When the Doves Disappeared. By Sofi Oksanen. Translated by Lola Rogers. Knopf; 320 pages; $25.95. Atlantic; £12.99.
BETRAYAL, secrecy and memory are the haunting themes of Sofi Oksanen’s accomplished new novel. Like her previous work, “Purge”, it features the history of Estonia at the moment when it was caught between Stalin’s hammer and Hitler’s anvil in the second world war.
Most readers will start the book with only a hazy grasp of the intricacies of Baltic history—a brief but traumatic Soviet annexation followed by a selectively lethal German invasion, and then renewed Soviet occupation which lasted until 1991. But they will be gripped by the dilemmas it created for Estonians, and the ways they are resolved in the book: through bravery, hypocrisy and denial, leading to a mysterious murder. The political and personal dilemmas are elegantly echoed in a subplot involving sexual identity.
Details are provided lightly: they tantalise rather than intrude (though a helpful glossary is provided at the end of the book). The title comes from the bitter winter when hungry German soldiers ate even the pigeons in the capital, Tallinn.
Ms Oksanen’s characterisation is similarly sparse, but flawless. The abandoned and sex-starved Juudit takes a seemingly sympathetic Nazi lover. The ghastly and mendacious Edgar starts life...
from The Economist: Books and arts http://ift.tt/1Gz91Ca
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