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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intimate depiction of the devastation of war., March 10, 2004
This review is from: War Torn (Hardcover)
Suffering, loss and the terrible toll that war takes on cities and people is at the center of this fast-moving, dramatic and tense novel by John Marks. Yes, the story is bold, austere and almost "journalistic" in style, and the pace almost never lets up, but at the same time there's an almost hurried attempt to get the story down at the expense of good, three-dimensional character development. War Torn is basically the story of two lovers Arthur, an investigative journalist from Texas who has been posted in Berlin to report on the reunification of East and West Berlin, and Marta, a Muslim from the city of Mostar. Both meet in Berlin and fall in love, but Marta, convinced by her husband that Mostar is the place to be, deserts Berlin and Arthur, and goes back to Mostar with her young son. What follows is a noble and terrifying account of how two people, who are still in love try to reconnect against the odds. As Mostar falls, and death and destruction surround Marta, Arthur almost gives her up for dead. But Marta proves to be more resilient. First though, she must survive in the "war torn" and ravaged city; she does this by becoming an interpreter for the German administrator, Hans Krieschler. Marks strikes a nice balance between an action orientated story line, and the demands of describing a part of the world undergoing monumental changes. Whether he's describing the horrors of war - the shattered buildings, the broken bridges, the violence in the name of religion. Or the UN soldiers in their "blue berets, the "aid workers picking up women," and the "photojournalists bumming smokes", Marks has a real talent for weaving historical fact into a fictional narrative. War Torn is a searing front-line depiction of the ways in which war can affect the lives of ordinary citizens. Berlin like Mostar was once at war too, and Marks draws some interesting parallels with the two cities. Arthur observes that not too long ago war had also been in Berlin, "one can still find the bullet holes in the walls" and there are probably "bones still beneath the concrete - a thousand restless ghosts for every inch of Berlin." War Torn looks with a discerning eye at the former Yugoslavia, and through Marta, we get a very personal look at the country, its history and its decay into civil war. Yugoslavia was a "young state, conceived in 1918" she says, but people have been living in this "young state" for hundreds of years. The problem is "young state, old peoples." Marks uses an effective journalistic lens to give us a clear and uncompromising view of this decay, and of the two cities - one unifying and the other disintegrating. War Torn is indeed a powerful piece of work. Michael
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"People were like the cities, containing their own deaths.", November 19, 2003
This review is from: War Torn (Hardcover)
Within this engrossing story of love and war in Berlin and Mostar, Yugoslavia, from 1989 to 1992, John Marks considers the subject of divided cities-and the damaging effects on the people who live in them. The Wall dividing East and West Berlin has just come down, and Germany is in the process of reunification, attempting to erase the invisible walls still dividing the people of Berlin and of Germany as a whole. Arthur Cape, an American reporter for Sense magazine, has been in Berlin since 1989, documenting the story of the reunification and the surprises which have accompanied it. On his way to a Halloween party in 1992, he sees a ghostly stranger and knows instinctively that this messenger comes with information about Marta, a former lover whom he has not seen or heard from in three years. Through Marta's story, the history of the ethnic unrest in Yugoslavia unfolds. The daughter of a movie star who has married three times, each time to someone of different ethnic background, Marta is a Muslim, though her sister Dubravka, who occasionally visits her in Berlin, is a Serb, whose allegiance is to the Christian Orthodox church. Her brother Mato is a lapsed Catholic. As the story alternates between Berlin and Mostar, and between Arthur and Marta, the reader observes the growing brutality among the various groups, with Marta's brother offering the chilling conclusion that there are only two kinds of people-"those who have slit the throat of another human being and those who haven't." In a unique and thought-provoking thematic twist, Marks draws parallels between what is happening in Yugoslavia and what has happened in Berlin. The novel gets off to a quick start with the appearance of the Halloween "revenant," and Marks's crisp prose and perfect, illustrative details advance the action and keep the story moving at breakneck speed. The peaceful reunification of Berlin offers a poignant contrast to the growing violence of Mostar, with Marks presenting a clear picture of the conflicts through the action, never allowing the complexities of historical background to overwhelm his story. Irony abounds, especially when a German, Hans Kreichler, becomes the European administrator of Mostar during a temporary cessation in the violence. Most of all, however, this is a moving love story about two fully drawn people for whom love and war exist on parallel planes. As they struggle to reconcile the tension between their hopes and disappointments, dreams and torments, and aspirations and earthly cares, the reader sees their struggle as a universal one-one waged by thoughtful individuals, enlightened governments, and philosophers and clerics the world over. Mary Whipple
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What a great book, July 29, 2004
This review is from: War Torn (Hardcover)
I think that War Torn must rate as one of the most under-appreciated books of 2003, so for anyone that does read it, they are in for a literary and historical treat. Set in both Berlin during the time of the destruction of the Berlin wall and in Mostar (Bosnia) during the civil war that divied the sity in two, War Torn is not only a well told story but it provides an interesting perspective on the civil war in Bosnia - which is something that I knew very little about. Unlike many other "war" books that take a birds eye/macro point of view, War Torn provides a very personal view of the effects of this kind of war on an individual and a family. The concurrent fall of the Berlin wall in which two sides of the city are rejoined serves as a good counterpoint to the separation of Mostar and the break up of Marta's marriage.
I highly recommend it!
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