The Statement, published in 1996, is a complex story of a man who has been on the run for many many years. The story is told in such a way that the reader’s sympathies may suddenly shift, and there are many surprises. (This is a good thing for this reader.)
I found that many of the opening first lines of chapters were quite cumbersome. The combination of names, titles, and places could have been refined.
That’s the only criticism though – the book is full of intriguing characters and situations. It’s hard to review this one without giving anything away so I’ll close with: A recommended read.
February 3, 2008 at 9:29 pm |
The Statement was my first Moore. I agree it’s fabulous. I’ll reread it when I finished all the others. I can also recommend the film starring Michael Caine.
February 8, 2008 at 11:48 pm |
Definitely looking forward to this one. Thanks, Colette, Lizzy.
January 12, 2009 at 9:30 pm |
I am a French man, but I like the Irish writers, I read few Brian Moore books. I made a personnal review pour « Lies of Silence » Les trahisons du silence, and « The Statement » La déclaration.
Sorry but I read in French!
Faithfully
Yvon
June 25, 2009 at 6:56 pm |
I interrupted my chronological read of Moore’s work to skip ahead and read one of the later ones. I was disappointed to see that the brilliant, idiosyncratic literary novelist of the earlier books had, in his later years, evidently morphed into a fairly run-of-the-mill “commercial fiction/thriller” type writer.
Interestingly, this same transformation befell one of my other favorite writers, Evan Hunter, whose early (and largely out of print) literary novels gave way to fairly formulaic (and, incidentally, far more successful) potboilers in later life.
Anyway, “The Statement” excepted, I am as far as “The Emperor of Ice Cream” in the chronology, and as I continue, I’ll be interested to see at what point the “1st Moore” vanishes and the “2nd Moore” takes over. I hope it isn’t for several more books.:)