December 3, 2023 | Rome, Italy

Charlie Johnson in the Flames

By |2018-03-21T18:27:59+01:00March 1st, 2005|Recent Reviews|

By Michael Ignatieff

Vintage, 2004. 224 pages.

N

o disputing that Ignatieff is a stylish essayist. A brilliant novelist he is not. This Balkans war requiem is sappy and portentous. Its center of gravity — a war correspondent’s driven sense of guilt — is noble enough in theory. In fact, the Charlie of the novel suffers from too much Ignatieff, “defeated by ordinary things, like living in a language that was not his own.” This is a thriller about war crimes and collateral damage that plays false notes from the start.

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