Tim FinchCritiques

Edvard Behrens - erfahrener Diplomat, Liebhaber von Kunst und Latein-affin - leitet in einem Nobelhotel in den Schweizer Bergen die titelgebenden Friedensverhandlungen zwischen zwei Delegationen eines Landes aus dem Nahen Osten. Zudem muss er einen inneren Frieden schließen; sein "Kampfschauplatz" ist der Verlust/Tod seiner Frau Anna, an die er seine Tagebucheintragungen richtet. Beide Entwicklungsprozesse werden parallelisiert; Einblicke in die politischen Verhandlungen wechseln sich mit persönlichen Innensichten ab. So stehen letztendlich Berichte von Massakern individueller persönlicher Trauer gegenüber - an einem weltentrückten, surreal edlen Schauplatz. Teilweise etwas manieriert, mit reichlich intertextuellen Bezügen. Der britische Autor war auch schon Journalist, Pressesprecher und Lobbyist. Die in- und ausländische Kritik ist sich bei der Bewertung nicht ganz einig: für manche eine bewegende Studie über Liebe und Elend, für andere ein überflüssiger, geschwätziger Text. Auf jeden Fall sollten sich Leser*innen selber ein Urteil bilden dürfen - überall möglich und grundsätzlich empfohlen½

The Chairman of international peace talks talks to himself to try to find peace following the violent death of his wife. A disappointing self indulgent story of a rich, middle class bureaucrat wallowing in self pity.

Edvard Behrends is a Norwegian-British diplomat leading a group to resolve a conficit between two unnamed Arabic-speaking factions, sequestered at a resort high in the Tyrolian Alps of Austria. The 171 page novel is told in Edvard's internal monologue to his wife. How he got to this place in life is told in bits, and details are gradually revealed. Peace Talks is both sad and humorous, full of subtle, beautiful passages that tell a story of loss and grief.

This doesn't sound like the kind of novel I'd hurry to pick up, but the Austrian Alpine setting drew me in, and the back story of the peace negotiations was unique and interesting.

Peace Talks is one of four books shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Award.

Recommended for: In this case it's easier to say who this book isn't for: people who want a strongly defined plot; readers who don't want to read yet another book about the thoughts of an older middle aged white man; readers who don't care for books that refer to other books and art; and readers who don't like books set in a privileged European world.½

Peace Talks from Tim Finch sneaks up and the reader then never leaves. I finished this book about a week ago and have been thinking about it quite a bit since then, which for me is a good sign.

I hesitate to call the beginning slow because I think it needs to be at a certain methodical pace to be effective so I will say that from the start you settle in for a very steady process. And this story is a process, of grief, of negotiation, of the range of human emotions one goes through when life hits you harder than you expected.

The details come out almost casually, periodically throughout the narrative. Yet as each reveal is made it is like a heart punch, it takes a few minutes to recover, or at least to renegotiate your own reading of the story, which is also a reading of the man.

I highly recommend this to readers who like a novel that seems on the surface to be so simple yet speaks to life both private and public, issues both personal and political, and the dynamics between all of it.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

The best way I can describe this book is that it is written far above my head and beyond my imagination. The description of the book sounded fascinating - but the experience of reading it was frustrating and not fulfilling. There were moments where I thought I was within reach of getting what the characters were alluding to - but their voices were so similar and the detail so very vague - that the story kept slipping from my grasp.

Some turns of phrase caught me - “…and yet it is not a cold day: it is neither cold nor warm, though it is colder than it is warm, and it is warmer than the seasonal expectation. The season is winter, the month is February, the hour is three.” But then I would lose the thread of the character, the action, the hundreds of things that were happening behind the scenes. Things the author may have thought were clear enough to be tantalizing - but were such light outlines of allusions that I could not make sense of them.

“For Agnes’s poems are the sort of writing that Julian and the Committee value above all else. The House of Journalists is about such writing. It exists for it and because of it. Without the naked pain, the uncensored horror, the howls of injustice and fanfares to the human spirit, this place would lost its hold on public imagination.”

This story lost its hold on my imagination early on. I wanted to like it, I wanted to know what was behind the curtain - but after 19 days of reading - the book proved too much for me.½

This is not a book for everyone. It is almost le Carré-ian at times, in the best possible way. It moves at its own pace, often coolly and calmly and without much seeming “purpose” – but for those interested in politics, in oppression, in yet another angle of our increasingly globalized world… this is a golden debut. It reminded me of how much I loved my poli sci classes in college and how proud I am to maintain even the slightest interest in that part of our world. I look forward to whatever comes next from Mr. Finch – and I hope that this book garners some level of acclaim, if only to shed light on the very real and very thorny problems of helping those whose stories have been silenced.

Much more, I hope as considered as this book deserves, at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Ij