Reviews

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

ankatriendr's review against another edition

reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

tbartlett's review against another edition

5.0

Found myself interested in this book when it won the Booker Prize and even more interested when I saw that it was about fascism. And now that I've finished it, I will be thinking about it for some time.

Lynch makes you ask yourself some terrifying but necessary questions: Would you stay or leave your home country when you find yourself facing a terrible authoritarian government? When would you leave? What would it take for you to leave? Why? And the leaving isn't always the end of one's worries because terror can follow you across borders.

Following is the excerpt that I will come back to and think about the most:

" . . . and she sees her children delivered into a world of devotion and love and sees them damned to a world of terror, wishing for such a world to end, wishing for the world its destruction, and she looks at her infant son, this child who remains an innocent and she sees how she has fallen afoul of herself and grows aghast, seeing that out of terror comes pity and out of pity comes love and out of love the world can be redeemed again, and she can see that the world does not end, that it is vanity to think the world will end during your lifetime in some sudden event, that what ends is your life and only your life, that what is sung by the prophets is but the same song sung across time, the coming of the sword, the world devoured by fire, the sun gone down into the earth at noon and the world cast in darkness, . . . "

wardenzo's review

5.0

Een waarschuwing en een getuigenis. Prachtig opgetekend, overtuigend emotioneel, claustrofobisch, een humanistisch appel.

aliciachelbeck's review against another edition

5.0

I ended up liking this book more than I thought I would. How scary the world can be in its ordinariness. How quickly things can change. Why do people choose to stay when things get rough, even with offered help to escape. What do you have to lose before its too much.

ayjay3's review against another edition

1.0

Terrible but I had to finish it though it didn’t have an end. Awful writing, illiterate, lots of strange expressions. Puts the Booker to shame. Inconsistencies and gaps that makes it senseless.

timweed's review against another edition

5.0

Hoo boy. This is the kind of book that you pick up and start reading and can't put down and wish you could. Extremely well-written, and at the same time hard to read because it just feels all too familiar and plausible. I imagine many people won't want to read it, but if you've got a tolerance for the dark side in your reading and are a fan of experiencing alternate futures, this one is not to miss. While it offers a distinctive take on the future, Prophet Song feels like one of the most lyrically dark and cautionary dystopian novels to hit the shelves since Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Highly recommended.

cricket_strom's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

naader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

katzendieb's review against another edition

3.0

Puh, schwierig. Grundsätzlich ist der Plot wahnsinnig fesselnd: was passiert eigentlich mit einer ganz normalen Familie, wenn ein autoritäres Regime an die Macht kommt? Wie schnell können erste Einschränkungen eskalieren? Wie sieht der Alltag in einer solchen Situation aus? Es ist deutlich spürbar, dass die Gefahr immer und immer näher rückt; dass die erlassenen Gesetze immer strenger werden, die ersten Nachbarn urplötzlich verschwinden und die Gewalteskalation ihren Lauf nimmt. Man spürt, wie schnell und wie wahllos eine scheinbar zufällige Familie wie die von Eilish Stack, ihrem Mann und ihren vier Kindern daran zerbricht. Der sehr gut gezeichneten Dystopie steht jedoch der sehr anstrengende Schreibstil gegenüber. Für die ersten 20, 30 Seiten wird man dadurch wahnsinnig mitgerissen, danach fehlt mir einfach die Atempause. Natürlich wird hierdurch gut dargestellt, wie hektisch das Geschehen ist. Aber mir gingen damit zu viele Handlungsstränge verloren.

paigereadsbooks's review against another edition

Hold expired. Will get out of library again when I have more time.