A review by tammyw14
The Cellist by Daniel Silva
2.0
I rarely write reviews, especially negative ones, and I have never written a negative review about a favorite author. And Daniel Silva is still a favorite, but he’s on “thin ice.”
As I read through my eagerly-awaited copy of “The Order” (book 20) in July 2020, I found myself wondering how Silva would handle the pandemic. “The Order” had been completed prior to the spread of Covid-19, and contained no references to it. “The Order” left me a little dry. I was thinking that he was in need of shaking some things up a bit. It’s like he has built a chassis on which to create Gabriel Allon books, so that they look very different but they are essentially the same vehicle. The pandemic, I thought, provided an opportunity for Daniel Silva to do something truly creative with the series. I’m sure I’m not alone in having wondered numerous times in the last 18 months about how the pandemic and its varying restrictions have affected espionage and counterterrorism efforts. How would the pandemic affect Gabriel Allon and team?
The answer is, not much at all. The author admits as much in the author’s note, in which he says, “I granted myself the license to tell my story without the crushing weight of the pandemic” after acknowledging that he made the effort to locate the story primarily in Switzerland due to its relative lack of lockdown restrictions. So we were given the same old story built on the same chassis, and only perfunctory commentary such as : “unmasked” or “Are you vaccinated?” as window dressing to locate the story during the time of the pandemic. Because that matches the world that I live in in August 2020, a world that is divided into masked vs unmasked, vaccinated vs unvaccinated, virtual vs in-person, I found the window dressing comments to be annoying reminders of my daily life, and the story gave me none of the pizzazz or escapism that I was seeking.
Overall, I was disappointed by what I felt was a missed opportunity to take a series that is in danger of becoming tired and rote, and to do something inventive.
It only got worse when the final 56 pages turned into a summary rebuke of the final two months of the Trump presidency.
I truly don’t mind when novels turn political, as long as they make me think. I don’t care if the commentary matches my personal politics, but make it worth my while. Make me think. If I want the same-old political commentary, I can turn on cable news or any number of podcasts. If you’re going to turn a novel into a retelling of events that are still relatively recent and still very burned into the memories - and therefore still painful - of the average US reader, you had better be ready with something new to offer. If you’re going to hijack my entertainment with current events, you’d better offer me something new, a fresh perspective. This did not happen, and I was left feeling cold. Worse, I felt bored and uninterested.
Ultimately, I rated 2 stars because I will still read the next novel. I have enjoyed this series for many years and do not want to let it go. So many authors I love are making this mistake, that of feeling as though they need to use their platform to make the same points that are being made so many other places, and it’s my dear hope that this is a short-lived phase in popular fiction. So I will read the next one in hopes that reader feedback reaches the author, and he considers a new direction for the next novel.
As I read through my eagerly-awaited copy of “The Order” (book 20) in July 2020, I found myself wondering how Silva would handle the pandemic. “The Order” had been completed prior to the spread of Covid-19, and contained no references to it. “The Order” left me a little dry. I was thinking that he was in need of shaking some things up a bit. It’s like he has built a chassis on which to create Gabriel Allon books, so that they look very different but they are essentially the same vehicle. The pandemic, I thought, provided an opportunity for Daniel Silva to do something truly creative with the series. I’m sure I’m not alone in having wondered numerous times in the last 18 months about how the pandemic and its varying restrictions have affected espionage and counterterrorism efforts. How would the pandemic affect Gabriel Allon and team?
The answer is, not much at all. The author admits as much in the author’s note, in which he says, “I granted myself the license to tell my story without the crushing weight of the pandemic” after acknowledging that he made the effort to locate the story primarily in Switzerland due to its relative lack of lockdown restrictions. So we were given the same old story built on the same chassis, and only perfunctory commentary such as : “unmasked” or “Are you vaccinated?” as window dressing to locate the story during the time of the pandemic. Because that matches the world that I live in in August 2020, a world that is divided into masked vs unmasked, vaccinated vs unvaccinated, virtual vs in-person, I found the window dressing comments to be annoying reminders of my daily life, and the story gave me none of the pizzazz or escapism that I was seeking.
Overall, I was disappointed by what I felt was a missed opportunity to take a series that is in danger of becoming tired and rote, and to do something inventive.
It only got worse when the final 56 pages turned into a summary rebuke of the final two months of the Trump presidency.
I truly don’t mind when novels turn political, as long as they make me think. I don’t care if the commentary matches my personal politics, but make it worth my while. Make me think. If I want the same-old political commentary, I can turn on cable news or any number of podcasts. If you’re going to turn a novel into a retelling of events that are still relatively recent and still very burned into the memories - and therefore still painful - of the average US reader, you had better be ready with something new to offer. If you’re going to hijack my entertainment with current events, you’d better offer me something new, a fresh perspective. This did not happen, and I was left feeling cold. Worse, I felt bored and uninterested.
Ultimately, I rated 2 stars because I will still read the next novel. I have enjoyed this series for many years and do not want to let it go. So many authors I love are making this mistake, that of feeling as though they need to use their platform to make the same points that are being made so many other places, and it’s my dear hope that this is a short-lived phase in popular fiction. So I will read the next one in hopes that reader feedback reaches the author, and he considers a new direction for the next novel.