Eva Weaver

I'll get some unfair criticism off my chest. I was slightly put off this book because I found the name 'Eva Weaver' impossibly fey, even if she couldn't help what her parents called her.

Anyway, I revised my opinion and became much more positive as I got immersed in the book - and then changed my mind again. This is a harrowing story based on the life of a Warsaw-born Jew as he endures his later childhood incarcerated in the Jewish ghetto. There are later equally harrowing pictures of life in a Siberian prison camp: this was not his experience, but that of Max,a German soldier whose path he had crossed in Warsaw.

The prose, particularly dialogue, is often stiff and awkward, but I was left with the impression that Weaver was writing the book with an eye on its possibilities as a film. There was something about its telling which seemed to be in Glorious Technicolor. Mika's survival against the odds somehow never seemed quite realistic to me, nor his concern for the children of the orphanage and hospital in the ghetto. I read the book willingly enough, and learned a lot, but I shan't be in a hurry to seek out any future books by this author.

It's made me wonder whether I'd still enjoy Ian Serralier's 'The Silver Sword', which covers some of the same ground, as much as I did when I was 11 and first read it.… (mer)

Mika hereda las marionetas de su abuelo, con las que entretiene a otros niños logrando que olviden las miserias del gueto de Varsovia. Para sobrevivir, pronto se verá obligado a hacerlo con los soldados y así sobrevive. Cuando se libera el gueto, las marionetas pasan a manos del soldado nazi Max y llegan con él a Siberia, salvándolo de la misma manera que lo hiciera con Mika. La nieta de Max heredará las marionetas después de la muerte de su padre. Años después, las llevará a Nueva York, donde se encontrarán con Mika en su lecho de muerte.… (mer)