Stillness of the Sea

The still surface of a sea is both menacing and calmly beautiful: a perfect metaphor for this reflective novel. The narrator's unassuming, thoughtful voice dampens but cannot conceal the forces driving his story of love and war and the boundless suffering of innocents. A young historian, the narrator is involved with a war-crimes trial in The Hague. We gradually learn that the present-day trial does insufficient justice to the past. The narrator tells us through long flashbacks about his love for the possible war criminal's daughter, and we come to understand more of the agonies suffered by everyone touched by the crucial incident, the murder of an extended family. The love affair is moving and utterly believable: charming at first, then intense and finally ripped apart by the conflict between the past and the present. This novel is an exquisite balance between bitter realism and forgiveness- an outstanding achievement in human as well as literary terms.