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A Novel
by John Boyne
Book Reviewed by:A seductive, unputdownable psychodrama following one brilliant, ruthless man who will stop at nothing in his pursuit of success.
Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn't have is talent – but he's not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don't need to be his own.
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful – but desperately lonely – older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice's first novel.
Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall…
Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.
Excerpt
A Ladder to the Sky
I had noticed the boy earlier, a young man of about twenty-two carrying drinks to the tables, for he was very beautiful and it seemed that he had been glancing in my direction as I drank my wine. A startling idea formed in my mind that he was drawn to me physically, even though I knew that such a notion was absurd. I was old, after all, and had never been particularly attractive, not even at his age, when most people have the magnetism of youth to compensate for any physical inadequacies. Since the success of Dread and my subsequent elevation to the ranks of literary celebrity, newspaper portraits had invariably described my face as "lived in" or as "one that has seen its share of troubles," although thankfully they did not know just how deep those troubles ran. I felt no sting from such remarks, however, for I had no personal vanity and had long ago given up on the idea of romance. The yearnings that had threatened to annihilate me throughout my youth had ...
The novel is a marvelous send-up of the contemporary publishing world and the literati. It feels like an insider peek into the industry. Boyne depicts it as a particularly nasty business; if you entertain the notion of becoming a published author, maybe you shouldn't read this novel…but then again, maybe you should...continued
Full Review
(806 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
The main character in John Boyne's novel A Ladder to the Sky plagiarizes others' work to gain his fame and fortune.
Many famous authors have been accused of "borrowing" the writings of others and claiming it as their own work, sometimes even ending up in court. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown, creator of the Robert Langdon series of page-turners, were both sued (unsuccessfully) and had to prove they did not appropriate someone else's stories to make their fortunes. Some acts of plagiarism, though, are not at all subtle and are without question the work of someone other than the acclaimed individual.
Helen Keller (1880-1968) became blind and deaf before the age of two due to an illness. Most know her ...
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The low brow and the high brow
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