Drew’s Reviews > Unter dem Pflaster liegt der Strand > Status Update

I am getting strong Roadside Picnick vibes from the section where Jonathan goes into thy house and comes back out and can’t remember Ebba’s name….

Where is this going? How do the strands - ranging from Russian spies in China, nuclear fusion, international shipping, Stavanger in all its disparateness, Paris '68, a love triangle between the more outgoing Jonathan, Edda, the physicist's pugilistic daughter & the tall, introverted Ingmar, & all that - fit together? This book is a loooong and open-ended wallow; pleasurable but with no clear goal - at least so far.

The passage where Blom pursues a mysterious Chinese agent across Mongolia and Siberia to a final confrontation in a Moscow suburb was superb.