Night Soldiers: A Novel
by Alan Furst
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alan FurstEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-07-09
ISBN: 0375760008
Number of pages: 462
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Night Soldiers: A Novel
Book Review: In the dark of night spies fight dirty wars for Tyrants
Summary: 3 Stars
This novel has a great start and was shaping up to be the best novel Furst has ever written or probably would right. However his editors absolutuly butchered it and as the novel progresses more and more important aspects of the story are skimmed over, things happen to fast with to little explanation, etc. The ending is horrible, horrible, horrible! Furst was planning on writing a unprecedented historical epic that traced the life of one Bulgarian youth from 1933 to 1945, using Hitler's rise to power and the second world war as his canvass. Furst's character development is amazing, something he does not do in other books, this book is still long, about 500 pages but I think Furst was plannig on making this book something like 1,500 pages. 1933 to 1937 takes about about 300 pages but 1938 to 1945 takes up 200 pages. Furst should go back and write the novel he planned on writing and re release it. This novel is still worth the read however, and I would give the first 200 or so pages 5 stars without question. Furst's main character is a Bulgarian farm boy with no knowlege or understanding of politics whatsover. The political scene in Eastern Europe in 1933 was extremly volitale and dangerous. People had two choices, Hitler and Stalin, Nazism or Communism, Russia or Germany. Once a nation sided with one power or the other the people of that nation had better toe the ideological line of their government if they wanted to stay alive and out of jail. If not they better leave their nation and defect to a nation that supported the other side. Being apolitical was not possible because it aroused suspiscion that you secretly sympathized with the enemy. Bulgaria's elite was siding with Hitler and Nazi Germany while its peasants sided largly with Stalin and the Soviet Union. Recruiters for both sides lobbied nations and their inhabitants for support. Of course Stalin's Soviet agents misled the poor of these nations with fairy tales about the wonderful equality in the Soviet Union. But these Soviet agents did adress issues that were forbidden public discussion in many of these nations. They riled up the poor by examining and attacking the social and economic inequity of these eastern european goverments. Bulgaria was still very much a feudal society at this point and thus provided fertile ground for "Communist" recruiters of Stalin. The main character of Night Soldiers, Nickolas, is drawn into the political malestrom of the times when his brother is foolish enough to laugh at the leader of the local facist party, a landowner and merchant, when he and his comrades stuble on a ritual parade march. The disruption in their cermonal parade is bad enough, but to have some peasant youth laugh at them is more than this fascist leader, Visik, can bear in front of his subordinates. A verbal exchange ensues which leads to a physical confrontation which leads to Nickolas's brother being stomped to death by the entire troup of fascist militia. Nickolas cannot revenge his brother on his own, however when a Soviet recruiting agent appers and begins to assemble the poor in meetings Nickolas is intrigued. He becomes aware of the guerilla cold war that is occuring behind the scenes in Eastern Europe between Communists and Fascists. He belives the lies of this Soviet agent and agrees to go with him to the Soviet Union to start a new life. He is a dead man if he stays in Bulgaria because the Facists have him marked for death. Once in the Soviet Union he realizes that he has merely traded one tyranny for another. He and other young ideological people from Eastern and Central Europe are put through espionage boot camp and trained how to be spies. Loyality to Stalin above all else is ingrained in their minds. Nickolas is only 17 or 18 at the time. He is sucked into the Soviet police state and made to collaberate in atrocities. He proves an apt pupil and has a natural talent for espionage. He is eventually taken under the wing of a NKVD, the precuser to the KGB, agent who makes him his aprrentice. They are sent to Spain to fight agaist Franco and the Germans and from their the story continues. That is all I will give away because to tell any more would be to reveal too much. Suffice to say that the reader sees the European political scene through the eyes of an uniated, naive youth, seeing everything from a fresh perspective clarifies the history of that time. This novel is a tour de force that takes the reader all over Europe and through each stage of the Nazi rise to power and the Soviet response as well as the situation in France. The British also are involved, it becomes apparent to the reader that no goverment in Europe at this time was good, but some were worse than others. The life of a spy in the NKVD is treachorous and exciting but also tragic and depressing. Nickolas trusts no one and for good reason. By telling the tale of Europe from 1933 through 1945 from the perspective of one person Furst humanizes the events and makes them more accessable. He probably should have stopped writing this novel at 1937 or 1938 and released a sequal later rather than try to fit this massive tale into one volume. The last part of the book is pretty bad but I do not think this is Furst's fault.
Summary of Night Soldiers: A Novel
Bulgaria, 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin?s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. Night Soldiers masterfully re-createsthe European world of 1934?45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.
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