Quote:
Originally Posted by endobenthic
Afternoon:
For those who have read The Cellist of Sarajevo , is it a dark and disturbing book or more of a "hopeful light in the darkness" kind of story?
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Depends on what you mean by "dark and disturbing." More than graphically portraying brutal violence, it depicts the grinding down of a populace astounded that civilization has failed them. People nevertheless try to survive and even look out for others, but these individual acts are very ephemeral and have no effect on the forces driving the outcome.
The Canadian author clearly did his research, but it still felt to me like someone at a remove putting the characters through their paces to create his written sonata. So it's purportedly on their behalf, insofar as it's an indictment of what happened to a city that had attained a multiethnic existence, but it feels exploitative to me that he's achieving such renown as an author for usurping someone else's tragedy.