Excellent young adult fiction.
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Young adults in search of a captivating but intellectually stimulating book may find this just what they are looking for. Set in a fictional country in middle Europe, somewhere near the Czech-Austrian border, the book includes castles, a prince, a lavish lifestyle from the past, gypsies, escapes, secret passages, a baby of mysterious parentage, and a series of compellingly drawn heroes and heroines bent on righting the world's wrongs while finding personal satisfaction. These characters must deal with the Nazis, the invading Russians, and eventually, the Communist rulers, with the attendant (painfully described) torture, wrongful imprisonment, and human degradation which often follow such political upheavals . Sharply delineated discussions of freedom, responsibility, and power show the various points of view which the nine principal characters represent as they interact at various junctures between 1945 and the present. By the conclusion, which ties up all the loose ends and which will satisfy readers who have identified with the characters, the political movements which have particularly affected countries of middle Europe, such as Czechoslovakia, will be indelibly imprinted in the reader's heart and mind. Mary Whipple
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A gripping ride through life under Communism
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Gill Paton-Walsh's account of forty five years of the Eastern Bloc, from 1945 - 1990, is a gripping read from start to finish. A Desert in Bohemia reflects on the effects of Communism on the lives of nine characters from all walks of life. From Jiri, the committed, politically naiive, young Communist, to the deposed, aristocratic Count Michael, the carefully woven plot illustrates the way that the spread of Communism changed the lives and fortunes of all who fell under its shadow.
Set in the fictional country of Comenia, A Desert in Bohemia, is a revealing and thought provoking account of what Communism set out to be, harshly played out against the background of what it actually became. It matters not that the setting is not a 'real' country, rather like her previous work, Knowledge of Angels, the exact geographical location of the events of the story is far less important than the events themselves and the relationship between her characters. Once again Paton Walsh focuses on the fact that people's lives are often linked to the lives of complete strangers as a consequence of the acts of other strangers. The reader often being privvy to a much clearer overview of the 'ties that bind' than the characters themselves. Although nothing in A Desert in Bohemia actually happened to the characters in the text, the fact that real people would have experienced such events during the rise and fall of Communism is the strength of Paton Walsh's work. This book will not disappoint whether you are a devotee of Paton Walsh's work or simply want a damned good read, do not miss this book.
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Struggles in a post-war country
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A Desert in Bohemia deals with several generations of individuals experiencing the rise and fall of communism in post-war Eastern Europe. A compelling topic to be sure, but it is an account that finds little basis in reality. Rather than taking account of a real country, Walsh, an Oxford educated writer living in Cambridge, 'invents' Comenia, a country 'which may be supposed to share borders with Bohemia, while having no more actuality than that famous desert by the sea'. It is a fatal flaw. I am not at all certain the point of such vapid fictionalisation, as it deflates the vital connection between ideology and history which gives the topic its power and makes the book little more than a false diatribe against Stalinism. People starve, are sent to prison camps and some escape Comenia, but who cares? It didn't happen. Walsh is not strong enough a writer to create her own history and instead of giving her world its own existence, she cannibalises real events and attempts didacticism. It is as absurd as writing about the Jewish holocaust which happened in Hermany during WWII. A favourable reader might attempt to dress it up as an imagined world, but it is less, I suspect, a comment on the fictionalisation which occurs in the writing of history and more an attempt to cover up...lack of personal experience. Ultimately it vacillates too much between invention and event to be an imagined world. Of course even Solzhenitsyn is often unfactual, but he knows where to draw the line: Russia is a country.
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A truly breathtaking novel
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with a author at the heigh of her powers. A grown-up novel that takes you back to the wonderment of childhood reading. Political, fabular, beautifully and simply written, this should win prizes.
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