Teo Degas' Books & Decks

I got this book from my public library, and I was in love with it from the first pages. I read it about 5 years ago, and I still remember it, something I can rarely say of most books I read.

The book tells two parallel stories. One is the story of a writer who is engaged in a research project for his next novel, which is based on a real story that appeared in the news in the early 1920s. The second one is the story of the character the writer is researching. The chapters alternate, one corresponding to each character.

The historical part was by far my favourite for many reasons. The story is not only more engaging for the reader, is is better rounded regarding mood, character construction, action and narrative. I was entranced by this part, and I found it fantastic, so much so that I did not want this part to end! However, the modern part is also interesting but the mood and writing is not as bold, to me.

The book deals with many interesting issues: xenophobia, poverty, human nature, personal story and context, writing as as a way of living and as a cathartic exercise, among many others.

I am not a Jew, so the book made me reflect and feel in my heart the suffering of generations of human beings (in this case Jews) who lived the most brutal pogroms in Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th, generations of people who never experienced peace, respect or a decent life.

Having said that, the book does not seek the sympathy of the reader, it calls your attention on the fact that your personal story and the historical circumstances in which you leave affect the first deeply, so much so that it takes an act of conscious willingness to be just you, and how important is having the possibility of facing life, not life facing you, if that can be said.

Despite Hemon being a Bosnian his English in fabulous: incredibly rich, elegant and precise.