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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful
The injustices of this world are always most effectively and poignantly portrayed when done so through the eyes of a young, innocent child. Harper Lee showed us this with 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. And more appropriately in the context of this book, the words of Anne Frank also have enormous resonance for us today. John Boyne clearly understands this, as is evident from this fine book. Those critisizing the book on the grounds of being historically innacurate are, I think, missing the point here. And the point is this: this is a novel - a work of fiction. Works of fiction - particularly those that deal with the largest industrialized form of genocide the world has ever known - are written to… Read more
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful
This is an exceptional piece of writing. The characters are beautifullydrawn and the observations particularly those of children are so sharpthat you get drawn into this yarn from the very first page. McEwan has anenviable gift, too for setting time and place. The reader gets a realsense for the era and this particular social backdrop - that of theEnglish upper class. This aside, the cleverness of the novel lies in its structure which soeffectively demonstrates that its protagonist, Briony does indeed possessthe imagintive, naive and clearly unreliable mind of a young writer -even, in fact, in old age. The sharp contrast between the past grandeur, the war years and thepresent day… Read more
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60 of 61 people found the following review helpful
This account of the author's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war is,as you'd expect, a fairly harrowing one. But what lifts this remarkabletale is the book's humanity and compassion, and the tenderness of itsnarrative. Whether Eric Lomax is re-living his childhood fascination with steamlocomotives and trams, or describing the horrendous, inhuman acts of torture, the prose are consistently imbued with an almost poetic andinnocent sense of wonder. The details, observations and character sketches are authentically andvividly drawn. But it is the final passages of this book which documentthe author's determination to come face to face with one of his torturers,that make this… Read more
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