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calealactee's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, and Murder
lotta21's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
becksterhope's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
elisabethslibary's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
blackoxford's review against another edition
5.0
Chess with Tennessee Williams
Reading the Barlach Mysteries is like watching a one-act play by Tennessee Williams while playing chess against Garry Kasparov. The drama is tight as a drum. Every character is perfectly placed. Every move is in the open. But you know you are going to lose in the battle of wits, and you don't know how.
Durrenmatt writes with the precision of ... well, a Swiss watch. But because he tosses in the odd commentary on the Swiss class-system and the snobbery of small countries, he's never stuffy. In these two stories, there's more character development about the scenery than there is about the actors. But this is precisely correct. Each character is an element, a cog, in what are very well running little narrative machines.
Hans Barlach must be unique among fictional detectives. An over-the-hill cop on the verge of both retirement and death. Who has no use for any of the tricks of the trade, neither conventional nor high-tech. Who is more concerned with justice than the law or his conviction record. Who creates the evidence and circumstances he needs. As he says, "It's carelessness that makes the world a bad place." And Barlach is anything but careless.
And he also has something to say about current affairs. Although set in 1948, Barlach predicts, "A single dunce at the head of a world power, and we'll be carried off by the floods." Get your ark ready.
Reading the Barlach Mysteries is like watching a one-act play by Tennessee Williams while playing chess against Garry Kasparov. The drama is tight as a drum. Every character is perfectly placed. Every move is in the open. But you know you are going to lose in the battle of wits, and you don't know how.
Durrenmatt writes with the precision of ... well, a Swiss watch. But because he tosses in the odd commentary on the Swiss class-system and the snobbery of small countries, he's never stuffy. In these two stories, there's more character development about the scenery than there is about the actors. But this is precisely correct. Each character is an element, a cog, in what are very well running little narrative machines.
Hans Barlach must be unique among fictional detectives. An over-the-hill cop on the verge of both retirement and death. Who has no use for any of the tricks of the trade, neither conventional nor high-tech. Who is more concerned with justice than the law or his conviction record. Who creates the evidence and circumstances he needs. As he says, "It's carelessness that makes the world a bad place." And Barlach is anything but careless.
And he also has something to say about current affairs. Although set in 1948, Barlach predicts, "A single dunce at the head of a world power, and we'll be carried off by the floods." Get your ark ready.
piccoline's review against another edition
4.0
Both these novels are very interesting. The first works wonderfully as a subversive take on the detective novel, and includes a truly terrifying character. I won't say who.
The second probably doesn't work quite as well as a pure novel, but features some breathtaking monologues, including one by another terrifying character that makes our safe optimistic beliefs about the progress of humanity fall away, a true void opening beneath the reader's feet. It's worth it for that alone.
Dürrenmatt is a great writer, with a generous way and few illusions. (His play The Visit and novels The Pledge and The Assignment are all worth reading, too.)
Props to University of Chicago Press for getting him back into print, and with new translations.
The second probably doesn't work quite as well as a pure novel, but features some breathtaking monologues, including one by another terrifying character that makes our safe optimistic beliefs about the progress of humanity fall away, a true void opening beneath the reader's feet. It's worth it for that alone.
Dürrenmatt is a great writer, with a generous way and few illusions. (His play The Visit and novels The Pledge and The Assignment are all worth reading, too.)
Props to University of Chicago Press for getting him back into print, and with new translations.
leischa's review against another edition
5.0
Dürrenmatt is such an amazing writer.
"His pain spread out on the sea of his drunkenness like a dark sheet of oil."
"His pain spread out on the sea of his drunkenness like a dark sheet of oil."
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
A policeman is dead and Inspector Barlach has a hunch about the murderer. Bernard Hepton reads Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella.
A policeman is dead and Inspector Barlach has a hunch about the murderer. Bernard Hepton reads Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella.