Night Soldiers: A Novel | Alan Furst

Night Soldiers: A Novel | Alan Furst | Essential History

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Night Soldiers: A ...

	Night Soldiers: A Novel Alan Furst Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2002 - 462 pages average customer review:based on 60 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Anti-Le Carre

Alan Furst is the anti-LeCarre. John LeCarre is still mired in the 1960s nihilism which holds that Communism, Fascism and Democracy are all moral equivalents, so that it doesn't matter who runs the world. That's all well and good as long as you have an English Channel between you and the sonderkommando and you have no moral compass. Alan Furst takes the exact opposite view, that there are things worth fighting for and that consent of the governed is preferable to genocide and torture. Furst writes better than LeCarre, too.

In some ways, Night Soldiers is my favorite Furst novel. One follows the course of his protagonist's life for eleven years, so the reader gets to know the character and watch his development. As Khristo, the hero, goes from Bulgaria to Moscow to Spain to Paris to Prague and then down the Danube, his attraction to, and later, his disenchantment with, Communism are clearly understandable.

Furst also tells the story from the viewpoint of a number of other characters, which is an interesting effect. Best of all, it is the longest of the Furst novels, which allows the reader to stretch out the pleasure of one of these great works of literature.

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Essential History

I think this is the best of a great authors work. Surely the essential history of the 1930s and 40s is contained in this fascinating account of a man trapped between the "opposite but similar barbarisms of Nazism and Bolshevism" to quote Churchill. I don't think the average American is aware that while the Second World War last some four years the horror that gripped Europe, especially central Europe, lasted decades. Furst writes beautiful prose and weaves intricate plots that keep the pages turning even as you don't want the book to end.

rich

A vivid depiction of World War II Europe. If you like spy novels and history, you must buy this book.

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Meet the New Boss - Same as the Old Boss

Alan Furst is arguably today's finest author of realism and authenticity in World War II era spy fiction. "Night Soldiers" runs true to Furst's craft, the intricate if sometimes tedious journey of Khristo Stoianev, a young Bulgarian, drawn into the Soviet NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) in 1934 foloowing the brutal murder of his younger brother by the local Fascist thugs. Narrowly escaping the Stalin purges, Stoianev finds himself in Paris, a small player on the wrong end of a social scene that is at the same time decadent and doomed. Through an ever-changing secession of tyrants - from Fascists to Communists to Nazis - Furst traces the political upheaval in war torn Europe, the effects upon those of multiple nationalities living through it. This is a tale more poignant than uplifting, but one thing for certain: Furst understands the passion and sacrifice of liberty; the desperate leaps from one false hope to the next one will take in finding freedom. Furst's writing is not for everyone: LaCarre reads like Robert Ludlum by comparison. Intricate, plodding, somber and dark, this is nonetheless powerful fiction, educational and ultimately enlightening. As the purists of espionage and WWII fiction already know, Furst is the master of his game, and "Night Soldiers" is Furst at his finest.

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Dark,somber world

I am very fond of the dark, somber world that Alan Furst so brilliantly portrays. As a matter of fact I grew up in former Yugoslavia and visited some of the places described in this book. Mr.Furst has an amazing gift. You can almost smell the dark night in a small Bulgarian town by the Danube, or the reckless ,fear induced,abandon in the pre-war Paris.
Except couple of fairly minor mistakes the painstaking research paid off. I am going to read the rest of Mr.Furst books in the near future.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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