Little Fingers [Hardcover]

Filip Florian (Author), Alistair Ian Blyth (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 23, 2009

In a little town in Romania, a mass grave is discovered near the excavations of a Roman fort. Are the dead the victims of a medieval plague or, perhaps, of a Communist firing squad? And why are finger bones disappearing from the pit each night? Petrus, a young archaeologist, decides to do some investigating of his own.

Meanwhile, an Orthodox monk in the surrounding mountains stumbles into history when he becomes the father confessor of a partisan bent on bringing down the government, one handmade grenade and one derailed train at a time. Not to mention a team of Argentinean forensic anthropologists who arrive in town in a cloud of rock music, shredded jeans, and tequila.

Florian has packed real history, a religious pilgrimage, a criminal investigation, a recipe for roast pigeon, and a love story into two hundred truly remarkable pages.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Florian, a Romanian journalist and Radio Free Europe reporter, weaves together several narratives in his debut novel, a strange story of war, death, alienation, politics and bizarre miracles told in brilliant prose. During the construction of a church, a mass grave filled with skeletal remains is discovered in a small Romanian town. The local police chief hopes to rise to fame by proclaiming the piles of bones evidence of a brutal genocide committed by the secret police of the former regime. Petrus, an eager young archeologist, has come to town to excavate the grave site, which is near an ancient Roman fort, but Major Maxim refuses to allow him near the bones. Add to this the priest Onufrie, who believes the mysterious bones are a sign from the Virgin Mary (and whose head sprouts a weird black tuft of hair that wilts like frost-nipped flowers). Many characters and overlapping stories can cause confusion but never boredom as everyone awaits the arrival of a group of forensic anthropologists from Argentina (a country of mass graves) to settle the dispute over how the victims ended up dumped indiscriminately together. (July)
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Review

"Little Fingers is a novel that clearly falls into the same category of magic realism as Márquez and Llosa, in its care for form and great attention to narrative detail. The arborescent sentences, the baroque imagery, the mad wisdom and obsession with the number five are reminiscent of Bohumil Hrabal, while the non-linear construction and multiple perspectives on the same event recall Milorad Pavic. However, Filip Florian does not attempt to mask his models, but intentionally brings them into view: this is the riverbed through which the tale must flow." –Catalin Sturza

"Little Fingers is an exceptional novel…Reads like a classic." –Tania Radu

"Written and then polished over a number of years, the novel Little Fingers is a retro tale with Mitteleuropa flavor, in which nostalgia blends with fine, subtle humor. The writing, the narrative intelligence, the well-honed artistic style, the highly complex issues tackled, and, beyond all these, the settled assurance of the text make Filip Florian an author who, from his very first book, has become a fixture in contemporary Romanian literature." –Tudorel Urian

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (July 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151015147
• ISBN-13: 978-0151015146
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,308,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Compelling concept lost under laborious prose., July 14, 2009

By 

L. J. Moskowitz ""She is too fond of book... (Skillman, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Fingers (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I was very interested in reading "Little Fingers" because the synopsis sounded intriguing. The rave reviews the book garnered in its native Romania also increased its appeal, as I'm always interested in experiencing new types of literature.

Sadly, the book was an exhausting read. Glimmers of a compelling story are there, but it was very hard to pull them out with the way in which the text was composed. I suspect the English translation may be to blame, although it's certainly possible this is the way Florian writes in his native tongue. For instance, several pages would go by without a paragraph break and sentences were often constructed in very odd ways.

This book would be appealing to those readers who relish a challenge or enjoy unconventional writing. If you're taste leans more towards conventional literature, you might want to explore other books.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tough sledding, July 11, 2009

By 

Blue in Washington "Barry Ballow" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Fingers (Hardcover)

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I like a challenging read and I really get into international mystery stories--there are some great ones being published these days. Sorry to say that I didn't find "Little Fingers" falling into that category. Too unstructured to be enjoyable. And a sense that the translation didn't do the book complete justice.

On the plus side, there is some rich, evocative language here. But the extreme density of the writing style left me feeling like I was groping through a labyrinth in pitch darkness most of the time. It just wasn't a pleasurable read. I'll bet others will disagree and find this thoroughly satisfying because of the challenge.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A quirky but perplexing Romanian novel, June 25, 2009

By 

Evelyn Getchell "Evie" (Gulf Coast of Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Little Fingers (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This is a quirky Romanian novel written in a style I found funny but very perplexing. I didn't necessarily hate it but I can't say that I liked it and I don't think it rates 3 stars either.

The book does not read easily with long sentences, rambling and difficult to follow. It is a translation from the Romanian language and I wondered if perhaps something was lost in translation. The characters are colorful and their stories interesting even if the narratives are a bit confusing.

It's a very short novel and maybe I would appreciate it more after a second reading but unfortunately it didn't engage me enough to even consider rereading it.