Gyorgy Dragoman: The White King

Now this is something else. A stunningly grim, fascinatingly written, deeply depressing picture of the life of a boy in an unnamed totalitarian/Soviet state whose father is taken away by the Security Services ,waving him to cope with his Hobbesian life ( minus the last element...the ending, of which more later, is particularly powerful and intriguing). There is a constant physical and mental brutality in al aspects of the central characters life, in all areas...in school, with his friends, with the rest of the town and he both gradually becomes a part of that with those attitudes and yet at the same time there seem to be occasional flashes of saving grace in what he says and does. Sometimes, some episodes are somewhat lighter ( his sequence in the cinema and finding the secret room) but even then, the re is still a darkly grim tone to the event or there is some frightening element that has to be dealt with.

The style is fascinating, with long, run on breathless almost hysterical sentences for the entire book which was a very effective device for capturing the desperate hysteria that seems to mark the narrators life and experiences ( it's a first person narrative).

The ending is running. Astonishingly powerful, desperately moving ( he does briefly see his father) but the ending in one way is not an ending as the final image given is all that he can do and the can be no end in sight as so many questions never will be answered. In fiction, according to Miss Prism ' the good end happily, the bad unhappily' but not here; no comforting catharsis, just continual ( everlasting?) not knowing. A superb book that you should read. Penny Pi do you know this?