This was the first war based novel I have read. I have avoided this genre for the longest time, but the synopsis of this book really dragged me in. How it spans across two different eras. The first part of the story begins with a young musician finding a beautiful violin. And as he learns of the past of the violin, that brings the reader into the second part, the history of the violin, which is linked with the violin maker, the luthier. The story revolves around the luthier, Daniel, and the torture that he faced in the Auschwitz camp. The book is also peppered with true documents of the horrors of the war, at the beginning of each chapter. These anecdotes are then featured in the story as well, showing how orders by the Nazis affected the prisoners. The luthier, initially pretends to be a carpenter, and certain events then lead to him making the violin.The story was beautifully written and the ending was wonderful. Overall a beautiful story to begin my foray into war stories. This is a poor historical piece of fiction regarding a man in a concentration camp in the second world war. It fails to deliver. Firstly the writing style is very flat and dull. It is written in the third person and it doesn't have any sense of realism about it. I understand this is a translated work and that could account for the remoteness of the writing style. Concentration camps were horrific and evil, yet this book does not even start to make me believe that. There are real holocaust accounts at the start of every chapter, which allude to the horrors and this makes the awful writing style seem much worse. This is one of those books that it is best to avoid. I managed half of it and it is a novella. That speaks volumes.
What do You think about El Violí D'Auschwitz (1983)?
Beautiful, compelling, a definite must-read! I finished it in less than a day.
—alo
