No, I mean really, it does. I kep reading a bit until I feel the bile rising and then I put it down and leave it for a day until I have the stomach to try again. Then why bother, I hear you ask, but the problem is that it is a vey good, well-written book, it's just, well, oh hell, I had better explain.
The book is Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith and everybody and their uncles have praised it up hill and down dale - but it still makes me sick. What Mr. Smith is doing so brilliantly is exactly what Alan Furst has done so brilliantly with central Europe in the late '30s early '40s. He, you may already know if you pay attention to my recommendations - er, you do, don't you? - evokes that period so vividly that you can almost smell the Gaulloises cigarettes and the ersatz coffee. Smith does the same thing with Stalinist Russia but with him you can only smell the sheer, rank fear that oozes out of everyone with their sweat. From my little knowledge of that period I suspect that he has it exactly right. The violence is casual, unthinking and driven entirely by a mix of ideology and orders. There are no exceptions - men, women, children, the sick, the lame and the halt, all are despatched frequently for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I jest occasionally at the body count in some of the 'pulp fiction' to which I am addicted but somehow it is never real. Jack Reacher takes down six men singlehanded and it leaves you chuckling but the characters in Mr. Smith's book put a bullet in the head of a kneeling child without compunction - and that is all too real. It has taken me a week to just reach halfway. I suppose I must finish but, oh God, I'm not looking forward to it.
I understand completely and so I won't trouble myself to read this book. Sounds quite upsetting.
I think I'll just stick to my man Reacher. Singlehanded he can save the world.
And I still don't believe Tom Cruise is, or will ever be, Reacher. So there's another movie I won't be seeing.
Watch "A Night at the Opera" instead. Or "Arsenic and Old Lace." That'll cheer you up.
Posted by: Andra | Friday, 06 July 2012 at 21:03
Trouble is, Andra, it is a very good story told superbly - and I bought another of his at the same time and God knows what that's going to be like!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 06 July 2012 at 21:31
I read "Child 44", but the next "Kolyma" kind of went off the rails half way through. Never have read it to the end.
Aye, I am a big Lee Child fan as well. :-)
Posted by: Furor Teutonicus | Saturday, 07 July 2012 at 20:07
Well then, FT, can you see titchy Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher?
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 08 July 2012 at 09:26
We can all see him - here:
http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/jack-reacher/trailer
It looks like an entertaining film, but it sure ain't no Jack Reacher movie...
Posted by: JuliaM | Sunday, 08 July 2012 at 20:22
Oh dear! Despite the low-angle shot to try and make him look taller he still looks like a midget.
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 08 July 2012 at 20:32