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A Game with Sharpened Knives
1941. Murder is in the air. Ireland is a country not truly at peace, either with Germany or with its neighbor across the Irish Sea. Erwin Schrödinger, cosmopolitan intellectual and emotional enigma, is living in cramped exile on the outskirts of Dublin with his wife, his lover, and his child. Haunted by his past and by mysterious threats in the present, Schrödinger is about to find out that nothing in this tense and isolated city is quite as it seems.
336 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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October 21, 2007http://nhw.livejournal.com/717126.html[return][return]A fascinating, multilayered novel about the physicist Erwin Schr
April 4, 2008
bored me, dropped after 5 pages
August 31, 2009
I found this book rather hard going - but in the end I think it was worth it. I think.
October 15, 2018
From a book that supposedly has it all (drama, romance, mystery, history and more) I have to admit I am quite disappointed. The reason is very simple: it’s boring.
How is it possible for the story of an Austrian physicist who lives and loves in 1941 Dublin during the Emergency with suspicion and melancholia around every corner to be boring is indeed a good question.
However, the characters, Erwin Schrodinger and a bunch of pale figures merely drafted, do not elicit any sympathy and the plotline is irregular and hard to follow as the novel has no chapters and the narration pops in and out of Schrodinger’s days, memories, thoughts and conversations.
How is it possible for the story of an Austrian physicist who lives and loves in 1941 Dublin during the Emergency with suspicion and melancholia around every corner to be boring is indeed a good question.
However, the characters, Erwin Schrodinger and a bunch of pale figures merely drafted, do not elicit any sympathy and the plotline is irregular and hard to follow as the novel has no chapters and the narration pops in and out of Schrodinger’s days, memories, thoughts and conversations.
May 5, 2016
I always feel like I've missed something in books like this one. As far as I could tell, nothing really happened: there was a lot of description, a few meanders into memory, and then the book was over.
The idea of this book was intriguing, because I don't know a lot of information about Ireland during the war, and Schroedinger, as a character, had a lot of potential. While I learned a little about him, his personality fell flat and I struggled to finish the book.
The prose was lovely in places. That's the best I can say.
The idea of this book was intriguing, because I don't know a lot of information about Ireland during the war, and Schroedinger, as a character, had a lot of potential. While I learned a little about him, his personality fell flat and I struggled to finish the book.
The prose was lovely in places. That's the best I can say.
September 7, 2012
Wonderful book. Lingers in the mind after finishing. Captures perfectly the Ireland of the time with dispassion. Schrodinger is a fabulous character on a par with Bloom.
October 5, 2012
Finally finished after a few fits and starts. I don't pretend to understand any of the science, but the writing is amazing. I'll look for more by this author, that's for sure.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews