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De Onverbiddelijke Tijd (2014)

by Justin Go(Favorite Author)

3.26 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

De Bezige Bij

review 1: In one sense Go’s book is magnificent. In another, it’s flawed. Let me explain. Perhaps a writer who reads this will see the mirrored characters, how their similar lives are different, and enjoy Go’s gift for suspense, his powers of observation translated to the page. But whether experienced by writer or stouthearted reader, Go leaves you unsatisfied. Early in the 20th Century, Ashley Walsingham meets Imogen Soames-Andersson purely by chance. Ashley is about to enter World War I, and so his seemingly perfect romance with Imogen is interrupted, with Imogen pregnant. The remainder of their mutual experience is in their attempts, despite the war, despite each one’s sense of personal destiny, to forge a long-lasting love. Then, in early 21st Century, A young California... moren, Tristan Campbell, learns that he may be the heir of Ashley’s fabulous wealth, but he must first prove that he’s the rightful descendant of Ashley and Imogen - all in some three months. And so, with this mystery in our hip pocket, we follow Tristan all over Europe as he picks up clue after unsatisfying clue to his assumed forbears. But it's in Paris that Tristan meets footloose artist, Mireille, and they, too, fall in love, although not as impulsively as have Ashley and Imogen. And so Tristan and Mirielle aren't the mirrors you suspected, the dynamics of their relationship diverging deeply from those of Ashley and Imogen, who seemed lost in the fog of war, the overloud trumpeting of their era’s wars and gender relationships. And yet, Tristan and Mireille are the inheritors of Ashley and Imogen’s lives. But many historical waters have passed in the intervening century, and these two are bound by the steady running of Go’s hour not to make the same mistakes of Ashley and Imogen.The book is casually edited, annoying in its typos and mis-wordings, but these flaws pale in the presence of Go’s vision and otherwise stellar writing. Go seems reluctant to allow Tristan, his protagonist, to air his innermost thoughts during his trek through Europe. For Go, then, his story must bear the burden of both a pale protagonist and frayed plot.My rating: 16 of 20 stars
review 2: Oh my! If you like clever quest stories you will like this one - a search for evidence to validate an inheritance, a search of love, and a search for adulthood. The story swings from past to present, from the horrendous battlefields of World War I, to Mt. Everest, and from California to Iceland. The section about the war is especially topical now when the first guns were fired a century ago. That war changed our world. A great read for a long winter day and night. And I love the title, taken from a work by the World War I poet, Wilfred Owen. It perfectly describes the story. less

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