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The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers 2

by Tom Rachman
Paperback
Publication Date: 28/05/2014
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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$28.75
Who is Tooly Zylberberg? How did she end up running a second-hand bookstore in Wales? The Russian emigre Humphrey teaches her to play chess, but how does he fit in? Or Sarah who turns up without warning and then disappears again? And what about Venn, the shadowy and charismatic figure who seems to be one step ahead of everybody?


Spanning three decades, and taking us from Bangkok to Brooklyn to the border towns of Wales, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a story about how mystifying the past can be, and how the lives we lead can seem indecipherable even to us. It's a story about unexpected connections and the revelations that change everything.


The Rise and Fall of Great Powers will consolidate Rachman's reputation as one of the most assured and exciting young writers alive.
ISBN:
9781922147875
9781922147875
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
28-05-2014
Language:
English
Publisher:
Text Publishing
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
384
Dimensions (mm):
234x153x29mm
Weight:
0.54kg
Tom Rachman

Tom Rachman was born in London in 1974 and grew up in Vancouver. His first novel, The Imperfectionists, was an international bestseller, published in more than 20 languages.

Both novels so far have been feted by critics, who compared him to Charles Dickens, Evelyn Waugh and Anton Chekhov. He lives in London.

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Reviews

4.5

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2 Reviews

Recently Ive started my reading/reviewing process differently. I go to Goodreads and find a one or two star review (hopefully one without spoilers) and learn exactly how bad the book can be. Then I open the book and start to read. What happens? I am almost always pleasantly surprised.

This is the case with Tom Rachmans The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. After reading the bad review I expected to be bored and confused. However, after finishing the book, I found the writing and story to be engaging and really easy to follow.

Tooly Zylberberg had an unconventional childhood. She was raised by a group of drifters, thieves and scoundrels after she was taken from her home in Maryland. Now in her early thirties she is the owner of a second hand bookstore in Wales. After her ex-boyfriend calls to say that her father is ill, she decides to venture to New York to confront the characters from her past and learn the truth about her upbringing.

The novel alternates between 1988, 1999 and 2011. Some say that this alternating structure is confusing, and while there is an array of colourful characters, they are so distinct that I didnt feel at all lost.

While the story is a mystery, at the heart of the novel are the characters. Humphrey, an old Russian intellectual and great reader; Sarah a flighty and flirtatious groupie; Paul a rather odd bird enthusiast; Venn the mysterious and charismatic leader of the group, and many others you will love and/or hate.

It is interesting to follow Tooly through her discoveries and you realise that events from her childhood did not actually happen as she remembered them. The fallibility of memory, especially when we were young, is a core theme of the book. How well do we really know the people who raised us?

This is an enjoyable read with some breath-taking prose and philosophical ideas.

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The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is the second full-length novel by British-born journalist and author, Tom Rachman. At the age of thirty, Tooly Zylerberg, a woman with a very unconventional past, buys a bookshop in Caergenog, a small village in Wales. A few years later, as she works in her slowly-failing business, Tooly receives an email that draws her back to New York, back to her past. Toolys history is gradually revealed as the narrative switches between three distinct time periods: in 1988, Tooly is in Bangkok with Paul; in 1999/2000, she is living in New York with Humphrey; and 2011 Tooly travels New York and further. The slow reveal makes for plenty of intrigue as the reader wonders about the unusual characters that people Toolys life and the transitions between those three significant phases described. Rachman fills his novel with memorable individuals, few of whom turn out to be quite what they first seem: Tooly herself, quirky, funny and highly individual; the emotionally undemonstrative yet deeply caring Paul; the enigmatic and very charismatic Venn; the Russian ex-pat Humphrey, who teaches Tooly to play chess and cements her love of books; the volatile, unpredictable Sarah, full of mercurial moods and melodrama, flitting in and out of Toolys life; the steady, stable Duncan, lawyer and music enthusiast; the somewhat eccentric Welshman, Fogg; and the opinionated Emerson, (a mediocrity in search of an admiration society). Rachmans varied cast offer opinions on historic events, current affairs and life in general (.progress played a trick. It presented the ultimate gluttony of all: those double clicks that turned everyone into rodents pressing buttons for the next sugar pellet. People who used to deride the losers for watching ten hours of TV a day wont hesitate to click a mouse for longer and People did not see the world for what it was, but for what they were). His descriptive prose is wonderfully evocative (To the right lay England: quilted countryside seamed by hedgerows and trees, every field fenced in and farmed. To the left was Wales: a tangle of rambling green, flinty farmhouses, forbidding woods and The disquiet of others was an undiscovered force alongside gravity that, rather than pulling downwards, emanated outward from its source and In the hotel lobby, a brass revolving door swallowed Tooly, spat her into the metropolis, her entrance punctuated by doormen whistling for cabs and the bap-bap-bap of horns). Readers will laugh out loud (especially at Humphreys mangling of idiomatic expressions and his theory of baldness in Russian politics) and be moved to tears as Tooly finally uncovers her past. Certain passages will resonate with lovers of print books: People kept their books, she thought, not because they were likely to read them again, but because these objects contained the past the texture of being oneself at a particular place, at a particular time, each volume a piece of ones intellect and Books, he said, are like mushrooms. They grow when you are not looking. Books increase by rule of compound interest: one interest leads to another interest, and this compounds into third. Next, you have so much interest there is no space in closet and To disappear into pages was to be blissfully obliterated. For the duration, all that existed was her companions in print; her own life went still. Rachman touches on diverse topics: print books in the digital age; the idea of meritocracy; the link between vulnerability and courage; the legacy we leave when we die; the power of others to influence our view of life. The cover art of books end-on is cleverly done. This novel is both funny and thought-provoking: it will prompt readers to seek out Rachmans earlier works to experience more of his unique style.

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