{"id":296,"date":"2014-02-08T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T21:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/index.php\/2014\/02\/08\/the-absolutist-by-john-boyne\/"},"modified":"2019-12-31T08:17:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T21:17:32","slug":"the-absolutist-by-john-boyne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/the-absolutist-by-john-boyne\/","title":{"rendered":"The Absolutist by John Boyne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is an amazing novel; it is also extremely sad. The sadness comes  not only from events concerning the characters but also from the  realization that what we revere as civilization is completely warped. At  the end of WWI, Tristan Sadler, the main character in the novel, seeks  out his friend Will&#8217;s sister in order to return a packet of letters. The  story develops innocently enough, but, gradually, we become aware that  Tristan&#8217;s experiences during the war were anything but innocent. Through  the eyes of Tristan and others, we are confronted not only with the  flaws and the hypocrisy of our present-day civilization but also with  contemporary attitudes towards war, killing, conscientious objectors  and, not least, homosexuality. Slowly Tristan becomes aware of the  injustice and the hypocrisy that flourished during the war, and he also  becomes aware of the part he played through either fear or ignorance or a  combination of both. Very well written, &#8220;The Absolutist&#8221; is not only an  anti-war novel but also a &#8216;wake-up&#8217; call to those who still hold fast  to narrow-minded attitudes prevalent within our society.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-yo_-vLiTk78\/UuxcvNat4KI\/AAAAAAAABJU\/XkSEP6AdwfM\/s1600\/John-Boyne-006.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-yo_-vLiTk78\/UuxcvNat4KI\/AAAAAAAABJU\/XkSEP6AdwfM\/s1600\/John-Boyne-006.jpg\" height=\"192\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Photograph: Mark Condren <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is an amazing novel; it is also extremely sad. The sadness comes not only from events concerning the characters but also from the realization that what we revere as civilization is completely warped. At the end of WWI, Tristan Sadler, the main character in the novel, seeks out his friend Will&#8217;s sister in order &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"readmore-btn\" href=\"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/the-absolutist-by-john-boyne\/\">+<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diane.eklund.abolins.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}