Thursday 30 October 2014

Review of God's Buried Children

God's Buried Children by Daniel Farcas.
The first pages of this book are a catalogue of callousness, unremitting cruelty in many forms against the 'unwanted' children that were incarcerated in an orphanage. All of this came about because of Nicolae Ceauscu's wish to increase the population. It is harrowing, where escape from hell was less preferable to living underground in the sewers of Bucharest. Here they lived in filth and contamination. The 'nicknamed' individuals all had their own story and there could be more about each one and what they did.
It is a tale of oppression under communism. Its brutality and corruption even after the communist regime had been over-run. In some ways it is a love story and then definitely becomes one. Anyway that is how I perceive it to be.
The first part is chronicled by Vlad who keeps an account of people and events. The only escapee is Daniel who finds true love, a new life and a family in America.
There are only 137 pages and there should have been more detail with the 'players' being better painted in our imagination. The second part is interesting not just for the ending, but for the profoundness of it. I suppose the culmination of a small triumph of good over evil.
How true is it? I don't know. A better telling would have helped enormously. If this a genuine article by a second-language writer then - a very well done.

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