Reviews and Comments

About 30 pages left. The actual "story" is already done, I'm in the theoretical discussion and analysis of the epilogue. This is hard reading. I'm going really slow. The central question to answer is: "What is power?"

By now the story of the cracking of the german Enigma code seems to be well known, with books and movies all over the place. But a lot of that (especially in fiction) is overly generalised and lacking in background ... to nobody's surprise. This book is the real deal. It has all the background info and the back story. I guess it's not a spoiler to say that the story starts way, way before Alan Turing does his things.

The book starts with the almost first contact of french and polish cryptographers with the enigma mistery encryption. It then covers the arc of the war, mostly but not exclusively centered on the battle of the atlantic. It stops after the allied invasion of normandy. I think it's right to give a lot of attention to the battle of the atlantic, because the real story is on how the code had to be cracked open again and again around that battle, and because the pinching of code books mostly happened there. But the other pillar of the book is how the secret of having broken Enigma has to be protected, and was almost revealed so many times over.

The book is also expectedly british centered. The polish, french, and american codebreakers and admins all take part and are given credit, but this is the british point of view.

This books makes a good union between giving the background information and/or technical details (there are huge appendices with lots of detailled explanations) and the lively stories that give you the human blood in all this. Which makes for good reading.

An intense book. If you started this book because you heard about the smut (or saw the movie with lots of skin), you will be disappointed.

What is really intense is all the misery, the misery of the family, the misery of this love that exists only in a grotesque parody, the misery of the boarding schools. Above all and defining all this, the misery of colonialism. Colonialism that heaps misery on the local people, but also onto the people sent there to "administer" that colony or who try to get their personal gain in this all and simply find their banal inconsequential life.

A lot of "stream of consciousness" writing. It took me a while to keep me from trying to "keep in mind" what exactly was happening and when, and instead let myself drift in the stream. I found the book to be ending on a slightly positive thought ... but honestly that could be disputed.

An intense book. If you started this book because you heard about the smut (or saw the movie with lots of skin), you will be disappointed.

What is really intense is all the misery, the misery of the family, the misery of this love that exists only in a grotesque parody, the misery of the boarding schools. Above all and defining all this, the misery of colonialism. Colonialism that heaps misery on the local people, but also onto the people sent there to "administer" that colony or who try to get their personal gain in this all and simply find their banal inconsequential life.

A lot of "stream of consciousness" writing. It took me a while to keep me from trying to "keep in mind" what exactly was happening and when, and instead let myself drift in the stream. I found the book to be ending on a slightly positive thought ... but honestly that point could be disputed.

Noticed this book in my feed. I've read it almost 20 years ago. Bought it in a bookshop in Panepistimiou street in Athens, and the image of the low table with stacks of books where it lay is still in my head.

I didn't like it completely. I remember it carried me on, but there was something deeply negative in the story.

Can't get more classic than this ... judging from a short test read, this translation (by Samuel Butler) is excellent.

Wow... I'm done... incredible feeling. I might write a review, but a bit later. This was a crazy journey.

I really liked the setup and the message of this book. Even the idea with the silver could be an interesting "visualisation" of the power dynamics of colonialism. But I don't know why, don't know if it's just me, but it seems all to be executed very superfluously to me. I don't feel people's feelings, don't get their motivation (apart from thinking that according to the plot, they are bound to have some). I'm stopping for now, maybe I'll get back to it later.

Intense. Sometimes this book is crushing, dark, brutal in Grossman's descriptions of the horrors of war and the Holocaust. Occasionally he is flat and almost bloodlessly repeating hearsay, but most of the times... that feeling of hearing someone who was an actual witness to the times was intentse. All the things he saw and lived through. This huge amount of sincerity, brutal honesty. There were times when I could not continue reading, especially in the evening. I did not enjoy reading this book, even though it is very well written, but it felt right to read this book.

How can the words of Vassily Grossman exist in the same universe as the new perpetrators of racist and far right ideology?

Not sure I'll get to collect my courage and read this, and even more unsure that I'll make it through it... but I would like to read this.

Das Kapitel, in dem Annas Mann mit ihr reden will... das ist sehr beeindruckend und gleichzeitig war es mir sehr deprimierend. Wollte fast nicht weiterlesen, das Buch weglegen.

Dieses Ding, dass der Autor den Figuren in die Seele schauen kann ("der allwissende Autor"), hier, von so einem Meister durchgeführt, bemerke ich das gar nicht, da ist es einfach die Geschichte, die ich miterlebe.