The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

by Tom Rachman

High-quality intellectual! Yes, I mean you! You are thinking: What is Rise & Fall of Great Powers? Is history book? No! Is book for give big muscles? No, no! (After read this book, you still contain only small muscles. Sorry.) It is NOVEL about entire of world in last quarter-century, from end of Cold War, to up and down of America power, to tech revolution of today. But mostly, is novel about my favourite person, Tooly Zylberberg, and secrets of her life.

I am careful now - danger I say too much. I give only bit more: Tooly is bookseller in countryside of Wales. Always, she is reading. But one story she never understand: story of her past. When she is girl, strange items happen. She is taken away, around Asia, Europe, America, for many years with mystery persons. Why for? I cannot say on back of book!

One of mystery persons is me, Humphrey, old man from Russia who cheats in Ping-Pong and eats avocados. There is Sarah, who drives us crazy, and not in good way. Also, there is Duncan and Fogg and potbelly pig. And there is Venn, who is most mystery person of all.

The boy who write this book, his name is Tom Rachman. Maybe you hear of his first novel, The Imperfectionists? Bestseller book, publish in many language. Rise & Fall is very beauty follow-up. When you read it, you visit late Eighties, also Year 2000, also today; you see Bangkok, you see Brooklyn, you see bordertowns - also many places that are not begin with letter 'B'.

What novel this is! Not for trivial beings, but I don't worry: just to look at you, I can tell you have very large brain. So, what you wait?

Spanning three decades and criss-crossing the globe, THE RISE AND FALL OF GREAT POWERS is the story of Tooly Zylberberg and how she got to a second-hand bookshop in Wales via the streets of Manhattan and downtown Bangkok. This novel, dazzling in its scope and inventiveness, is peopled by an extraordinary array of unforgettable characters, from Humphrey the chess-playing Russian émigré to Venn, Tooly's shadowy protector.

• ISBN10: 1444752340
• ISBN13: 9781444752342
• Publish Date: 29 May 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 1 March 2017
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Sceptre
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Lianne]

I was approved of an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/06/02/review-the-rise-fall-of-great-powers/

The premise of this novel sounded promising but ultimately felt lacklustre. The first few chapters set up the mystery of Tooly’s life in an interesting manner but after a few more chapters, I felt like my confusion was not abating while not getting as much answers for the effort, which then made for an irritating reading experience. I don’t mind stories that bound back and forth between time periods but I couldn’t see much of the connection between one time line and another save for the fact that all of these fragments make up Tooly’s life.

Unfortunately I did not find the characters interesting either. Despite of the mystery surrounding Tooly’s very strange childhood, she did not resonate to me as a character, as though her personality was just as lost as her past. Other characters didn’t resonate much either, save for Humphrey. The only element of this novel that I enjoyed (and that saved it from a lower rating to be honest) was the Humphrey-Tooly relationship which was especially evident in the 2011 storyline. Amidst the fluctuations of almost all of the adults in Tooly’s life growing up, her relationship with Humphrey was the most solid; she learned from him and he was her companion.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers ultimately was just a convoluted read. I never connected with the characters, the flashbacks and flashforwards were not always intriguing or added to the overarching story, and the final big revelation behind mystery was also a letdown; I was expecting a much more complex explanation behind the constant moving around, switching of hands, even a far more sinister explanation than the one readers got. Tooly’s bookshop was a nice setting amidst all of the globe-trotting, though I’m not entirely sure why the novel is considered really bookish; names and titles are dropped but they only serve to bind the characters of Humphrey and Tooly together.