The Cellist of Sarajevo book review
The Cellist of Sarajevo is a national bestseller written by the Canadian author Steven Galloway. Galloway wrote books, which won literary prizes like his famous novel Ascension which was published in 2003, and won the BC Book Price. The Guardian says that The Cellist of Sarajevo is "the work of an expert". The book’s idea is from the story of the famous cellist Vedran Smailovi? who watched a shell kill 22 people waiting for bread. This shell, which exploded in Sarajevo, is part of the Bosnian war. The war was from 1992-1995 and was largely fueled by ethnic and religious conflicts. Since the book is a historical fiction, the three main characters are made up and just as many other people they try to survive in the fighting city.
Because Galloway was using temporal distortion for this book, all main characters have a whole different story which ends at the same time; in every story the cellist is centered. The novel uses in media res, which brings the reader right into the story. It makes the book very exciting right towards the beginning. In fact the story starts right in the middle of the war at the moment when Arrow who is one of the three main characters, tries to shoot a soldier.
Since the book shows the changes Arrow goes through in her live, she is a very dynamic character. Because Galloway starts the book in the usage of in media res, he shows the changes Arrow had to go through due to the war through flashbacks. Arrow seems to be a very skilled and strong character because “Arrow herself is a weapon”, that is what she thinks of herself and that is what she is. At the beginning of the story she is full of hatred, but the mission to protect the cellist and the power of music makes her the care free girl she use to be before the war.
Kenan, the second of the three main characters, is a middle-aged man who is trying to survive the war with his family. He is a very loving and optimistic father, who tries to get water for his family from an old brewery. He is scared of dying, but he does not want his family to see that he is scared. Because of the regular trips in Sarajevo, and the repeating of putting himself into the position of dying or living is making him think that “luck or fate or whatever it is that decides who lives and who doesn’t.” After Kenan hears the cellist play, and realized that he was becoming a “Ghost”, his character similar to Arrow’s changes.
Similarly to Kenan, who has to survive in Sarajevo, is Dragan, a 64 year old baker whose family left to Italy when the war started. Because Drangan’s story is only one day long, Galloway describes his thoughts in more detail than the thoughts of the other characters. On the day when his story takes place, he is crossing a street and an enemy soldier is shooting at him. After that he is too scared to cross the street again. While Dragan waits for the feeling that the street is saver, he thinks about himself and life in general. While waiting he meets an old friend who is in her character very different to his. The different opinion of live she has, helps him with his thoughts and actions he makes later.
Well done from Galloway is the usage of in media res. Because he starts the book with Arrow who is in the middle of a shelling attack, Galloway makes the reader wanting to continue the book. Even though the book does not have an introduction, the author shows the stories that happened before the novel starts through flashbacks. The flashbacks that show memories of the past are very often in Arrows story, like this one that shows her character before the war “Ten years ago, when she was eighteen ...she borrowed her father’s car” and thinking of her grandmother, “tears began to slide down her cheek”. This example that shows her felling before the war also shows how she changed during the war. In summary Galloway wrote the novel very exciting and with many deep and meaningful thoughts.