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FURST AND FOREMOST

Today's NYTimes on line summary features a review of Alan Furst's new book.

I cannot read the review because I have already ordered it.

Espionage and Dread, With War Offstage

I never read a review of a book that I intend to buy.

This makes it a bit hard going through the NYTimes Book Review which we still get hard copied every week.

What I do is scan. If it looks like a winner I stop dead and look at the last few paragraphs to get the overall judgement. Usually the first two or three are safe as well.

Back to Furst.

I have been reading him since I found his last book, The Foreign Correspondent.

I have now read all of his 9 novels.

I am reading them all again. 6 rereads so far.

Furst specializes in the period 1937 to 1942. The beginning of WWII in Europe.

All of his characters are 'normal' people caught up in abnormal situations caused by war. Some of the principals in one book will wander through the pages of another. Two novels have the same protagonist and can be read in order. Or not.

It is easy to identify with his characters. They must deal with new and mostly lethal entanglements, almost always involuntarily, ending up in the underground movements in the various countries.

I can feel my way through the possibility that I could be in and handle the situation.

This is not genré writing. It is literary fiction. The color is incredibly detailed and the atmosphere is totally created.

I am so happy to see him getting this recognition and I can hardly wait to get my copy of his new book which is due any minute.

Labels: book