Pavel & I

by Dan Vyleta

Berlin, 1946. During one of the coldest winters on record, Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue British Army colonel and a Soviet General when a friend deposits the frozen body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment. So begins the race to take possession of the spy's secret, a race which threatens Pavel's friendship with a street orphan named Anders and his budding love for Sonia, his enigmatic upstairs neighbour. As the action hurtles towards catastrophe, the hunt merges with one for the truth about the novel's protagonist: who exactly is Pavel Richter?

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Germany, Thriller, War, World War II, Historical

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Born to Czech emigre parents, Dan Vyleta is an inveterate migrant who has lived in Germany, Canada, the USA and the UK. Dan’s debut novel Pavel & I gathered immediate international acclaim and was translated into eight languages. His second novel, The Quiet Twin, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; his third, The Crooked Maid, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and winner of the J.I. Segal Award. His writing has been compared to works by Greene, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Hitchcock, Nabokov, Murnau and Grass, giving him some modicum of hope that he has found a voice all his own. When not reading or writing novels, Dan Vyleta watches cop shows, or listens to CDs from his embarrassingly large collection of Jazz albums.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pavel & I is a grotesque and dark mystery boasting a bleak gothic atmosphere… It is, probably, too thin on the side of plausibility but plausibility doesn’t mean a thing here…

It was during this time that the pain in his kidneys grew worst. They sat in him like stones, cold against his skin. He would trace their outlines gingerly, lying face down upon his bed. Every half-hour or so they bid him get up, his kidneys, walked him over to the corner and pushed him to his knees in front of his chamber pot’s blood-flecked rim.

Dan Vyleta seems to wear his influences on his sleeve… Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Thomas Pynchon stand in line at his door…

It certainly didn’t look good. The midget was four foot one, maybe four two, Boyd had had to bend him to make him fit. Not that he wasn’t bent enough already. As far as Pavel could tell both legs were broken, and one of the arms, at elbow and wrist, and some of the head was missing, too. The body was leaking blood from all ends; it had soaked into his expensive tan suit and gave him a jellyfish slipperiness that sent a wave of nausea through Pavel’s guts. Quickly, ashamed of himself, he turned the face over, but, of course, he didn’t recognize it. He did not know any midgets. There was a pencil moustache and the teeth were broken. Inside lolled a serrated tongue.
Gently, getting down into a crouch to do it, Pavel closed the lid of the trunk, then limped over to the sink to scrub his hands.

Everything keeps revolving around this corpse… The tale is gruesomely gory…
The scenery is borrowed from Gravity's Rainbow… Boy Anders – from Oliver Twist… Sonia the Whore – from Crime and Punishment…

Out east, in an unmarked office, an aristocratic officer in a Bolshevik greatcoat is poring over questions distinctly related to those on Pavel’s interrogators’ minds; poring over them in the form of a surprisingly thick secret-service file entitled ‘Richter, Jean P.’ while his young adjutant, Lev, stands in one corner and plays Russian folk on a well-worn fiddle.

“The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.” Psalm 37:32

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You can convince yourself of all sorts of things”

When a friend pushed a copy of “Pavel and I” on me and told me to read it, I had no idea what I was in for. This text is not what I anticipated and it exceeded any expectations I had for it. “Pavel and I” takes place in postwar Berlin in the winter of 1946/47. The frigid setting is vividly rendered. The book itself seems cold to the touch. It is a literary thriller, but that seems an inadequate descriptor.
This was my first book by Dan Vyleta, but it will not be my last. “Pavel and I” was Vyleta’s first novel, and it is a remarkable debut. His writing is unique in style, thoughtful in content, and clever in its plotting and presentation. The novel is heavily influenced by Dickens and Dostoevsky (according to the author’s afterward) and Vyleta’s clever use of the narrator in this text is well executed. The novel's enigmatic protagonist will leave you with questions. I’ll let you unravel that for yourself, go read it, rather than me pontificate on it.

Here are some moments/quotes in the text that I really enjoyed:
"Pavel suffered from that terminal disease called empathy, forever trying to exchange points of view even with the boot that kicked him.”

“…his tongue kept tripping over the edge of words…”

“I have often noticed that the past adds a sense of clarity to affect; in the present, one too often strains to feel anything much at all.”

“Unsure whether to be touched by her bout of sentimentality, or see it as but another symptom of a life so very barren of tenderness, one had to invent emotion, against all the evidence.”

“You imagine it: a storyteller locked out of his own tale. It turns one into a historian, that retrospective scrounger of fact. I cannot think of a more sordid occupation.”

“Against this rich canvas of history, my prime interest, of course, lay with the life paths that had so recently intersected with my own.”

“The thing is, when does one ever get to do that? To talk of the essential things, all those thoughts and experiences a man shuts up in his chest and gags on for half his life? They don’t spill out but once or twice in a lifetime- and very often not at all.”

“You can convince yourself of all sorts of things.”

“Pavel and I” is a well written novel, a good story, a skillfully and uniquely told tale. There is more to it than meets the eye. I love when a book swoops in out of nowhere and does that to me. I am excited to read more of Mr. Vyleta’s books.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am long of frame and grumpy of disposition. Thus, when wedged into a bus seat during the inevitable holiday trip to the family, I find a well-done novel set during the grimmest moments of modern history really hits the spot because such a novel of this type can be both diverting and can pointedly remind that, however long and congested the New Jersey turnpike seems to be, it is not nearly as bad as European capitals were immediately after World War II.

So this year I read City of Thieves (set in Leningrad) on the way towards the ancestral homestead; this novel (Berlin) passed the time very satisfactorily on the way back.

The novels starts a bit of the busy side, what with the swift introduction of a dead mobster-spy-dwarf in a steamer trunk, a gang of feral youth, a pet monkey, and sundry intelligence operatives and prostitutes, shoved onstage pretty quickly to get your attention focused. But soon things settle down a little and we’re off on a nicely-plotted adventure in search, eventually, of the inevitable microfilm.

I read somewhere that, if a playwright mentions a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the last act. The monkey served that purpose here. In the last act, the monkey goes off, metaphorically speaking.

There’s some nice post-modern writerly tricks in here too, including shuffling time back and forth and starting with a narrator who seems at first third-person omniscient but in the end turns out to be a character in the story.

Worth a read if a grim story is your thing. Of course, it's not really any grimmer than holidays with the family.

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

ברלין פוסט מלחמת העולם השניה, חורף 1946 - 1947, מחולקת בין הרוסים, האמריקאים והאנגלים. אומנם המלחמה נגמרה, אבל מאבק כוחות על השליטה ועל הידע הגרמני מתנהלים בעוז ובדבקות וכל האמצעים כשרים במאבק הזה: שימוש בנשים, ילדים רעבים, רצח והרג.

בתודות, כותב דן ויילטה ש"פאבל ואני" היא יצירה ספרותית שהעובדות הסיפוריות בה בדויות אך עובדות רבות על תנאי החיים בברלין תוארו במידה רבה של דיוק. והדיוק הזה מצמרר. שווה לקרוא את הספר לא בגלל הערך הספרותי שלו, כי ככזה הוא עוד ספר מתח בסדר, אלא בגלל התיאורים של האווירה ותנאי החיים. בגלל חבורת הילדים המונהגת ע"י פולשן, ילדים שנלחמים על קיומם בעיר קפואה ורעבה, שאין בה רחמים.

"פאבל ואני", דן ויילטה

הוצאת כנרת, זמורה ביתן, 2011, 316 עמ'

תרגום יונתן פיין

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Pavel and I’ really graps you from the very beginning and has a nice build up. It is a bit like peeling an onion. The more you peel, the more details you come to know and the more you are able to build the story inside your head. And there are lots of interesting people and situations that keep you intrigued– the cast of characters is really amazing. Moreover Vyleta has a very dry sort of humour that works very well with the story and the sometimes absurd situations in which Vyleta places his characters.

Despite the author mixing a third person with a first person narration - which can be very confusing – the device actually works very well with this story. In fact the first person narration – the ‘I’ in the title, an one-eyed Brit called Peterson – is well aware that there are holes in his account. The reader however knows the answer on the question that makes Peterson travel all the way to the US, many years after his path was by accident crossed by Pavel.

Pavel is actually dragged into the story due to a friend and as the story evolves the reader becomes aware that little is known about Pavel. On the one hand we come to know more about the why and how and on the other hand we are faced with the fact that we know little or almost nothing about the main character, and what we know is most likely not the whole truth. I suppose some readers will feel the story isn’t complete in this way. But in my opinion it is as we know the plot and the rest is just personal interpretation. I kind of like the fact that Vyleta gives his readers room for personal interpretation.

Vyleta gives Pavel in this way a mythical dimension. The characters of general Fosko and Söldmann are very much myths as well. What we actually know of Fosko and Söldman is what we know from other characters in the story and what these characters know is based on rumours. And this gives an interesting view in what stories are made of, because this is after all a story says Vyleta in his afterword. A story that puts history and human interaction in an interesting perspective.

The setting Berlin after the war is perfect – because where else than in a war situation can people and stories become myths.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third of Dan Vyleta's books I read (though the first he wrote) and I really enjoyed it. At times, I couldn't put it down and, at others, I couldn't pick it up for fear of what potentially gruesome thing might happen next. Set in 1946 post-war Berlin this beautifully written book contains a cast of characters including a German "midget" working for the Russians, a mysterious ex-GI who befriends a 12 year old German street urchin, a piano playing prostitute who is being kept by a vile English Colonel and various others who sprinkle their lies and life into the mix. Add to this an omniscient first-person narrator who arrives late to the party whose narrative is based mostly on others' accounts and you have a fascinating spy thriller which grips your attention throughout. And the description of life in freezing Berlin, controlled by the Russians, British and Americans, where life is cheap, food is hard to find and cigarettes are currency will open your eyes to the reality of the immediate aftermath of WW2 on the citizens of Germany. Definitely worth a read. It will change you.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

My coworker put this in my hands saying it was their favorite book. Heavy expectations.

We work at the library and there is no copy in the system. They happened upon the book while working in a bookstore. Now I need to buy a lending copy.

It's fabulous. The characters are nuanced, the gritty-ass setting is much like Gravity's Rainbow zone... the post-war underworld of Berlin... there were many surprises and most of all that Vyleta fellow is a year my junior and writes with a world-weary wisdom that caused me envy. Loved it.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a two-piece right behind Alone In Berlin by Hans Fallada, two novels almost knitted together by their respective timelines, Pavel & I picking up literally months after Alone In Berlin ends and it worked very well. The Berlin of Fallada towers with menacing power, paranoia and a glimmer of hope in the form of the hot coals of resistance. Vyleta's Berlin is a place of rubble, frozen in place by the hideously wrought Berlin winter of 1946 which I had read about before as history but have never seen so brutally wrought. Here, blood freezes on the face and the population, torn in three directions by occupying powers is too cold to be paranoid; or at least that paranoia is exhausted now by suffering.

Still, it was perhaps a little hard on Pavel & I to read it right behind a novel as wonderful as Alone In Berlin, although it very nearly stands the comparison. To shattered even to weep, the protagonists in this novel are live in a world that is almost bereft of the hope that buoys those characters in the first novel. What hope there is is wound, for each of the three other major characters, around the eponymous Pavel. This seems unreasonable - the narrator, who assures us his love for Pavel is entirely platonic, takes time to describe in detail the hue of Pavel's buttocks. He is a father, a lover and a friend to as rag-tag a bunch as has been imagined outside of Dickens (with whom Vyleta is mildly obsessed).

This makes not much sense until the very, very end of the novel when it almost comes together in a very clever way which all but satisfies. This near satisfaction is reasonable given the way the narration slowly unwinds as the novel progresses, taught and anonymous for the first hundred pages, increasingly untrustworthy and florid as the novel concludes. This novel is structured beautifully, wonderfully well written with finely realised characters and you could definitely do a lot worse than to spend a week with it.

I dithered about the five star rating, because it isn't as good as Alone In Berlin, but, to be fair, what is? And what flaws the novel appears to betray are carefully gathered in the final pages and given irrefutable explanations.

Even if they remain wholly unexplained.

[⚔️Kelanth⚔️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A volte si fanno strani e piacevoli incontri in libreria e non mi riferisco all'opposto sesso per dispensare consigli di lettura che portano ad uscite conviviali.
Mi riferisco a quei libri che non vengono esposti nelle vetrine, nei tavoli all'ingresso o negli espositori messi apposta tra i passi del lettore che entra in libreria. A volte spulciando negli scaffali, si trovano delle chicche che non vengono spinte dalle case editrici senza nessun motivo apparente.
In particolare questo "L'Uomo di Berlino", che si svolge appena dopo la fine della seconda guerra mondiale, in una Berlino occupata e divisa tra le varie forze di occupazione, i liberatori dell'oppressione nazista: i russi, i francesi, gli inglesi... padroni di una città distrutta, prostrata dalla fame, dalle bombe, dai soprusi dei cosidetti "liberatori".
Berlino è una città incurabile dalle profonde ferite. Molti edifici sono crollati, quelli che rimangono in piedi sono a metà, come ubriachi che si appoggiano al cielo. Gli abitanti ormai sono gusci vuoti che vagano senza dimora tra i relitti della loro splendida città, vendendo quello che possiedono, molte volte il loro stesso corpo, per un pezzo di pane.
Anche a Pavel Richter non resta più nulla, a parte i suoi libri, un ragazzino orfano, il suo passaporto americano, la sua intelligenza e una brutta infezione ai reni; Pavel è un uomo che nasconde probabilmente uno strano passato e quando il suo migliore amico busserà alla porta con un cadavere in una valigia, scopriremo che non tutto quello sembra, è, in realtà.
Segreti e misteri si rincorrono tra queste pagine dense di emozioni e suspense che segnano l’esordio di questo nuovo autore, anche se ho visto che dai nostri amici americani su Gr è presente un altro suo libro (che attenderò con ansia nella sua traduzione); autore che coinvince, diverte, emoziona e getta luce su un periodo, quello della liberazione, che non fu per tutti la parola fine alla miserie della guerra.
Consigliato a tutti.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berlin in December, 1946 was struggling through its second post-war winter. Conditions were barely livable in the city; 7 years of war had left the inhabitants living in rubble. Feral children lived in colonies; their parents lost to war and disease. The city was occupied by the four Allied forces and the city was divided into four parts.

British author Dan Vyleta brings this strange and horrifying world to life in his novel, "Pavel and I". To the reader, the identity of "I" comes relatively late in the novel; Pavel, however, is, maybe, a former American GI, living in a frigid apartment with lots and lots of books. Pavel begins the novel suffering from a kidney infection and in grave need of medical care. His occasional apartment mate is a young orphan boy, Anders, who also lives with a group of feral boys. His allegiance - such as it is - is with Pavel, whose ways he just doesn't always understand. Also in the story is their upstairs neighbor, Sonia, who is the mistress of a repulsive British officer. The British officer and a Soviet officer are on the hunt for a midget who was a Nazi and who was found dead. The body was hauled away by a friend of Pavel and hidden at Pavel's apartment. The friend also turns up dead. Who killed who...and what is everyone looking for? And why are the bodies piling up?

Now, dead Nazi midgets, prostitutes, decadent Allied officers, random acts of cruelty, all set in the frozen weather of winter 1946-7, may not sound like your cup of tea. But, Vyleta, the author of "The Quiet Twin" and "The Crooked Maid" (both set in post-war Vienna), delivers a moody and fascinating tale about what comes "next", after the war where millions have died already and another body here or there just doesn't matter in the greater scheme of things. "Pavel and I" is a superb, moody book, not for every reader. So read all the reviews carefully before you buy this book. And, if you like it, check into his other two books.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the aftermath of WWII in ruined Berlin, the book is, I think, about the stamina one needs in order to nurture relationships in times when people are broken by the urgency of bare necessities. or is it stamina? is it, rather, that love and devotion are 'but another symptom of life so very barren of tenderness, one had to invent emotion, against all the evidence'?(p.229)

The book talks about stories, story-telling. Mostly dismissively, because of their sentimentalism and their hidden function as comforters. In this book, a penchant for constructing smooth narratives doesn't do a character any credit. On the other hand, keeping silent about something, refusing to tell, comes across as dignified. The novel itself is broken down into perspectives. There's Peterson, a narrator obsessed with what happened in those several days that the story takes to unfold. And there's the 'impartial' narrator who signals to us the moments when the characters interpret and project, in the light of their own wishes and expectations. Story-telling is 'bad' in many ways. It is selective, escapist, it is another variety of white-washing (or should i say pink-washing?). And yet, and yet. It is Peterson's voice that concludes the book, and it is his anger with the skepsis and disenchantment of the others which lingers. Also, his moving devotion to the bright figure of Pavel (this is, I take it, why the book is called 'Pavel and I'), to telling that story.

The author himself tells us in the acknowledgements that this book is 'interested in the question of how many of our personal needs and desires we inject into narrations of the past.' I read aloud the first forty pages of this great book with two former classmates, in Berlin, where four years ago we had Dan as a professor.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the freezing ruins of post-war Berlin, Pavel and I has the feel and atmosphere of the film version of The Third Man. At the heart of the tale is Pavel, a former GI, Sonia who has survived post-war as a prostitute, Anders, an orphan who splits his time between Pavel and his street-gang who hustle and thieve to get by, and a rogue, over-weight British colonel. Hovering on the fringes is a Russian general. What brings them together is the dead body of a dwarf stuffed in a suitcase and the secret he holds. It’s an interesting hook and Vyleta uses it to spin an elliptical tale of spies, street gangs, prostitution, violent state services, survival, friendship and budding love. It’s very much a character-drive story, yet each character is not quite what they seem. That is very much the case with Pavel. Indeed, near the end of the tale, the narrator of the story, a British ex-soldier, remarks that there is a hole at the centre of the story he's telling – and that hole is the enigmatic Pavel. The narrator’s knowledge of him is based on events that happen over a few short weeks during which Pavel barely reveals anything about his past and acts in a calm and collected way. While that could have been quite frustrating, it actually draws the reader in. The result is an intriguing, atmospheric and ambivalent tale.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

To some, Pavel and I may seem a strange tale. It is a novel about honesty in both honesty’s hesitancy and boldness. Pavel and I tells us to be exactly who we are, when and where we are. If you are a Pavel or have experienced a Pavel the beginning and end are exactly the same and it is not merely enough it is a bounty shaken and pressed down. Truth, joy, and goodness prevail even in the most unlikely of places and in perhaps the most unlikely of people - who are both princes and kings.

[Nina Chachu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely a rather "noir" thriller, which takes place in post-war Berlin. The different points of view also give the reader altered perspectives on the plot,

[Jane Dalton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Plot opaque and too much violence for my taste. Even the monkey gets it. Truly depressing.

[Karen Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very chilling (literally, the novel is set in an icy post war Berlin) thriller. Strange narrator (a torturer) but it works very well. Un-put down-able.

[Callum Duncan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dark book set post world war in a frozen Berlin. The story is full of unique characters, all horribly human in their own way.
I usually don't usually like mysteries, but found myself being pulled along for the ride as more and more questions arose whilst reading.
Pavel is one of the most interesting characters I've read about for a good while.
Not for you if you dislike dark topics and harsh truths.

[Eleon397 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a fan of books set in Berlin in the post war period. Pavel & I captures the grit, desperation, and destruction of the post war city and the colorful characters who did whatever to survive. Pavel, himself, remains a mystery throughout. I don’t think the reader knows much more about him at the end than when we first meet him. Trying to find out definitely kept me reading.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pavel & I is a post-war espionage novel set in the cold winter of 1946 in Berlin. The protagonist Pavel, a decommissioned GI, is dragged into difficult circumstances when a friend leaves the body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment.

The book is quite unusual in that you don’t really meet the narrator until the second part. Coupled with the fact that the protagonist’s true character is actually quite unknown to you too, it leaves for a rather mysterious, almost disorientated reading. However, the expert plot keeps you reading, filled with twists and turns, and crafted with wonderfully creative language and character studies.

I found the setting of the book really interesting. I know a lot about Germany running up to and during WW2 but not what happened after. The coldness of the winter in Berlin, the new “law” in the city and how the war had changed people and hardened them against grim realities has been painted extremely well by Vyleta. It’s the perfect setting for a spy novel.

I really enjoyed Pavel & I, although the holes in the story left by the narrator and the loose-ended ending left me wanting. However, this style really suited the novel, leaving it open to personal interpretation.

[Reds_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pavel & I is an espionage thriller set in Berlin in the years immediately following WWII. Pavel is a decommissioned GI who is drawn into a race to find information when a friend who deposits the body of a dead Russian agent in his apartment.

The confusion of the times is described well - the devastated city, divided up by the occupying forces, populated by the survivors and displaced people who form unusual alliances in order to survive. The story keeps going at quite a pace and I was kept interested as there was a genuine sense of not knowing what was going to happen next. In fact the book does a good job of showing how none of the characters seem to know what will happen next either. No-one seems sure of each others motivations or allegiances which fits the turmoil and change of the times.

I have not rated this higher as at times I felt the book tried just a little too hard to be quirky and clever.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really exceptional book. The book opens with Pavel and a boy, who we later learn is Anders, together in a room. Their relationship is vague, their location is mysterious. At first, I thought that they might be in some kind of prison. Soon, Pavel's friend Boyd shows up with a dead body, and the action is underway.

The story travels back and forth, filling in gaps here, introducing new wrinkles there. It is a taut, well-plotted adventure. Vyleta does a great job evoking post-war Berlin - the poverty, the scarcity, the despair. Against this backdrop, through a harsh winter, our protagonists try to outwit British and Russians antagonists to try and escape their desperate circumstances. Vyleta doesn't provide any easy ways out - the characters underestimate their adversaries, allow themselves to fall into traps that should have been avoided, take actions that fail to bear fruit. It's an intriguing book, set in a fascinating place and time. Highly recommended.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The comparisons to Greene and Le Carré on the front cover are misleading; this is a spy story told with a sense of profound strangeness. The compelling weirdness of the novel comes from its narrator, who is initially unidentified. Events are described, and characters' thoughts revealed, in ways that seem inconsistent with any possible identity of the narrator. Perhaps the narrator is unreliable and the bizarre details of the story are inventions one level deeper than those of the author whose name appears on the cover.

Set in the freezing desolation of post-war Berlin, the story is satisfyingly twisty, with important details hinted-at rather than being revealed too easily. The characters have dense histories and complex interactions, their passage through the story punctuated by moments of surreal horror.

Highly recommended.

[Becky Motew · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for its unique style.

Here are chilling details of Berlin in 1946. Child criminal gangs robbing locals, avoiding occupiers. The book has an existential quality with morbid humor in unexpected places. Also seems Russian and I had already been thinking that when the speaker mentions Dostoevsky. And of course the Russian Soviets in the story are menacing along with all other occupying armies.

Mordantly funny—What’s the password? The password is open up or I’ll kick your ass. Yep, that’s the password. Oliver Twist similarities with the young gangs.

It's nothing like a regular espionage story and we never know what happens to Pavel. The characters are away from their homes, away from their headquarters, away from civilization. It could almost be acted on a stage and is not unlike Waiting for Godot or one of those absurdist dramas.

[Vava' · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una storia senza infamia e senza lode con un finale che mi ha lasciata insoddisfatta perché troppo vago.

Il fascino di questo libro (se di fascino si può parlare) è la ricostruzione della Berlino occupata dagli Alleati. L'autore si è sicuramente documentato e la caratterizzazione del periodo sembra realistica e ben riuscita, ma ecco che nei ringraziamenti appare come da copione un disclaimer sul grado di finzione e di veridicità che ammanta il romanzo... certo, è un'opera narrativa e nessuno si sognerebbe di prenderla alla lettera. Non c'era bisogno di ricordarcelo. Quello che sorprende è però scoprire che proprio gli aneddoti del dopoguerra che sembravano più improbabili sono accaduti realmente (o così ci dicono i testimoni oculari dell'epoca). La cosa più succosa per me è stata questa "postfazione" con menzione delle fonti e nuovi spunti di lettura.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover's blurb talked of similarities between this author's book and both Greene and Le Carre, so how could I resist? It wasn't quite up there, Pavel and I, but it came close. If anything it lost out by being a wee bit too forced in terms of the plot characterisations, what with the Russian midget, the monkey and the Colonel. It also seemed Dickensian, and maybe this was why it lost out - in trying to be so many things, it missed out on adding up to be itself. Still, it was intriguing, captured an image of post war Berlin that was entirely believable and was the first book this year that inspired me to actually write a review, to remind me of why I should watch out for the next book by this author.

[Ricky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often couldn't put this book down. I found it engaging on multiple levels because it's enjoyable on a basic level, but the author is also doing some interesting things with character and form. Ultimately, the book doesn't give you all the answers you're looking for, which I'm sure is how you're supposed to write books these days, but I guess I wanted just a little bit more information about some of the characters by the end. I suppose in retrospect that's part of the fun that's there, because you probably have enough information to make inferences. I think I was always waiting for Superman, but perhaps there were no supermen in postwar Berlin.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleased to discover, upon finishing this book, that while it is ostensibly a cold war mystery/thriller portraying the plight of the denizens of post-WWII Berlin, "Pavel & I" is really focused on the nature of memory and history and story-telling. Using your imagination and filling in the gaps and creating a narrative, even if it's not (for better or worse) wholly accurate. Otherwise, the writing is only OK - the pacing is inconsistent (I almost put it down halfway through) and the characterization is a bit overwrought and muddy. Still, I like enough by the end to maybe try another novel by Vyleta.

[Carl Brookins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author Vyleta has chosen a weak, even slimy and certainly tortured narrator for his story of espionage and life in Berlin in early winter of 1946, just after Berlin has fallen to the Allies. Who exactly is the mysterious Jean Richter Pavel and what is he doing in this tense battle between a rogue British colonel, the Russian KGB and a host of devastated Berliners? Readers will by turns be enthralled and appalled at this dark journey through a broken city of ruthless urchin gangs, brothels and streetwalkers, manipulators and lovers.

[Gabi Coatsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book, whose narrator we don't really meet until part 2. This structure wasn't entirely successful, but I liked that the author tried it, and in any case, the plot moved along at a great pace, and made up for some minor gaffes in point-of-view. Set in post-war Berlin, the historical background is really well done, giving a precise picture of the period without cramming the information down the reader's throat. Recommend for people who like Alan Furst, and historical thrillers.

[Giovanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una storia superbamente narrata, un libro che ti accompagna pagina per pagina fino alla fine, peccato sia finito. I personaggi e la storia sono affrontati con uno stile asciutto, ma profondo, dettagli essenziali che rendono questo romanzo davvero piacevole. Uno stile e una forma che si distinguono, che dicono la loro. Il testo si mostra, esce dalle pagine e Sonia, Pavel e il piccolo Anders iniziano a far parte della propria storia.
Una città fredda, ghiacciata che ti entra nelle ossa. Una lettura consigliatissima.