Review of In Search of Achilles

[Isaac Oh]

[Following is a volunteer review of "In Search of Achilles" by Marco van den Berg Scholten.]

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5 out of 5 stars

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‘In Search of Achilles’ by Marco van den Berg Scholten is a historical novel centered on life in Amsterdam and Berlin from the 1980s to the early 1990s. The story follows the life of Johan van Geesteren, who witnessed the dramatic shift of his friends' beliefs from one point to another. After losing his sense of belonging to the society where the line between moral and immoral had been greatly altered, Johan turns towards philosophy to protect himself from the new "open-minded critical rationality," as his uncle Leo had called it.
 
Marco, in great detail, writes his novel in a way that readers are not left to complete missing areas with their imagination and also in a way that readers are not confused about the era the book was written in or even the life of Johan. Johan, who had developed a passion for writing, faces many uncertainties regarding how this passion would turn out for him.
 
It took a long while and the coverage of so many pages for me to begin to understand the purpose of this story or where the author was heading with the storyline. For me, the pace of this book was unnecessarily too slow; the author used quite several pages to write about Johan's life, friends, relatives, and even his surroundings before diving into the main point of the book. However, I couldn't find any grammatical errors while I read through, which implies that this book was exceptionally edited.
 
This book, in my opinion, teaches that with each revolving time comes different practices and acts that many may struggle to accept. As we have seen in present times, with time comes very different rules that challenge the morals of humans globally. Regardless of my complaint about how slow-paced this book was, I will still rate it 5 out of 5 stars for its exceptional editing and well-built character structures.
 
I recommend this book to readers who enjoy fictional books that contain themes like history and politics and have its setting in Europe. Also, the life of Johan may resonate with some readers regardless of the times it was written; readers will also learn to respect the beliefs of others regardless of how shaken they are by their decisions and values.

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In Search of Achilles
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