322-1

Not for the faint of heart. ( )

Recommended

I really can’t decide if I thought this was good or not, although it’s certainly not hard to see why it made an impact when it was published in 1965.
On the plus side it’s vivid, compelling and readable. Negatives are that it’s one of those books that feels like it thinks it’s really important. I’m not sure it is, especially given the fact that having originally claimed it was autobiographical, author Jerzy Kosinski later admitted he largely made it up.
For Kozinski’s sake I’m glad, because the book is really fucking horrible. It tells the story of a young boy making his way across war torn Europe in the 1940s and it doesn’t pull a single punch. That mix of self-importance, rambling episodic plot and extreme violence makes it feel a bit like Paulo Coehlo’s ‘The Alchemist’ with added eye gouging. ( )

Una de las novelas más conmovedoras y terribles que se hayan escrito sobre la barbarie vivida en Europa oriental durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial.