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De Man Die Tweehonderd Keer Ontsnapte (2000)

by Horace Greasley(Favorite Author)

4.16 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

The House of Books

review 1: It’s hard to know if an editor even glanced at this novel or they had adjectival dyslexia, considering the constant tedium, clunky sentences, and repetitive conversations. Instead of allowing the reader to assume that the two people in the scene are in-fact talking to one another, each has to sign off with the other’s name: ‘Can I have a haircut Jim?’, ‘Yes you can Flapper’. ‘How are you Jim?’ ‘I am good Flapper’. Gripping stuff.At the best of times a shrug is a non- committing gesture, yet within the space of two pages Jim shrugs once and Flapper shrugs twice. When describing the cold, Jim states ‘Imagine the coldest you’ve ever been and times it by 100 and you’re getting close to how cold I was’, leaving the reader in a state of ambiguity to h... moreow cold it really was. To continue along this vague path Jim later says that the cold he experienced in that camp was nothing compared to what he experienced in another camp, causing you to assume the first camp wasn’t quite the sub-zero temperatures we were lead to imagine. Upon finishing the book it becomes apparent that there was no one alive to verify the story. Although it is likely radio parts were sneaked into the concentration camp and that Jim escaped to see the woman he loved on numerous occasions, there is often a lingering feeling of exaggeration and recollection of conversations that could not have been possible. It is also never made clear whether the letters from Jim’s lover, Rosa Rauchbach, are the original articles or are they what he remembers of them. It is especially dubious that Jim kept copies of the letters he wrote to Rosa, unless he had the foresight to keep them for this book. Although Jim was from a time when sexism appeared to be ‘accepted’, Jim’s persistent self-congratulatory remarks about his performance in bed were tedious and only reflected poorly upon his personality: ‘I left Rosa, with a satisfying soreness between the legs’. Jim possesses a proud obsession with mentioning how endowed he is and seems to save all his adjectives for these all-too-frequent occurrences, which have no significance to the story.As opposed to feeling a connection with the protagonist, I often found myself disliking Jim and questioning the continuity of the story and why it was only being heard now, 65 years after the events.
review 2: 3 1/2... podría haberla puntuado con un cuatro también, pero al final me ha dado por el tres :)Esta historia pone de manifiesto, una vez más, dos de esas verdades universales que no nos cansamos de oír y repetir, pero que aún así a veces parece que nos cuesta creernos del todo. A saber:1- La realidad siempre supera a la ficción. Porque, sí: "Los Pájaros También Cantan en el Infierno" no deja de ser, después de todo, la versión novelada por Ken Scott, el 'negro' en este caso, de las experiencias vividas por Horace 'Jim' Greasley durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, con especial protagonismo, como no podía ser de otra forma, de su etapa de casi cinco años vivida en un campo de prisioneros alemán. Y es que, por más que hasta en el infierno haya grados, y un campo de concentración no sea lo mismo que uno de prisioneros, ciertamente las experiencias de este hombre, crueldades y actos heroicos, son dignos de protagonizar cualquier película de Hollywood sobre el tema, con sus fugas, sus pequeños momentos de gloria, sus operaciones de resistencia clandestina...2- Hay quien nace con estrella, y otros que nacen estrellados. Y Greasley se encuentra, a pesar de todos los horrores vividos, y sin la menor duda, entre los primeros... porque sobrevivió a la guerra, en más formas y ocasiones de las que uno pudiese imaginar.En resumen, una historia de amor y guerra que emociona y conmociona y que, desde luego, sorprende... sobremanera tras haber sido previamente advertidos por Ken Scott en el prólogo que no hay ficción ni efectismo, pues Greasley se resistió en todo momento a licencias literarias o giros argumentales o exageraciones. ¿Nos lo creemos? Habrá que hacerlo, aunque ciertamente resulte difícil por increíble en ocasiones... Lo dicho: la realidad supera a la ficción. less

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