The Lost

 The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn (2014 William Collins softcover 688pp)

This is a substantial chunk of a book (650+ pages) and probably deserves a more substantial review but I’m going to be brief here so I can get some thoughts down whilst the text is still fresh in my mind.

Earlier this year I gave a glowing review to the same author’s “An Odyssey”, a more recent work and I have no hesitation in also recommending this earlier one.

Put simply this is a mystery/detective story but in the real world and regarding events that took place in early 1940s Europe.

Since a child Mendelsohn had heard vague stories of his relatives and ancestors who had either perished in or survived the Holocaust. As he grew older, he started asking more questions and over the years it turned into a full-on investigation.

His focus falls upon the inhabitants of the eastern European town of Bolechow and what happened there once the Soviets withdrew and the Nazis took over. The fate of 6 people, his great-uncle and family remain a mystery and the subject of many rumours and speculation.

Travelling around the world from Australia to Israel he personally interviews the few that remain from that time and slowly pieces together what may have actually happened in those dark days.

Interspersed between the main text is his commentary on earlier commentaries of sections of the Hebrew Bible and he makes thematic links to the history he is uncovering.

A series of almost unbelievable coincidences also befall him and help lead him to more knowledge and understanding about his past and family.

This is a very human book and you can’t help to be moved by the stories uncovered by the investigation. There are also some seriously nasty sections when the actions of the Nazis and their collaborators are described.

Not light reading but satisfying all the same.

Utopia Avenue

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell (2020 Sceptre 563pp)

I liked this book, there I said it. There’s been many reviews giving fair to bad verdicts. In the end I’m not sure I read the same volume as some of the critics out there. Most seem to be hung up on the occasional cameo appearances by real life artists and celebs that occur from time to time in the novel. I found those a bit of fun. Sometimes a little ham-fisted perhaps.

I’ve been a fan of Mitchell’s work since picking up a paperback copy of “Cloud Atlas” in 2005, a year that was marked by some inner turmoil for me. I loved the prose, the clever nested structure and the ideas within. I quickly acquired his previous books and bought each new one as they were released. “Utopia Avenue” is his first book in 5 years and fits into his over-arching “Meta-Novel” effort. There’s much more in it for the reader if you’re familiar with his earlier novels – names, characters, concepts pop up that would mean little to someone reading this as their first Mitchell work. Therein may lie the problem several critics have, “Utopia Avenue” has been promoted as a stand-alone tale but it really isn’t. The last 100 or so pages in particular dive deeply into the pre-existing Mitchell-verse and would leave the novice reader confused or just annoyed.

The plot is fairly simple – It’s the story of the rise and eventual fall of a band in the late 1960s. Manager Levon Frankland hand-picks some up and coming artists from the London music scene and moulds them into a band, the titular Utopia Avenue. The band has a slow rise to fame and many ups and downs along the way. Each of the band members, Elf, Dean, Jasper and Griff face their own personal dramas, triumphs and tragedies. We learn their back-stories and how they came be where we first found them. Each of them has distinct character traits and a unique outlook on the world. The chapters alternate from their different viewpoints, focussing more it seems on guitarists Dean Moss and Jasper De Zoet (there’s a name with strong links to a previous book...). Although vocalist/keyboardist Elf Hollaway and the drummer ‘Griff’ Griffin do also get a substantial look-in. They tour, they record albums, appear on TV and eventually end up in the USA where things take a darker turn. Along the way they meet their counterparts of the era at parties and so on. Like I said I didn’t mind that so much whilst it apparently grates with some.

At 561 pages it’s a substantial read, keeping me busy for over two weeks. It was nice to be once again lost in Mitchell’s words. What more could you want?