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Title: The Polish Officer : A Novel by Alan Furst ISBN: 0-375-75827-5 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.16 (25 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Espionage and intrigue in Occupied Europe
Comment: Alan Furst has apparently been writing books of this genre for some years now. The plots all take place during the period just prior to World War II, or the during the war itself. Each of the characters is somewhat compromised, morally or otherwise. Here, the main character is Captain Alexander de Milja, a Polish army officer whose main duty, in peacetime, was as a cartographer and intelligence officer. Now that the war has started, he's helping defend Warsaw, but he's soon called away to escort a supply of gold and specie across the border into Romania. From there, his bosses in the military intelligence bureau wish him to spy on the Germans, first in Paris, later in other parts of France and elsewhere. He moves with ease from one theater of the war to another, repeatedly surviving when others around him are captured or killed. He has affairs, makes and loses friends, watches as others are betrayed by traitors, even executes said traitor himself on one occasion.
The one thing the book does extremely well is portray the lives of ordinary people during the war. The author seems to have a view of the mundane populace of an occupied country, and what they do or say or when they go on vacation. When they spy for de Milja, they do so for mundane reasons, for the most part, and their reactions when they get caught aren't heroic, for the most part, either. The novel is told in a series of grays (if they ever make a movie, it'll have to be black and white) with few if any colors in the landscape.
If I have a serious criticism, it's that there really isn't a plot. Instead, the story is basically a series of incidents involving a single individual, and if he'd structured it differently it could be a short story collection, plotwise. That's how connected the various plots are.
In spite of that, I enjoyed it a great deal, and would recommend the book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Period Piece = Palpable
Comment: Alan Furst's series of novels set in 1933-1941 Europe are fantastic on a number of levels: the noir tone of the book, the palpable dread that overlays the whole time period, the complex relationships among people of various nationalities in a highly fragmented continent.
The Polish Officer begins very ambitiously as the protagonist seeks to smuggle Poland's gold supply out of the country in September 1939; the daring exploits result from desperation, necessity, despair, honor, patriotism. The settings are well-drawn and the politics well-researched.
This is a period piece. Furst brings you to the time and place of the action with his writing. It is honest, gritty, and real. The book is not a single narrative, it is episodic -- like intertwined short stories or novellas. Thus the intensity can wax and wane. Nonetheless, if you are interested in the 1933-1941 time frame, espionage, Eastern Europeans under the shadow of war or all of the above, this is fine literature and highly recommended.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Unique Perspective on World War II
Comment: "The Polish Officer" offers American readers a new slant on World War II: the perspective of life inside occupied Europe, with no American characters coming to the rescue. Instead, "The Polish Officer" is peopled by displaced persons, former military officers, and bandits, all drawn into a seemingly hopeless resistance to the occupying Nazi and Soviet forces in Poland, Russia, and France. That Furst is able to create a story from this world that is appealing to American readers speaks to his prowess as a writer. This is a beautifully-written book, although a bit weak on plot. However, since the book ends early in the war, it left me wondering how the central character made out.
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Title: Night Soldiers : A Novel by Alan Furst ISBN: 0375760008 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Dark Star : A Novel by Alan Furst ISBN: 0375759999 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst ISBN: 0375758267 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The World at Night : A Novel by Alan Furst ISBN: 0375758585 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Red Gold : A Novel by Alan Furst ISBN: 0375758593 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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