Wulf's Blog

“There are men who are wolves inside, and want to eat up other people to fill their bellies. […] You have fed each other, and you kept the wolf away. That is all we can do for each other in the world, to keep the wolf away.”

I don’t like fairy tales. Not at all. Especially not Grimm’s fairy tales. In fact, I dislike those so intensely for their cruelty and “rough justice” that I didn’t read them to my kids and hated them as a kid. Sorry, Little Red Riding Hood, for more than 40 years (and counting!) I’ve been rooting for the Big Bad Wolf!

Thus, it was with some reservations when I started reading “Spinning Silver” which turned out to be a fantastic story, masterfully told.

A soft-hearted moneylender’s daughter, Miryem, finds out she metaphorically has the ability to turn silver into gold which, in turn, becomes known to the king of winter. The king presses Miryem into his services and even kidnaps her.

The local duke’s daughter, Irina, is married off to the country’s tsar who is obsessed by a fire demon. Last but not least, there’s Wanda and her brothers whose lives are intertwined by fate with those of Miryem and Irina.

Sounds complex and maybe complicated? Well, yes, it is. Pretty much every major character gets to tell a part of the story from a first-person perspective which lends credibility and depth to the narrative. Unfortunately, this is one of the two notable flaws of “Spinning Silver”: Perspectives are usually switched with the chapter, sometimes even within a chapter and we, the readers, don’t get told but are “dumped” into the new point of view.

This makes things more dramatic at times but much more confusing as well. When I was even slightly tired (and who isn’t sometimes?!) or sleepy (e. g. when reading in bed) I would sometimes wonder who was actually narrating at that moment. The positive effect is, from my point of view (sic!), by far outweighed by the potential confusion. I would have wished for the narrator’s name in the chapter heading or whenever the perspective changed because the “confusion effect” would destroy the immersion.

Immersion, though, is a great factor of my enjoyment and despite my complaint “Spinning Silver” is one of those books between the lines and pages of which I could lose myself. While I read the words and absorbed the story, glorious pictures of green pastures during summer and snow-clad forests during harsh winters rose before my inner eye.

The story is so powerfully and yet gracefully and sensitively told, I felt like the narrated world got real and its inhabitants with their merits and flaws became fully fleshed-out human beings. As if that alone hadn’t yet been enough, Novik employs a decent, mostly subtle and sometimes dry humour, often finely laced with irony:

“I was reasonably certain he wasn’t going to try and devour my soul. My expectations for a husband had lowered.”

Each character, even the afore-mentioned husband, gets to develop “organically”: Rarely has careful character development felt as real as in “Spinning Silver”. You cannot help but believe the motivation of every single character and while some turns in the story are predictable, they are so delectably satisfying and wonderfully enjoyable.

Did I convince you to read this remarkable book yet? No, well maybe you want some “philosophical” depth to your books? Do not falter, “Spinning Silver” is for you!

While unobtrusive at it, this book deals with deep moral and philosophical matters – does the well-being of many outweigh the needs of few? May I even sacrifice one life to save many? Does the “greater good” allow for any means? The answers to those questions aren’t simply provided, though:

“I say to you, here are the dangers. Some are more likely than others. Weigh them, put them all together, and you will know the cost. Then you must say, is this what you owe?”

Depending on your personal answers to those questions you might find yourself in a bit of a moral dilemma at times.

On the other hand, even those who prefer a more “hands-on” approach may find themselves at home in this story as it’s perfectly summed up by one of our heroines:

“What did it matter that they didn’t speak of kindness, here; they had done me a kindness with their hands. I knew which one of those I would choose.”



In spite of all this praise I must not fail to deliver one more issue that slightly marred my reading enjoyment: At times, “Spinning Silver” does feel a little “slow”. As mentioned before, the story is lavishly told, in great depth and detail and, for me at two points in the story, it ever so slightly drags on.

Then again, if a story is that good, the language so enjoyable and even the villains so relatable if not likeable, how can I find fault in something like this?

“Warm gold blushed through the whole length of it with the slightest push of my will, and the child gave a soft delighted tinkling sigh that made it feel more like magic than all the work I’d done in the treasury below.”



And, thus, my review ends…

“I had spun the silk and then I had knitted it with the finest needles in the vines and flowers of the duke’s crest”

… and with equal care this story is spun. Reluctantly leaving the lines and pages I’ve rejoiced being lost between, I’m hastening towards Novik’s “Uprooted” next – and you go read “Spinning Silver”, and, please, keep the wolf away.



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I am and have been working on quite a few F/OSS projects: Exherbo (Nick: Philantrop), Gentoo (Nick: Philantrop), Calibre plugin iOS reader applications, Calibre plugin Marvin XD, chroot-manager, stuff on github, lots of other projects. If you like my work, feel free to donate. 🙂

An interesting book, falling short of greatness for me.


I started reading this book with high expectations – interesting setting, highly praised on GoodReads. I really expected to love this book but it was not to be, unfortunately.

Maurice Hannigan, 84, sits in an old hotel at the bar and drinks to the people he loved most and who all have passed away before him, telling us about his relationship with them and, consequently, about his life. The son of an Irish farmer, he, too, sets out on this path and soon by far surpasses his parents and becomes a wealthy and well-respected man.

We learn about the Dollards, formerly major land owners and employing Maurice’s mother and himself, whom he loved to hate for his entire life. He toasts to his brother Tony who died as a young man, his first child, Molly, his sister-in-law Noreen, his son, Kevin, a well-known journalist who has emigrated to the USA and, last but not least, his wife Sadie.

Griffin tells her story, Maurice’s life, in long chapters most of which overlap with each other in narrated time. This gives her room to explore each relationship deeply and allows for concentrating on their respective unique aspects. Unfortunately, the overlap does cause some conflicts that are hard to handle gracefully. Let me give you an actual example:


“It was twenty-seven years later that I learned the origin of the coin from Emily at that special dinner she’d arranged. But even then she’d been holding back. And it wasn’t until a year after that again that I found out the real consequence of its theft. And it was all because of Noreen, would you believe.”


I’m calling this, well, clumsy. You might consider it a narrative device, I don’t like it, sorry.


In between each of those toasts we’re getting a small glimpse into the current time and Maurice’s state of mind which is – at the very least – bordering on depression. By his own admission, Maurice is sleeping very badly (“I’ve stopped sleeping, have I told you? Two hours, three if I’m lucky now and then I’m awake.”), feeling bad and guilty as well as being prone to pondering (“Staring at the ceiling, going over it again, this bloody decision”). He’s tired and pretty much hopeless (“I feel tired and, if I’m honest, afraid.”) – all clinical symptoms of a depression.

Maurice even has people worrying about him (e. g. David, a social worker; Emily, the hotel’s owner; Robert, his notary) but none of them seem to recognise that and help him.

Griffin ends the book as anyone past the first chapter will know – “when all is said”, Maurice tries to take his own life. I’m sure Griffin doesn’t want to “promote” suicide as a way out of acute grief but a bestselling book ending like that does make me feel uncomfortable.



Putting that thought aside, I still didn’t really warm to the book. I can’t even put my finger on the exact reasons: Griffin’s language is believable (if restricted to Maurice’s vocabulary) and vivid. The story itself is plausible – everything in Maurice’s life could have happened just like it is told. Maybe that’s in fact part of my problem with the book – I felt myself nodding and registering the narrated facts but I was rarely touched by the story.

There were a few passages that really gripped me, especially since I’m a father and, obviously, a son myself (“fathers have a lot to answer for”), and made me swallow, e. g. this passage:


“But no, I mean, sorry for the father I’ve been. I know, really I do, that I could’ve been better. That I could’ve listened more, that I could’ve accepted you and all you’ve become with a little more grace.”


Boy, can I relate to that…



Unfortunately, this emotional engagement remains the exception for me in this book. Too rare and, in the end, too late.

To be able to really love a book, it needs to strike a chord within myself. I’m not an analytic reader, you won’t catch me scientifically dissect a book. The books I’ve loved most so far are those that make me enthuse about them to my wife and children till they send me somewhere else (or leave themselves). There are books (you can find them in my “Favourites” shelf on GoodReads) that make my soul thrive and rejoice (or only mentioning their names brings tears to my eyes) and I cannot help but sing their praise.

I fully expected “When All Is Said” to be such a book but it felt too shallow, it never engaged me emotionally and, quite possibly, maybe it’s all me, myself and I who’s to blame for that.

I guess you’ll have to find out yourself.




View all my reviews

I am and have been working on quite a few F/OSS projects: Exherbo (Nick: Philantrop), Gentoo (Nick: Philantrop), Calibre plugin iOS reader applications, Calibre plugin Marvin XD, chroot-manager, stuff on github, lots of other projects. If you like my work, feel free to donate. 🙂

Der Trafikant by Robert Seethaler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Durch eine Laune des Schicksals aus dem Salzkammergut ins Wien der Jahre 1937 und 1938 verschlagen, trifft Franz auf Otto Trsnjek, den Trafikanten (Betreiber eines Tabakwarenladens / Kiosks), findet mit Anezka die große Liebe und in Gesprächen mit Sigmund Freud heraus, daß er, Franz, nichts weiß und die Welt verrückt (und manchmal ziemlich unfair bis grausam) ist.

Franz ist ein netter Bauernbursche – respektvoll, freundlich und (scheinbar?) etwas “einfach gestrickt”. Der See bei seinem Heimatdorf und dessen mit den Jahreszeiten wechselnde Farbe ist bis zu Franz’ Aufbruch nach Wien sein größtes Interesse – von der Welt-Politik ist er weitgehend “unbehelligt” und Zeitungen werden von ihm zu eher “periphären” Zwecken genutzt:

“Hin und wieder hatte Franz vor dem Abwischen eine Überschrift, ein paar Zeilen oder vielleicht sogar einen halben Absatz gelesen, ohne daraus allerdings jemals einen sonderlichen Nutzen zu ziehen.”

Aus diesem amüsanten Versatzstück sollte man jetzt jedoch nicht schlußfolgern, daß das gesamte Buch nur nettes Geplänkel ist: Wir befinden uns in 1937 und damit der dunkelsten Epoche der deutschen Geschichte im 20. Jahrhundert und “Der Trafikant” schildert dies aus der Sicht Franz’, der ein feines Empfinden für Recht, Gerechtigkeit und ein respektvolles Miteinander besitzt.

Otto Trsnjek, sein Lehrmeister auch in ethischen Fragen, ahnt schon sehr klarsichtig, was noch passieren wird:

“»Bis jetzt ist nur das Geschäft eines Trafikanten besudelt worden. Aber hier und heute frage ich euch: Was oder wer kommt als Nächstes dran?«”

Ein Mensch wie Franz kann, ja, er muß in Konflikt mit der Ausgrenzung, Diskriminierung und Verfolgung geraten, die er in seinem Umfeld einerseits an Otto Trsnjek, aber auch an Freud, buchstäblich hautnah erlebt. Nun könnte man meinen, Franz werde sich zurückziehen, vielleicht in die innere Emigration, genau das aber tut er nicht.

Franz allein kann die Welt nicht verändern, so glaubt er, und wählt daher den Weg des “zivilen Ungehorsams”, der Widerständigkeit ohne Teil des organisierten Widerstandes zu sein.

Allein diese Geschichte erzählt zu haben, wäre bereits verdienstvoll und auch und gerade heute wichtig. Tut man das aber dann auch noch mit der wunderbaren Sprache, derer sich Seethaler wie nur wenige andere zu bedienen weiß, wird die Lektüre für den Leser zum absoluten Hochgenuß:

“Franz spürte einen merkwürdigen Stolz in sich aufsteigen, der irgendwo hinter seiner Stirn zerplatzte und wie ein warmer Schauer in seinen Kopf hineinrieselte.”

Als ich diesen Satz las, war das wie eine warme sprachliche Dusche; er evozierte Gedanken an ein Feuerwerk, das am Himmel explodiert und dessen Explosionsspuren herabsinken – ganz wundervoll!

Nimmt man dann noch Franz’ persönliche Liebesgeschichte – völlig frei Kitschigkeit, glaubwürdig und in ihrer Kompliziertheit so wahrhaftig – hinzu, so weiß man erst in seiner Gesamtheit diesen wunderbaren Roman wirklich zu würdigen.

Man leidet mit dem jungen Mann mit, wenn sein “böhmisches Mädchen”, seine “runde, böhmische Königin” plötzlich und unerwartet einfach mal wieder verschwindet:

“Nachdem es geschehen war und er wie ein Häuflein Glück auf dem Rücken neben ihr lag, stellte er sich vor, wie er am nächsten Morgen, gleich nach dem Aufstehen, um ihre Hand anhalten würde. Aber als er aufwachte, war sie weg.”

Selten wurde es so schön beschrieben und waren Glück und Unglück so nah bei einander.

An vielen Stellen jedoch zeigt sich in sprachlich ergreifendster Weise die innere Spannung dieses Menschen, der doch eigentlich nichts als leben und leben lassen möchte, der sein Mädchen lieben und ganz einfach sein möchte, es aber doch nicht sein kann, weil seine eigene Menschlichkeit und Anständigkeit dies nicht zulassen.

Dieses Buch kann nicht gut enden, aber es endet plausibel. Gerade in unserer Zeit muß man dieses großartige Buch beinahe schon lesen, aber es ist auch ein unglaubliches Erlebnis, das sich niemand verwehren sollte.



View all my reviews

I am and have been working on quite a few F/OSS projects: Exherbo (Nick: Philantrop), Gentoo (Nick: Philantrop), Calibre plugin iOS reader applications, Calibre plugin Marvin XD, chroot-manager, stuff on github, lots of other projects. If you like my work, feel free to donate. 🙂

Do you like watching glaciers move? Like, in real-time? Are you a German teacher of English? Do you hate someone very much? (You can even combine the last two!) 

Congratulations, this book is especially for you!  

I actually enjoy a good story, lavishly told in good time. Me possibly drinking coffee or wine and enjoying myself, even losing myself inside a story told slowly, delightfully, perhaps playfully. 

The story-telling here is mooooooooostly slooooooooow. Just slow. Not lavish, not delightful, not playful, just plain old slow.  

Now, slow food? Good stuff! Fast food only makes me fat anyway. Slow food doesn’t mean I have to enjoy chewing on a piece of granite – or reading this book. 

‘f slows the only prob, things mighta haven’t look so bleak. Ain’t just that, sirree, naw. The language. South’rn drawl my ass.  Short sentences. Clipped sentences, eh? Yeah, boy, might work. If yall are proper pen pushers, heh?! Franklin, ma boy, you ain’t a one.  

Ok, enough of this. It’s really annoying. I really, really hated those clipped sentences. They read like they hated their literary life for being, well, emaciated. 

Well, all of that could still have been forgiven (I can almost see the small teaching, pupil-hating, glacier-watching demographic from the introduction nod their approval!) but let’s take a look at the story itself: 

Young Larry (40 today) goes on a date, girl goes missing, people start hating Larry, apart from his “special friend” Silas (at this point, the German teachers get glassy eyes, remembering) and even more special Wallace Stringfellow. The former being a sorry excuse for a friend, the latter being worse.  

At the very beginning, poor Larry gets shot and Silas goes up and down memory lane for about 80% of the book, inspecting their miserable, boring lives in the past. Discovering “shocking” truths and a body. (Not, two, though. The mystery that all but ruined Larry’s life never gets solved.) 

The first words in chapter seven are basically a clue bat I, unfortunately, didn’t fully appreciate: 

“IT WAS 1982.” 

Yes, and we’re at 41% of the book and feeling like we’ve had to wade through decades of boredom but, wait, those guys are about 40 and no point whatsoever has been reached or made so far – we’re not safe yet, with decades before us yet! (Had I realised earlier and not only now, in hindsight, or given in to my instincts about bad books I might have preferred to watch grass grow but, alas, that exciting exercise has to wait for a worse book.) 

Still chapter seven (did mention those chapters can take an hour or more of a fast reader’s time (not to speak of the poor sod’s life!): “IT WAS THE slowest week of his life,” man, you’re taking the words right out of my mouth.

Anyway, why did I even finish this turd? Well, truth to be told, my daughter has to read this book for school and being the stupid oaf I’m sometimes maligned to be, I mouthed off to her about how good this book must be, having great reviews on Goodreads and how she should just get reading it! Sorry, my dear Schn…, I’m sure to do it again but for this book you have my sympathy. 

Drink, have fun with grass, do whatever you want with your life but don’t make people read this book. 

Oh, and if you really are a German teacher of English, I’m presenting you with a list of seven (because I can!) books better suited for your intended purpose which won’t make your pupils hate you (even more, at least): 

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 

• Beartown by Fredrick Backman 

• Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan 

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

• The Universe versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence 

• The Nightingale or The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah 

I am and have been working on quite a few F/OSS projects: Exherbo (Nick: Philantrop), Gentoo (Nick: Philantrop), Calibre plugin iOS reader applications, Calibre plugin Marvin XD, chroot-manager, stuff on github, lots of other projects. If you like my work, feel free to donate. 🙂

David “Selbstzweifel” Hunter ist zurück – leider nicht in Bestform

Der forensische Anthropologe David Hunter, bekannt aus Becketts früheren Romanen in dieser Reihe, wird diesmal zu einem Leichenfund in einem ehemaligen Krankenhaus, dem St. Jude, gerufen. Dort angekommen wird sehr schnell klar, daß sich ein größeres Geheimnis hinter den abrissreifen und finsteren Mauern des St. Jude verbirgt. Damit steht die Kulisse für einen ebenfalls eher düsteren Krimi mit gelegentlichen “Ausrutschern” in beinahe schon poetische Sprache und ein wenig Humor.

Ich freute mich auf einen neuen Krimi mit Hunter, der mir aus früheren Bänden sympathisch und interessant in Erinnerung war. Das bleibt auch bei diesem Buch so, jedoch wird es leider von den permanenten Querelen zwischen Haupt- und Nebencharakteren massiv überschattet – ein forensischer Taphonom verärgert Hunter, Hunter verärgert seine Auftraggeber bei der Polizei, ein frustrierter Bauunternehmer verärgert alle.

Als wäre das noch nicht genug, läßt sich auch Hunter von all dem Ärger ins Boxhorn jagen und an sich selbst zweifeln. Angesichts seiner Erfahrung und seines Renommees ist das aber nur sehr bedingt plausibel und hat mich zumindest doch sehr gestört.

So viel Ärger und Selbstzweifel machen einfach keinen Spaß mehr und trüben das gesamte Lesevergnügen deutlich ein. Völlig unnötigerweise noch dazu, denn Beckett schreibt – wie immer – gut und zeitweise geradezu poetisch…

“Die Stille, die auf allem ruht, hat eine andere Textur als tagsüber, ist besinnlich und noch gedämpfter. Sie hat ein fast spürbares Gewicht.”

… gepaart mit Einschüben (direkt auf das vorhergehende Zitat folgend) trockenen Humors…

“Vielleicht liegt es auch bloß an mir.”


Hemmend auf den Lesefluß wirken sich zudem die Zeitsprünge aus – da wird von einer dramatischen Entwicklung erzählt und an deren Höhepunkt ein Sprung in die Zukunft im nächsten Kapitel vollführt, von dem aus dann in Form einer Rückblende erzählt wird. Das nimmt Tempo heraus und mindert – ebenfalls völlig unnötig – die Spannung.

Ganz am Schluß tritt dann etwas ein, anläßlich dessen ich nur noch innerlich leise aufstöhnte, “nicht schon wieder!”. Völlig überflüssig und ärgerlich wird hier eine Nebenhandlung erneut in den Vordergrund gerückt, die besser einfach in der Vergangenheit verbleiben wäre.


“Die ewigen Toten” läßt mich insofern ein wenig ratlos zurück: Einerseits ist es ein durchaus gelungener Krimi, andererseits ist die Atmosphäre übermäßig angespannt und bedrückend. Darüber hinaus zieht sich das Buch bis zur Mitte reichlich in die Länge, um dann am Schluß im “Schweinsgalopp” zu einer mäßig glaubwürdigen Auflösung unter Einbeziehung “oller Kamellen” zu kommen.

Ich glaube, für mich ist der Zeitpunkt gekommen, mich von David Hunter und Simon Beckett zu verabschieden.

I am and have been working on quite a few F/OSS projects: Exherbo (Nick: Philantrop), Gentoo (Nick: Philantrop), Calibre plugin iOS reader applications, Calibre plugin Marvin XD, chroot-manager, stuff on github, lots of other projects. If you like my work, feel free to donate. 🙂