Review: The Appointment
Redaktioneller Bericht - Kirkus ReviewsRomanian-born MÜller (The Land of Green Plums, 1996, etc.) now lives in Berlin, having successfully fled after running afoul of the Ceausescu regime. Here, she offers a grim portrait of totalitarian life's squalor and pain. A young woman has been "summoned" to appear "at ten sharp" before the greasy Major Albu for another of several interrogations—sessions that can be cruel physically and are always so emotionally. The reason? The young woman, it seems, working at the time (she's now been fired) in a factory that makes clothing for export, tucked notes—saying "marry me"—into the pockets of a number of pairs of pants destined for Italy. She would rather live in Italy? She doesn't believe in her own country? She wouldn't have been summoned at all if she'd agreed to keep sleeping with her despicable boss Nelu—who, upon rejection, trumped up tales of pants-pocket notes to France and Sweden also. To top it off, now the man she's living with, Paul, has been run off the road on his motorcycle, and his side-business of making TV aerials (so people can tune in Bulgaria) has been trashed and he's been fired from his factory job. On top of the gratuitous and frightening harassment, there's the rundown squalor of life—a row of dusty glass eyes in a pharmacy window, an apartment building called "the leaning tower" because it isn't built straight, much drunkenness, empty lots, shabby trams with no "fixed schedule." And there's the past: a first husband who out of weakness almost kills his young wife; the promiscuous best friend Lili, who, trying to flee the country, is attacked—and devoured—by dogs; grandparents sent to the camps while their land was expropriated; a sadistic father-in-law who in earlier years, as "the Perfumed Commissar," was in charge of local expropriations. Says the young woman, on her way to Major Albu (the whole novel is "told" during one tram ride), "The trick is not to go crazy." Sensitive, observant, unrelenting—and compelling.
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Marina - GoodreadsEnjoyed the writing very much, would love to read more books by her, as long as they aren't about the same kind of thing... A great, enticing first-person narrative. Gets VERY dark somewhere in the ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Anne - GoodreadsThe Appointment refers to the narrator being ordered to meet with a government interrogator as she has been accused of putting notes in garments being exported to Italy from the factory where she ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Lorenzo - GoodreadsI liked "The Land of Green Plums" by the same author, but this novel - while keeping a similar pace, setting and style - doesn't convince me. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Josiah - GoodreadsThe Appointment presents a real life dystopia: Romania under communist rule. Whereas Brave New World and 1984 focused on the dystopian, totalitarian structure, The Appointment focuses on the victim ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Cean - GoodreadsThe author skilfully relates the frustration, fear, anxiety, paranoia and resentment that saturated Ceausescu's communist Romania. In Muller's world, true sentiments are crushed by Securitate spies ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Shawn - GoodreadsThe author skilfully relates the frustration, fear, anxiety, paranoia and resentment that saturated Ceausescu's communist Romania. In Muller's world, true sentiments are crushed by Securitate spies ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Michael Steger - GoodreadsA stunningly beautiful, stunningly bleak novel. Significant and substantial. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - Parastoo Geranmayeh - GoodreadsThe narrator is deeply honest to the reader, her honesty being beautifully in contrast with what is going on around her makes you enjoy listening to her and through this honesty and her beautiful prose she builds emotional ties to the reader. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Appointment
Nutzerbericht - GoodreadsThe appointment is the story of a woman who is riding the bus to get to a place where she has an appointment. The appointment is a set up to be interrogated by a policeman on suspected treason charges ...
