The Faraway Mountains
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A dark chapter in recent human history
The first part of this novel follows the adventures of three young friends during a memorable last mountain climbing trip to a remote area of a country under the control of a ruthless authoritarian regime. During their journey, the young men have to cope with:
bear encounters,venomous adders,colorful locals, storms,dangerous climbs,flooded caves, and other challenges, as the main purpose of their trip is gradually revealed.
A second story, intertwined with the first one, focuses on a brilliant young pianist and his ill-fated quest for freedom. Urban life, in the dreary capital where the young men regularly reside, is the focus of the second part of the novel, when the friends begin to go their own separate ways and come to terms with their very different future prospects. The challenges of life in the capital, which include run-ins with feral dog packs and the secret police, are very different than those faced in the mountains, but not less dangerous. Ultimately, this is a book about friendship, the noble, irreverent and indomitable aspects of the human condition, as well as a dark chapter in recent human history, and the various ways in which different people cope with difficult and unfair conditions.
It is an often hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking exploration of the absurdities of life under an increasingly erratic dictatorship which is gradually losing its grip on the people it could never fully control.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Canadian Romanian writer Guiasu debuts with a poignant if murky portrait of four young men struggling under the pressures of communist rule in an unnamed Eastern European country in the 1980s. Three of them—Alex, Dan, and Victor—are hiking together in the Carpathian Mountains to send off Alex, whose application to leave for Canada has finally been approved by the government. The others will remain "on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain." Victor wants to stay and make things better while Dan envies Alex's luck. Not much happens on the hike, beyond a close call with a bear and inclement weather. The novel's second half delves into the friends' experiences in the capital city after they return from the mountains and Alex prepares to leave. Interspersed through both sections are confusing glimpses of a young pianist named Gabriel, Alex's best friend and the fourth member of the group, whose body was discovered a year earlier in the region where the others took their hike. In flashbacks, Guisau establishes that before Gabriel died while hiking alone, he was arrested and tortured by the police. While the narrative is dense and the dialogue feels stilted, Guiasu addresses his characters' yearning and their complex feelings about their fates with great care. This succeeds as a story of fractured friendship.