A very interesting book, to say the least. It is really an advanced coming of age story, but the story starts with the protagonist at 20 or so years old. We follow the life of Basso, as he ascends to the top of the banking industry then to the top of the government. Then we watch as it all crumples through one act of selfishness that not only runs him out of town before the lynch mobs get to him, but also kills every one that he ever loved.This was a highly interesting read. I have seen that there are many levels that you see the more that read it. The story was interesting enough that I will be reading it again. The Folding Knife is K.J. Parker’s masterful life story of a thinly-veiled Doge in a thinly-veiled medieval Venice. Basso has always been lucky, and it’s better to be lucky than good. Basso quickly rises to become, like his father, the First Citizen of the Vesani Republic, a mercantile city-state. But unlike his father, Basso is both lucky and smart, and begins amassing a great fortune over a long political career. But mustn’t it all eventually come crashing down? After all, even great men make mistakes.Parker, though, leaves the reader questioning whether Basso was ever a great man and just what mistake he made. That’s typical for an incredibly ambitious work. Written almost like a history book, veering between the historical perspective and a personal perspective more common to fantasy novels. Politics, the law, and economics, especially banking, are featured to far greater an extent than usual. Almost everything is pregnant with deeper meaning, as they say. It makes for a powerful whole, if the climax is in some ways disappointing.
What do You think about Składany Nóż (2010)?
I kept waiting for the backstory to end and the actual story to start, and then the book ended.
—Raph
brilliant book-great and wonderful story,
—Osama_Shah15
