Title - The Cellist of Sarajevo
Author – Steven Galloway
Date of Publication – April 8th, 2008
Number of Pages – 272
I chose The Cellist of Sarajevo because it seemed to be a book that I would like. I talked it over with my English teacher and she said that this book should interest me. I looked up some reviews of the book and they all seemed to have a positive response. I like that this book is more modern so I could try and relate to it as older novels are harder to relate to. I was looking for a book that made me want to read on and always had something interesting to make me think about while reading it.
Although I haven’t started reading, the reviews I have read make me want to start. All of them give a positive response to the book. The majority say that it makes you think about if you were in the situation what would you do. Also that Steven Galloway puts a lot of emotion into his writing, which in turn makes the novel a must read.
A common theme from reading some reviews is fear. Ever since a shell was dropped on the market and killed many people, the population of Sarajevo lives in fear. Remembering the tragedy of what had happened to them they are afraid that it’s going to happen again.
The secondary sources that I have found so far are reviews of the novel. Although they are not professional they all carry great understanding of the book. The interesting thing about the reviews, are that they almost all repeat themselves. The majority gave the book 5/5, only one gave the book 3/5. The reviews that rated the book great all said that the writer, Steven Galloway, puts a great deal of emotion into his writing, making the book a must read. The one review said that by the end they were in tears and very emotional.
“ Why do you suppose he’s there? Is he playing for the people who died? Or is he playing for the people who haven’t? What does he hope to accomplish?” This quote was from one of the reviews I had read but It stuck out to me because I imagined the scene and imagined the horror they went through. I imagined this guy playing his instrument in the agony of his friends deaths at the market. I imagined that this man is so hurt on the inside that he can’t explain it in words but in his music that he plays. I thought that maybe this was his way of talking to his friends that were killed and to make a statement to the people of Sarajevo that this war nonsense needs to stop.
