Reviews

Una tumba para Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš

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urikastov's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

ohainesva's review against another edition

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2.5

I feel like none of this book made it into my brain. Too many characters? Too much expected understanding of cold war political movements? I don't know.

chillcox15's review against another edition

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4.0

Miniature portraits of state-sponsored death and torture. More complicated and sly than might seem on first glance.

boginja_opste_prakse's review against another edition

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a realno stvarno moras biti bog da bi cijelu knjigu napisao u nekom skoro administrativnom stilu koji podsjeca na spisa iz policije, pisao o sadistickoj vlasti i najgorim i najnepravednijim sudbinama koje se pokazuju kao univerzalne za svako vrijeme i zavrsio istu tu knjigu rijecima "za pisanje nisu dovoljna samo MUDA"

briandice's review against another edition

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5.0

Goddamnit, that was genius-ly crafted bleakitude. I think I need a hug before I can stew on this text.

Brodsky's intro is tremendous - a fitting companion to such an important piece of lit.

iamjudgedredd's review against another edition

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3.0

A small anthology of short stories generally linked by the themes of revolution, hypocrisy, anti-semitism, authoritarianism, faith, fear, and morality.

Some of the stories are excellent, others not as strong.

Many of these stories are written to be epitaphs of the millions that have been killed in the name of both political, and religious righteousness. The book is bleak, and incredibly dark. The heavy themes are almost never alleviated, as the experiences of the victims never were.

At only 136 pages this was a two or three day read for me. I picked it up based on my reading of Europe Central, in which Vollmann cites this book. I can see where EC was inspired in a lot of ways by Boris Davidovich. From here I will probably read Borges' Ficciones.