One of November 2022 fun reads. (Read in German.)
Great Book to validate my disgust in humanity. I’m not being sarcastic. I mean it. Sometimes I’m just in the mood for a story like this, and with fiction work, the mood of the recipient of the story (=the reader) is critical.
This mood is completely out of the control of the creators.
It is also somewhat out of the control of the recipient. My thinking that I “know” what will be in a book and that I will like/dislike it given my situation in life isn’t entirely incorrect, but mostly false. I don’t ever actually “know” what will happen in a book, otherwise I wouldn’t be reading it. Why bore myself to death?
Depending on this mood and the timing at which a story shows up in my life, I might love it or hate it. The story is the “same,” but isn’t. It’s mostly up to chance.
In the case of this book, I was pleasantly surprised because of all the unpleasantness it contained. It is deeply disturbing to the point of being depressing at the clinical level…
…and I wanted that. Someone somewhere has to write a story like this and someone somewhere has to read it so these stories get told. The world fucking isn’t about unicorns and rainbows. And the story wasn’t about the non-unicorn-and-rainbow-ness of the world either. IMO there was a great balance between dark & light. (I mean, overall, the book is dark… but the English title contains the word “killing” and the German title contains the word “blutiger” (bloody). Then there is the blurb. Also, lots of blood on the cover. So, any reader with a brain will be able to expect a lot of blood and violence. These elements in and of themselves aren’t surprising. At all.)
Anyway, thank gods that the protagonist was an admirable man. I liked him—his work ethic, his mental and physical strength, and his dry humor. Also, his appreciation for exquisite vengeance in many different forms, ranging from just doing his job well to great violence.
Gotta be able to use violence on some fuckers of this world.
Without him, I would not have finished the book. I would’ve just gotten extremely impatient and screamed: tear the lower body parts of all these men (yeah they were men) into shreds, burn the shreds while they watch so they can smell the lovely barbecue smell, trample on the ashes, and feed the ashes to what remains of their upper body parts. Make them chew and choke. See them squirm. Smile.
But the protagonist was there, and also, she was there. She, not the protagonist, but a key character.
Oh, I loved her. She is ice-cold, burning-hot, cruel—beautiful.
True beauty isn’t weak. Weakness is for wusses, and wusses can never be beautiful.
She was beautiful, he was beautiful.
And thus I liked them together. He is so loyal, it is tragic; he loves his dead wife too much. I hoped he would find someone alive to love/like, and when he slept with her, I was so glad.
Sir, you deserve a happy life. It’s the only way you will continue to punish all those sons of bitches.
Great book. Recommend whiskey or red wine while reading. Recommend reading at night. You’ll get troubled but honest sleep.
#reading
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