IN THE MEMORY OF THE FOREST : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Never forget the horrors of the past
Review: I'm glad this title popped up in my Recommended Reading list. I don't think i'd ever have discoerved it otherwise. Powers' story of struggle, secrets unearthed, and betrayals in a Polish farm town forced to remember their haunted history is one of the most memorable books I've read this year. The book is a microcosm of post Communism Poland that offers a look into the town's politics, the clergy in the Catholic Church, the daily doings of several farmers, the importance of the veterinarian in a farm community, a quick visit to Warsaw's black market traders, and the haunted past of the forgotten Jews of WW II era Poland. I only wish there were more novels like this one about our own country. The United States has its own history of shame and continues to hide its face when it comes to the slaughter of gang youth in poverty ridden, nearly forgotten corners of our urban landscape; the criminal activity people are forced into in order to survive in a greedy, capitalist! , profit-hungry country that shows indifference to its hard working labor force. Maybe Powers was trying to show us that, in many ways, we Americans have much in common with modern Poland. Certainly this is one of the more important novels to be published recently and it deserves a wide readership.

Rating:
Summary: Crystalline Prose that Will Break Your Heart
Review: The story of a young man coming of age, discovering love and lies, ambition and murder in a town that cannot admit its past or face its present. Set in Poland as communism collapses, the rupture of old foundations reveal the townspeople to be what they would forget.While one of the book's larger themes is what the Nazis, and by complicity, the Polish people, did to the Jewish population during the Second World War, it is not "a Holocaust book." Rather it is an absorbing murder and love story; a murder that begins the novel and whose investigation provides its framework, a love story that will leave the reader in tears, reminded what the world should be but is not. It is a rare book, one that impels its reader onward with a gripping narrative but repeatedly brings the reader to a halt to reflect on the beauty and lyricism of its prose.

Rating:
Summary: A Polish murder-mystery
Review: Those who like to read books about Poland (there must be a few of us out there) will find that Charles Powers' "In the Memory of the Forest" is a pleasant surprise. This book is a real dark horse. It doesn't appear to be widely known (I found it for sale on the used-book cart at my local library) and it's the only novel that Powers ever wrote. But the lesser known works are sometimes the most satisfying reads.

"In the Memory of the Forest" is a murder-mystery set in the small farming village of Jadowia, somewhere to the northeast of Warsaw. The book is skillfully written, with an interesting plot, a few twists here and there, and an ending that's both disturbing and reassuring. Poland's role in the Holocaust is the dark and provocative background for the novel. What I liked most about the book is that Powers (a former journalist who lived in Warsaw for five years) captures the personality of Poland better than other authors who have attempted this same task, e.g., James Michener, Lily Brett. My only complaint is that many of the characters are too clearly cast as "good guys" or "bad guys," without a chance for them to surprise you with the other sides of their personalities. A Polish murder-mystery is a narrow genre, which most people wouldn't be inclined to read. But if you're daring enough to tackle those tricky Polish pronunciations, you'll probably be glad that you read this book.