The Confabulist - Steven Galloway

How much of our lives is real and how much is an illusion? 

The world's gaze is focussed on the feats and daring of the amazing Harry Houdini, while not a soul is aware of down-and-out Martin Strauss. However, Strauss' fate is inextricably linked with the magician's, and as Houdini continues to rise, and Strauss continues to fall, their lives will converge in spectacular and devastating fashion... 

At once entertaining and suspenseful, historically rich and cleverly told, The Confabulist is an novel of magic and memory, truth and illusion, and the ways that love, hope, grief, and imagination can - for better or for worse - alter what we perceive and what we believe.

My thoughts:

While reading this book I realised that I do not know anything about Harry Houdini, except for that for what he was famous for of course. But fact and fiction goes into each other here. Just as the narrator does not really know fact from fiction either. He has memories that are not real, and memories that are.

This book is then about Harry Houdini and how he became the most famous performer in the world. From his humble beginnings to performing for royalty. Other than royalty he meets detectives from Scotland Yard, Arthur Conan Doyle and spiritualists. He may perform "magic" but he does not like those who pray on those who do not know better.

The other POV is of Martin Strauss, the man who killed Houdini twice. It all comes through flashback as he is visiting a doctor. He wonders about his fake memories, and about  the woman Alice who has come to him for answers.

Conclusion:

I still wonder about what is really true, and what is not. I had to go check myths and theories about Houdini. But it was also interesting to learn more about those tricks. They seem so real, I know they are fake, but still, well that is magic of it after all.

If I am to compare it to his other novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo, then I did like that one better because it was hauntingly beautiful.

Cover

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Paperback, 320 pages
Published August 7th 2014 by Atlantic Books
Historical fiction
For review

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

The Cellist of Sarajevo

This is a book about the siege of Sarajevo that lasted from 1992 until 1996, the longest siege of a city in modern times. Even if it in the book takes place under a shorter period.

It's a tale about the cellist who plays for 22 days to remember the 22 victims of a shell at the bread market. He is a sitting target for the enemy when he brings back hope in the hearts of the citizens.

It's a tale if the counter sniper who watches him from a window, while looking out for enemy snipers that want him dead. Can she keep the cellist alive, and what will the cost be of that?

It's also the tale of a man who every 4th day picks up his water canisters and make a hazardous journey to the only place you can get free water. To get there he must cross the entire city whole looking out for the men on the hill, the snipers and the shells.

And at last it's a tale of an old man who works in a bakery, and cos of that gets free bread to feed his family. But to get the bread he must walk to a city that is dangerous, and when he stands at the intersection every day he faces a horrible choice, to cross can mean death if the sniper decides to aim at him.

This book is beautiful in a haunting way. I feel like I am there, standing at the side of the road and seeing someone get killed, and knowing that I have to cross too. Every day is a fear or snipers and the shells falling over the city. Not to mention the lack of everything else.

Galloway knows how to write and bring emotions into it. Like the notes the cellist plays he writes about the notes in the human soul and the decisions that are made.

I was young when the war started and back then what did I know about war? It was the end of the world back then, but now I of course see how close it really is. And I can't believe that it could last as long as it did. It was in our own backyard.

This is truly a book worth reading, Galloway has balanced his words perfectly and they flow. It's an easy book to read in a way cause of that, but at the same time it makes you think.

I would give it a 4/5.