The Fourth Assassin was a disappointment. It was claustrophobic and depressing without offering anything of real interest. The characters were clusters of stereotypes and flipped from being philosophical to childish. It does the Israeli/Palestinian conflict no justice and deepens the idea that Palestinians are fanatical killers and unreasonable idiots. It presents American society (this takes place in New York during a UN conference) as naive and without troubles, incapable of relating to or understanding others. (This kind of goes with the attitude in The Last Good Man that safe and secure societies have no problems and the people in them never suffer.) The main character was a little interesting, being tired of violence and reactionary blame of others for all problems. He's more interested in caring for his family than trying to convince others of the impossible. The Palestinian police chief was even more intriguing and I found myself wishing occasionally that the book was focused on him. Overall, an outsider's description of a fraught situation brings nothing new to the picture. He basically avoids the common temptation of ascribing all culpability to one side or the other so I'll give him credit for that.
Bombay Ice was a massive, complex, sprawling read. A first novel, it was monumentally pretentious and yet I enjoyed it despite it's many faults. Not everybody will. Some people will find the constant weaving of references to The Tempest into the narrative to be a little too cute and irritating. It also takes time and patience to get through and if you find the pretentiousness annoying, it won't be a rewarding read. It took me quite a while and I had to take breaks from it to read other, more light-hearted books.
Half Scottish, half Indian Rosalind heads back to India in response to her sister's paranoid message that she's being followed by Hijra (a kind of transvestite/transsexual) and lepers and that her husband killed his first wife. When Rosalind arrives, her sister, heavily pregnant, denies everything, saying she was just overly emotional. Rosalind discovers that somebody has been killing Hijra, making it look like suicides and the government is covering it up. This is somehow connected to her brother-in-law. Worried about her sister, she decides to investigate. Meanwhile, she tries to refit herself into the Indian landscape, hoping to reconcile the society she finds with that remembered from childhood. In the process she uncovers conspiracies, cover-ups, and connections. There is quite a bit of violence.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
The Last Good Man by A.J. Kazinsky (Spoilers)
God, where do I begin.
So, the first half of the book is this...
Hi, I'm Tommaso. I'm a decent cop in Venice who's been looking into a case where people all over the world have been dying with strange marks on their backs. The other connection between them is that they were all "good" people. This case has apparently taken over my life. I don't have the support of my boss who is only interested in appearances. Also, my mother is dying. I've been ill and my death has been predicted...from beyond the grave!
Hi, my name is Niels. I'm a decent cop in Copenhagen who ends up getting the warning from Tommaso about the deaths and is told to go warn "good" people. I have a travel phobia and a wife in South Africa. I also have an unsupportive boss more interested in appearances than listening to me. On my rounds of "good" people I meet Hannah, the ex-wife of a mathematician I was sent to warn. I am inexplicably attracted to her which is all right because I just had a fight with my wife. Of course, we won't actually have a sexual affair because considering how I view people who do, that would make me a terrible hypocrite but we will get emotionally involved, kiss several times, and go away together.
So, Tommaso has linked these deaths, where people collapse with marks on their backs to the Jewish belief about how there are 36 good men on Earth who keep the world going. Somebody is murdering them! Somehow, the actual cause of death is undetermined. And it's never explained how he picked up on the connection in the first place.
Also! There's a Yemeni man named Abdul traveling to Denmark via India and Sweden who is a terrorist! The last murder happened in India! Don't worry, he is a completely pointless character. He actually intends to murder a man he holds responsible for his brother's death and is foiled by good cop Niels before the halfway mark. He never appears in the book again.
So the first 250 pages are Niels, and to a lesser extant Tomasso, running around saying, "the 36 good people are being murdered! Are the 36 good people being murdered? Yes, they are! What does that mean? Hell if I know! Who's next? A good person! Is this person a good person? No, he's cheating on his wife. What about him? Nah, his ego is too big. Where can we find good people? Technically the word translates to 'righteous'. Right. Good." (So, remember, if you head an international charity but have a large ego, you aren't a good person. Nor are you allowed human weakness or faults.)
Hannah calls up out of the blue to offer her help trying to solve the pattern of the murders and Niels lugs the case files to her place. Then he leaves them with her and we eventually get several scenes involving the unnecessary but I'm sure very dramatic destruction of other people's maps. She discovers the deaths have all happened on particular parallels at a particular distance interval based on the way the world looked before the continents drifted. And that they all happened seven days apart at sundown. (Which obsessed Tommaso somehow missed.) And that the marks on the backs consist of numbers written in a bunch of different systems. So the last guy in India has a mark that says "34" in Roman, Arabic, cuneiform, Chinese, hieroglyphs, etc.
The next two deaths will happen in Copenhagen National Hospital and the Venice train station. But she doesn't know which will be first. Surprising considering how absolutely exact the pattern has turned out to be. So Niels and Tommaso are perfectly placed to try to prevent the "murderer".
Oh, there was also something at the beginning about near death experiences, but eh.
Now everyone runs around dramatically trying to locate a "good" person at their determined location. GPS devices run out of batteries (in both Copenhagen and Venice!), and people get in their way, and hurumph harumph what do you think you're doing? I've no time to explain! It's important take my word for it boss! No, you're out of line harumph harumph! There's minute attention to time (2:47 p.m. 2:49 p.m. 3:02 p.m.) and trying to determine who's "good" by 30 second meetings. (slapped his wife, being sued by relative of a dead patient from 20 years ago, sleeping with a married man...Oscar Schindler wouldn't be good enough for these people.) Running, running, running, and Tommaso drops dead. (If you didn't see this coming at the beginning of the book, I pity you.)
Niels and Hannah are sad. Not for long because they discover the next mark forming on Niels. (Again, you better have seem that a mile off.) So he leaves Copenhagen with Hannah and they go to a seaside hotel. (The whole "I can't travel away from my city thing" is apparently God's way of ensuring that the Good People are scattered equidistant or something. Screw the places they aren't, I guess.) Hannah is convinced that he can't outrun destiny and a car accident proves her right, sending them both to the intensive care in the National Hospital.
The next part primarily consists of the two of them trying to get to each other while medical personnel keep them sedated. Hannah died for nine minutes and manages to prove the existence of life after death. Niels manages quite a bit of activity for a man badly injured by a speeding car and finds out about another man in 1943 who had the same mark he now has. That man lived and he needs to find out how. (Niels is scheduled to die at sundown on Christmas. Just a few more hours! Nice that this mystical schedule is on a seven day week. Oh, we're also pretending there's still a killer out there.)
Both Niels and Hannah realize he has to do something bad to disqualify himself from the count. (This might also be needed to save the world, I'm not sure.) So he has to make a sacrifice to show he believes in a higher power. (There are references to Abraham and Isaac scattered throughout the book.) Apparently the sacrifice has to be evil? So Hannah tries to convince him to shoot her and he won't but he does and surprise! She's previously unloaded the gun. So there was no real sacrifice and everyone's fine! Except the 35 other people who died painful deaths. And a baby is born sundown on Christmas day. A new good person has been born for a cliched passing of the torch. And now Niels is capable of traveling. Huzzah!
Niels is pretty dismissive of the people around him. According to his way of thinking, if you aren't constantly surrounded by poverty, death, and violence, you are living a superficial life in a fantasy land. (That last phrase is his.) Third world countries trying to create a safe and secure environment for their citizens should know that what they have is real! Don't try to emulate the West! Nobody there understands what life really is! Real life apparently consists of rapes every 30 seconds, no clean drinking water, dangerous slums, and a failed justice system. Take pride in your fear and insecurity; you know what it is like to live!
As everyone knows, once you have attained a society where people can live in relative safety and plenty, all bad things stop and no one ever suffers. Or at least not as badly as someone from South Africa (the country mentioned in the book). So if someone gets brutally raped in Denmark or France, it doesn't count, I guess.
So, the first half of the book is this...
Hi, I'm Tommaso. I'm a decent cop in Venice who's been looking into a case where people all over the world have been dying with strange marks on their backs. The other connection between them is that they were all "good" people. This case has apparently taken over my life. I don't have the support of my boss who is only interested in appearances. Also, my mother is dying. I've been ill and my death has been predicted...from beyond the grave!
Hi, my name is Niels. I'm a decent cop in Copenhagen who ends up getting the warning from Tommaso about the deaths and is told to go warn "good" people. I have a travel phobia and a wife in South Africa. I also have an unsupportive boss more interested in appearances than listening to me. On my rounds of "good" people I meet Hannah, the ex-wife of a mathematician I was sent to warn. I am inexplicably attracted to her which is all right because I just had a fight with my wife. Of course, we won't actually have a sexual affair because considering how I view people who do, that would make me a terrible hypocrite but we will get emotionally involved, kiss several times, and go away together.
So, Tommaso has linked these deaths, where people collapse with marks on their backs to the Jewish belief about how there are 36 good men on Earth who keep the world going. Somebody is murdering them! Somehow, the actual cause of death is undetermined. And it's never explained how he picked up on the connection in the first place.
Also! There's a Yemeni man named Abdul traveling to Denmark via India and Sweden who is a terrorist! The last murder happened in India! Don't worry, he is a completely pointless character. He actually intends to murder a man he holds responsible for his brother's death and is foiled by good cop Niels before the halfway mark. He never appears in the book again.
So the first 250 pages are Niels, and to a lesser extant Tomasso, running around saying, "the 36 good people are being murdered! Are the 36 good people being murdered? Yes, they are! What does that mean? Hell if I know! Who's next? A good person! Is this person a good person? No, he's cheating on his wife. What about him? Nah, his ego is too big. Where can we find good people? Technically the word translates to 'righteous'. Right. Good." (So, remember, if you head an international charity but have a large ego, you aren't a good person. Nor are you allowed human weakness or faults.)
Hannah calls up out of the blue to offer her help trying to solve the pattern of the murders and Niels lugs the case files to her place. Then he leaves them with her and we eventually get several scenes involving the unnecessary but I'm sure very dramatic destruction of other people's maps. She discovers the deaths have all happened on particular parallels at a particular distance interval based on the way the world looked before the continents drifted. And that they all happened seven days apart at sundown. (Which obsessed Tommaso somehow missed.) And that the marks on the backs consist of numbers written in a bunch of different systems. So the last guy in India has a mark that says "34" in Roman, Arabic, cuneiform, Chinese, hieroglyphs, etc.
The next two deaths will happen in Copenhagen National Hospital and the Venice train station. But she doesn't know which will be first. Surprising considering how absolutely exact the pattern has turned out to be. So Niels and Tommaso are perfectly placed to try to prevent the "murderer".
Oh, there was also something at the beginning about near death experiences, but eh.
Now everyone runs around dramatically trying to locate a "good" person at their determined location. GPS devices run out of batteries (in both Copenhagen and Venice!), and people get in their way, and hurumph harumph what do you think you're doing? I've no time to explain! It's important take my word for it boss! No, you're out of line harumph harumph! There's minute attention to time (2:47 p.m. 2:49 p.m. 3:02 p.m.) and trying to determine who's "good" by 30 second meetings. (slapped his wife, being sued by relative of a dead patient from 20 years ago, sleeping with a married man...Oscar Schindler wouldn't be good enough for these people.) Running, running, running, and Tommaso drops dead. (If you didn't see this coming at the beginning of the book, I pity you.)
Niels and Hannah are sad. Not for long because they discover the next mark forming on Niels. (Again, you better have seem that a mile off.) So he leaves Copenhagen with Hannah and they go to a seaside hotel. (The whole "I can't travel away from my city thing" is apparently God's way of ensuring that the Good People are scattered equidistant or something. Screw the places they aren't, I guess.) Hannah is convinced that he can't outrun destiny and a car accident proves her right, sending them both to the intensive care in the National Hospital.
The next part primarily consists of the two of them trying to get to each other while medical personnel keep them sedated. Hannah died for nine minutes and manages to prove the existence of life after death. Niels manages quite a bit of activity for a man badly injured by a speeding car and finds out about another man in 1943 who had the same mark he now has. That man lived and he needs to find out how. (Niels is scheduled to die at sundown on Christmas. Just a few more hours! Nice that this mystical schedule is on a seven day week. Oh, we're also pretending there's still a killer out there.)
Both Niels and Hannah realize he has to do something bad to disqualify himself from the count. (This might also be needed to save the world, I'm not sure.) So he has to make a sacrifice to show he believes in a higher power. (There are references to Abraham and Isaac scattered throughout the book.) Apparently the sacrifice has to be evil? So Hannah tries to convince him to shoot her and he won't but he does and surprise! She's previously unloaded the gun. So there was no real sacrifice and everyone's fine! Except the 35 other people who died painful deaths. And a baby is born sundown on Christmas day. A new good person has been born for a cliched passing of the torch. And now Niels is capable of traveling. Huzzah!
Niels is pretty dismissive of the people around him. According to his way of thinking, if you aren't constantly surrounded by poverty, death, and violence, you are living a superficial life in a fantasy land. (That last phrase is his.) Third world countries trying to create a safe and secure environment for their citizens should know that what they have is real! Don't try to emulate the West! Nobody there understands what life really is! Real life apparently consists of rapes every 30 seconds, no clean drinking water, dangerous slums, and a failed justice system. Take pride in your fear and insecurity; you know what it is like to live!
As everyone knows, once you have attained a society where people can live in relative safety and plenty, all bad things stop and no one ever suffers. Or at least not as badly as someone from South Africa (the country mentioned in the book). So if someone gets brutally raped in Denmark or France, it doesn't count, I guess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)