Imagine a church, the attic full of Catholic schoolgirls, the cellar full of whores, and toss a few men in between them to feed them and maintain order...and you get chaos!What I liked: Tell of the rape of Nanking in a better fashion than Nanjin Requiem did, IMO. Nanjin was far too brutal, like a listing of brutality after brutality... This story, though it rarely left the church walls, told what was going on inside and out. Inside, you got a bunch of ungrateful whores that have bullied their way into the church and expect it to be a 5 star resort and though it wasn't conveyed very well, there are romances flourishing.
And the girls upstairs are dealing with conflicting emotions, growing pains, and petty bickering.
The soldier and his scene at the mass execution... WOW.
What I didn't like: Something was muddled in the translation. Badly. Lots of telling, little showing, and a ton of head hopping. Also came off a bit cold. And I sure did hate those whores.
In the end, it felt like a bunch of selfish people who didn't care that they were endangering other people. And sadly, that seems to be humanity.
Three stars. I got this from netgalley.
This cover certainly is gorgeous. I wonder if the film will translate better than the book?
ReplyDeleteAspects of this remind me of that Spanish civil war movie we watched with Ava Gardner.
D