If you’re the kind of people that needs closure, don’t read this book.

Because the book is like people watching. Not a single storyline is concluded. The book ends completely open-ended, some characters are just left by the wayside without ever appearing again and it is unclear who is good, bad, right, wrong… It’s all left to us, readers, to decide. I’ve always said that I have a lot more respect for a staunch enemy than for a weak ally: at least I know where the enemy stands. I would have liked for the author –who definitely has a stance- to carry it ‘til the end. Some may say he does, but I don’t think so. Some may say there’s sufficient evidence to know what his stance is, what the ending should be. I say that may be true as a whole (communism is reprehensible and unsustainable as a form of government) but it’s not true as it pertains to the characters. In the end, if I wanted to read about the evils of communism in the abstract, I would have bought a political science book or a history book. I bought a novel.


Not all is lost, of course, after all, the author is a Nobel prize winner. It is still an impressively well written book, just not one that I’ll find myself re-reading anytime soon, if ever.