wilderness by his everlasting love for Lotte. It is her memory and the letters that he writes to her that keeps him going on his journey... not knowing what he will find at the end.
The two stories are truly beautiful. Both young men are kept going through each and every day by their memories of love, and the connection between the two is revealed at the end (if you haven't already guessed). Superbly written. The harshness of a Siberian winter and First World War horrors are vividly brough to life by Scheinmann. The book takes you on a non-stop emotional roller coaster and only those with cast-iron feelings will remain unmoved! An exceptional book.
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