Diane M. (Diane) reviewed on 9/22/2005 + 419 more book reviews

It is said that great works of literature depend on character development, not so much on the plot and the story itself. Well, this is a case in point. The whole book is sustained by the central character of Oskar, a wicked, depressed, desperate man seeing how his world crumbles apart and he has to build a life for himslef. As another reviewer aptly put it, he is the lonely voice crying in the wilderness. Oskar is a very solitary man with a great disadvantage, one that by sheer willpower he turns every time into an advantage, a means for surviving in a careless, cold world. Oskar never gives up, never surrenders, he finds a way to survive after every setback, and terrifying setbacks he experiences.

I think this book had to be written in the form of magical realism, because the pure realism would have been insufferable: the tragedies that occur are beyond telling them.

Not an easy read, it is most rewarding, for it paints a wide picture of the human experience, precisely what great literature is about.

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