Date: 02 March 2009 00:17:28
This book squeezes into the blog by virtue of the main character being a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The narrative is two stories told alongside each other. One is of a young man, Moritz, who lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in what is now Poland. He joins up to fight in the Austrian army in WW1 and is soon taken prisoner by the Russians. His prison is in Sretensk over near the Mongolian/Manchurian border. He decides to make good his escape. His main motivation for survival is the memory of one kiss he experienced with his childhood sweetheart. Without knowing if she has survived or where she might be living, he tramps 4,000 miles to see if he can find her.
The second story is about a modern-day young man, Leo, coming to terms with the death of his Greek girlfriend in a bus crash in which the pair of them were involved in Peru. Leo crawls out from the depths of his grief to make a discovery that changes everything.
I found the story of Moritz the more compelling - and it reminded me of a story I read when I was about 13 called The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz which related the true story of a Polish officer who escaped from a Soviet Gulag and trekked south from Irkutsk across the Gobi Desert to India in WW2 - his motivation and determination to walk all the way back home was palpable.
I'm afraid I guessed the life-changing event in Leo's story which made it less compelling but nevertheless, a good read.