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Pholon’s Book Reviews - #2
John Boyne – The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
I knew beforehand that Boyne’s Boy would be about the Second World War, but reading through the first pages it doesn’t feel like a post-war novel - radiating with the veteran severity of Hemmingway and Greene or the shellshocked insanity of Vonnegut and Heller. Indeed, Boyle turns out to be a 40-some year old Irishman who never knew the dreads of the holocaust. He assumes a first-person view of 9 year old Bruno, a perspective that isn’t always convincing in my opinion. The book reads like a 14 year old wrote it and isn’t particularly well-written, displaying no qualities but simplicity.
Then why is it a best seller? Why a direct port to the big screen? I suspect the ending contributed a lot to the overall image of the book. It’s shocking and written in the same off-hand way, adding to the PBFesque cruelty. Of course the ending is the last bit you read, right before you go off and tell your friends to get it.
What I don’t like about the book is that, whereas some modern films (Der Untergang, Valkyrie) are doing a good job of humanising Nazi Germany (which I think this is a good process and helps us get a deeper understanding of the processes that underlie such a war), Boyne takes a step backward and neanderthals his book back to square Nazis=evil.
I’d still recommend the book over the movie (in which some characters are changed for the worse and in which certain parts of the story are less strong) and it’s good to read in highschool etc. since it’s more simple than most books and about a subject English teachers are suckers for, but I’m not convinced by the rest of the book. The themes are easy, overused and little insightful and the characters and writing style don’t seem to meet my high standards.
Pholon’s grade: 6/10
Next up: Donna Tartt – A Secret History
Issue #1
