25 September 2018

Cellist

I have just finished reading "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by a Canadian writer called Steven Galloway. It was first published ten years ago and as the title suggests focuses upon the city of Sarajevo which is now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, between 1992 and 1996 it was a Yugoslavian city under siege and it is this fearful time that Galloway addresses.

Shells and bullets cascaded upon the city from the surrounding hills. Over ten thousand Sarajevans were killed and everybody lived in a state of uncertainty. 

On May 27th 1992 a mortar shell hit a queue of people waiting outside a bakery for bread. More than twenty were killed outright. In their honour a classically trained cellist who lived close by came out into the street every day for a month to play music in memory of his fellow citizens and perhaps to remind those left behind that there was a better way to live.

The novel has three leading characters - Dragan, Kenan and Arrow. They do not know each other but they are all part of the siege and equally affected by it. Their lives, like their city, are forever changed.

Steven Galloway went to great lengths to research this novel so that its context might appear more convincing. I enjoyed "The Cellist of Sarajevo" though I might have liked it better if the three protagonists had somehow been brought together - instead of being separate throughout. 

227 pages. The language is easy to access and there are no tedious sidetracks providing historical background, facts and figures. It's not that kind of book. It's about ordinary people and how they live in the teeth of war.
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Later: It was sad to discover that Steven Galloway has been involved in much controversy since his sacking from the creative writing department  of  The University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Many of the facts of this case are still secret but it seems he had a two year relationship with one of his students and most of the official concerns surrounded that student's accusations. Galloway's soaring reputation may have been ruined forever.

17 comments:

  1. From your description of this book, I wonder why there is a naked lady on the cover?

    Oh, right. Because men are pigs and sex sells.

    Sorry: I have been infuriated about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings for his seat on the Supreme Court (in America) and I want to punch him in his smug, entitled, lying, boorish pie hole.

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    1. Oink! Oink!

      Good point about the cover. Having just read the novel, I cannot think of a scene that that cover picture relates to. I have been following The Kavanaugh Show on "Democracy Now" and I applaud the three women who have had the courage to raise their heads above the parapet. It would have been far more comfortable to say nothing. And as for Trump's remarks on the issue - they are utterly despicable.

      Oink! Oink!

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  2. Hmmmm...I do not know this book, or the author. Sounds interesting, though.

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    1. I found it in a charity shop when I was in Suffolk.

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  3. One of my favourite books, controversy notwithstanding. I try not to judge books by their covers -- or their authors. It's been awhile since I read it; probably time for a reread.

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    1. I feel sorry for Steven Galloway. The student was an adult and he was only five years older than her. But there may be stuff that I do not know about.

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  4. Tut, tut, tut, Mr. Pudding. The student might have been an adult but he, as a professor, was in a true position of power. Therefore.......

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    1. Apparently they were in a "relationship" for two years. Obviously in high schools such relationships are absolutely "no go" and should result in instant dismissal but in a university? I don't think so.

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  5. Galloway, while insisting that the record of the investigation be kept secret, has shown the findings to friends and media and has self-servingly characterized the verdict as his being found guilty of nothing more than a two-year affair with a student. However, the student has made a public statement that her complaints were NOT about an affair but about sexual assault and sexual harassment, which is what the university's investigation verified and for which Galloway was fired; furthermore, five other students filed complaints about Galloway that ranged from physical harassment to sexual assault.

    Also, somehow Galloway has been able to keep the final report confidential so that even his accuser has not seen it; she is only reacting to his deceptive public statements he has made regarding the case.

    As the Tasmanian stand up comic Hannah Gadsby has so searingly observed, the world does not have to give men a pass over their exploitation and objectification of women just because they make art. They are still pigs, and they and their work should be reevaluated for having come at an appalling cost.

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    1. You seem to know a lot about this case Vivian - more than I do. From what I read, the secrecy seemed to have mostly been driven by the University of British Columbia and not by Steven Galloway.

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  6. I like historical novels.

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    1. Apparently it is one of the most feted Canadian novels of this millennium.

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  7. I know nothing about the case...the charges against Galloway,,,but "if it walks like a duck"....

    I will never feel pity for perpetrators of sexual assault. Saltpeter use comes to mind...it is used for the removal of stumps...and an axe, also if the saltpeter doesn't work.

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    1. There are some vile men in this world - men who abuse and misuse and come up grinning. I am not convinced that Steven Galloway is one of them. The facts have never been laid out in a proper court of law.

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  8. My first thought was exactly the same as Vivian's - why is there a naked lady on the cover? And in the light of what is or has been happening in the author's life, it is even more irritating that the lady should be there (with, as you say, no relation to the contents of the book).
    Still, it does sound like a good read, and I think that the war(s) that raged the Balkan states during the 1990s with the most horrible atrocities the human mind can imagine, is easily forgotten by all the bad stuff going on now. If the book helps to keep collective memory alive, that is certainly A Good Thing.

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    1. Interestingly the book cover picture was by a woman called Christine Mulliez.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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