EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS - Andrew Ervin


Three stories, intersecting in Budapest - a city with a long history, rich with culture.

In the first story, Lajos Harkályi, a world-famous composer and, more importantly, a Holocaust survivor, has returned to Budapest to perform his final work. This is, perhaps, the most personal of all his work as the musical theme is based on a lullaby his mother sang to him as he and his family were being forced to leave Hungary for the infamous concentration camp Terezín in Czechoslovakia. 

The second story is of a United States Army private, Jonathan "Brutus" Gibson. Stationed at a base just outside of Budapest, Gibson, a Black soldier with the patience of Job, is being blackmailed by his commanding officer and must choose between his being used as a mule for the delivery for an illegal arms deal, or go AWOL. In the course of making his decision, he is set upon by a local skinhead gang.

Finally, the third story features Melanie Scholes, a young violinist who is to perform in a major new work by the famous composer Lajos Harkályi. But interfering with her attempt to take joy in this great honor is a failing relationship complete with blackmail and emotional abuse. How can this not affect her performance?

Author Andrew Ervin's writing is neat and clean with a constant feel of 'there's something big here' going on underneath it all. We can sense it, especially given the backgrounds of Holocaust survivor and soldier juxtaposed with music and art. Ervin keeps us on edge, hinting at the bigger themes.

Brutus Gibson's story seems most out of place here, and because of that, we're most curious how this fits in and, frankly, I'm not sure it does.

[SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER AHEAD] While Gibson's story does intersect with Harkályi's, and there's some correlation's to be made with the theme's of their stories, they feel SO different that I truly believed the third and final story would bring it all together, but it doesn't. This left me with quite a hollow feeling at the end - feeling as though the book didn't connect the dots that were laid before me.

As three individual stories, this is really nice.  I enjoyed each piece, separately. As a 'novel' this doesn't work for me.  The writing is nice, but the story lacks cohesion.

Looking for a good book? Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin is three stories, very loosely connected. The writing is solid and as stories, this works nicely. As a novel, it doesn't come together well enough.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Extraordinary Renditions

author: Andrew Ervin

publisher: Coffee House Press

ISBN: 9781566892469

paperback, 183 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON: APPRENTICESHIPS IN NARRATIVE - Andrew Rowcroft

Image
I am a sucker for anything by or about Kim Stanley Robinson. Since I first read The Gold Coast sometime in the late 1980's or early 90's; I haven't missed any of his books since. So, when I see a book about Robinson, or examining his work, I'm all in. What I don't like, is reading a research paper, a university-style thesis, posing as a book. In classic research paper tradition, we begin with an introduction that tells us what we are going to read. Chapter by chapter, taking up nearly 15% of the book's pages, author Andrew Rowcroft tells us what we're going to read in. In detail. With 114 endnotes. There are six chapters .... well, five chapters and a coda ... dealing with different aspects of Robinson's work. But first ... what does "Apprenticeships in Narrative" even mean? In his introduction, Rowcroft notes: "This book argues that one of the most striking aspects of Robinson’s fiction is his concern with literary apprenticeship." ...
Read more

STAR TREK: YEAR FOUR - THE ENTERPRISE EXPERIMENT - graphic novel

Image
I am one of those faithful Star Trek fans who will gladly read stories (stories, novels, graphic novels) featuring the original Star Trek cast/crew.  When you add in an author such as D.C. Fontana, who wrote for the original series, and the excitement level for a book like this is high. The book reads like a classic Trek episode. Here, while the Enterprise is testing a new cloaking device (having stolen such a device from a Romulan ship) Kirk and Spock find themselves boarding the ship from a shuttlecraft  only to discover that they are out of 'phase' with the rest of the ship's crew. Only Lt. Arex is slightly visible to Kirk and Spock (due to some technical, fortuitous accident). It is during this time that the Romulans arrive, with Ambassador Sarek, and an old-fashioned pistol (phaser pistol) fight may ensue in the corridors. I will almost always have fun reading new adventures from my favorite starship crew, and I definitely enjoyed this, but scribe Fontana does some...
Read more

LAP DANCE LUST - Rachel Kramer Bussel

Image
WARNING: THIS BOOK AND REVIEW CONTAIN WORDS AND THEMES OF A SEXUAL NATURE I debated, a LOT, over whether or not I would even publicly post a review of this book. I mean, it's kind of embarrassing to admit to reading erotica. And yet the genre is one of the best selling subjects these days (thanks, in part, I'd guess, due to the anonymity that digital books afford) so why not read it (and, to be very honest, I was equally embarrassed to admit to reading Louis L'Amour westerns the first time I posted one of those reviews). I am not familiar with author Rachel Kramer Bussel so I'll trust Goodreads' quote that she is "one of the biggest names in the literary world of erotica." With nearly 200 works attributed to her name (many as editor) she's certainly got some experience with the genre. Overall I was impressed with the quality of the writing.  I have to admit to going into this expecting some really cheesy writing with the sole goal of getting the reader...
Read more