Book Tamers| book reviews

Leviathan is a water monster originally appearing in the Bible and then in Tomas Hobbes’ philosophical work where it represents the State, in opposition with the new ideal organization form suggested by the author. In our book, Leviathan is the name of a very big cruise ship that makes the connection between France and India. It is the point between the crimes that already happened and the criminal’s final target.
This is a detective book where the story is not that important, but the way it is presented is.
To get started, we read about ten crimes, all done in the same night, at the house of a collector of Indian antiques. A Shiva golden statue and a shawl were stolen. These are the facts Commissar Gauche is confronted with. Also, he has to deal with the fact the golden statue was found days later in a lake nearby …
The relation between the crimes’ scene and the Leviathan is made by a golden emblem that was found in the collector’s hand, and that was specific to those who bought a first class ticket on the ship. As a consequence, we will watch Commissar Gauche going on a cruise in India, looking for the one that doesn’t have his emblem anymore, nor an alibi …

Up to now, one can easily figure out that this a script that any other detective story would use. The interesting stuff is, as I said before, the way the story is told.
For among the suspects there are French people, a Russian, two English men and a Japanese, the author will come up with elements from each other’s culture, judging them through it. He will emphasize especially the divergences between Englishmen and French and the specificity of the Japanese culture in opposition with the European one. For the crimes’ purpose was an Indian shawl and the criminal is in his way to India, the author will come up with some moral stories specific to the Hindu mysticism. As a sequel, the story will be put both in a political context and in a cultural and philosophical one.
The way events are linked to one another is as interesting as the manner in which the story is told. Generally, detective stories are supposed to be unpredictable, but this time I actually couldn’t get used to the fact that nobody is what they seem to be and that at the end, even the Commissar, who should have found the killer, steps aside of the law becoming a criminal himself …
I won’t reveal any other details of the story so that I couldn’t spoil the surprise for those who want to read it; I will add though that the one that will untie the crimes’ mystery and the killer’s motivation is the Russian, the one that reveals himself as the most clever of all characters. His name is Erast Fandorin and he is present in the author’s other books and he is an atypical character, very rational and smart, stammering a little, ironic, determined and though shy.

Written by Gia

I was pretty dazzled by Tolstoy’s 60 pages story. I was irritated by words that were meant to express the main character’s “decency”, stringency, gaiety and the sociability. The upstartness, the egocentrism of all the characters deploying in front of us, the “obligations” that a so-called normal person has towards his fellow creatures were quite irritable. The fact that hypocrisy is so present nowadays, the fact that we all show a fake kindness, keeping the appearances, the display of a certain decency in our relations with others and of a minimum of moral integrity, that must be shown with every occasion, these are all the reason for which every human being feels attacked and shook.
Golovin dies. There is no point in not talking about this; death is present even in the title. Although we know Ivan Ilyich’s end, this seal does not really transform him into a nice character. As in other works, we feel the weight the author puts in describing the social environment that has a defining influence upon the hero’s evolution. The society forms his opinions and feelings, modeling his character as it did with his high-maintenance friends. He is a nice and capable person, with a spiritual easiness that is so bourgeois of him, and his actions are always influenced by the collective common sense, and not by his own wishes. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even feel the need to find out which are his real.

The marital relationship is roughly regarded by the author. Marriage of convenience, made without a clear and precise intention, just because a thought popped and said: “In fact, why shouldn’t I get married?” doesn’t count for making a solid marriage. This man, with a robotized existence and who keeps the distance from everything and everybody can’t become personally involved in professional relations (which is actually praiseworthy), and he can’t even take chances in adventuring in his own life, because of the stupid and pathological need of easiness, pleasure and decency.
Hypochondria and fear of death, presented in a very naturalist manner, are exploited for the author wished to emphasize the fact that the way one lives is more important. Each human being’s loneliness when facing death is doubled here by the uncertainty of his own life, suppressed by the thought that he did everything comme il faut. His questions and anxieties remain silent.
I may have been a little tough on Ivan Ilyich. It’s true that at the end I pitied him; I hated him in the beginning for his empty life and rejected all the people around him. I hope it was the normal reaction of a person who can empathize, who knows that weaknesses are in each and every one of us, that it’s easy to forget about yourself, about what you want, and that is easy to justify yourself for failures and that a “settled” life doesn’t necessarily mean happiness.

Written by Ioana