The Cellist of Sarajevo

Its been 5 months, since I buy this book and finally, I've ended up reading it, today.

The Cellist of Sarajevo.

How in the world could I reading such a novel with only 227 pages in a long-strecth of 150 days?

In spite of this, this is a good book, albeit I would not recommend it to others.

The story consist of three main character which is Arrow; young Sarajevan girl acting as a sniper for the city's army, Kenan as a civilian with his bottles for water and Dragan, an old man usually work at the bakery.

Than the writer divided the story into four chapter, each based purely by the monologue and  the narration of their story when the war between men at the hills and the men at the cities happened.

There is no climax and readers should conclude the story themselves because the  closing  part is being left by the writer as a 'tautology'.

In fact, the cellist which should become dominant in this story is only a small fragment where he is only added because of the real incident ensue after 22 days mortar shells struck a people lined up queuing to buy bread behind the market on Vas Miskina on 27 May 1992.

I dont expect much from Steven Galloway, above and beyond I have used this type of narration (using character to speak) in my anti-PPSMI novel which is short-listed as the best 4 in the 2008 HSKU last year.

But I feel sorry because I need the temptation, the value added in the scenario to see things in real and I dont see that this time.

I get nothing about Sarajevo besides the place names, I know nothing about their culture and I really feel that this book cannot fulfill my thirstiness of touch the ambiance texture of writers atmosphere.

Thats because I think Steven Galloway was not born at Bosnia and not being there when the war started.

Simple moral this time is, don't buy the books which being narrate by the foreign writers.

Or else, you just ended up reading a simple idea of his perspective only.