Customer Reviews

Down Fall

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To me, DOWNFALL: A LOVE STORY is the finest novel Per Olov Enquist has written, among those I have read. Barely a hundred pages long, it may be said to be a sliver of a book compared to Enquist's immense, more recent LEWIS' TRAVEL, but that is precisely one of its most intriguing aspects. Even with such a relatively small amount of space and pages, Enquist establishes several complex relationships, whose experiences provide insight and wisdom so beautifully expressed that I find myself revisiting them over and over and over. Like another, earlier Swedish author who is also among my favorites, Hjalmar Bergman, Enquist possesses the gift of formulating darker aspects of being human, of being alive and being mortal, in a poetic manner which prevents his unveilings of these aspects to become depressing or pessimistic. On the contrary, I meant to have found new meaning after I read this one the first time around. The story consists of several stories, tales of different lives, seemingly without much relevance to one another, until their experiences, and the love, hatred, frustration and pretended hatred which they share in some form, are increasingly bound together, leading to the haunting ending which has not yet failed to tempt tears out of me. Although I guess not any kind of human being would do a search for this book, I still believe almost any kind of human being would get something out of it, if they gave it a try.