OK, this guy is reviewing mostly socks and pieces of plastic about which he writes 500 words (he's a pro, not mental) but he was right to say that I needed an editor. But not as bad as he thinks:
A little too raw, March 6, 2011
A 14 year old living in a remote Transylvanian town wasn't exactly plugged into the reported events and neither the television or the wild rumors could be relied upon but, 20 years later, the now mature Florian Grancea was apparently able to fill in some of the gaps with the conclusions of unquoted but probably serious and reliable studies and investigations. They apparently proved that the so-called Romanian revolution was a badly executed, scripted event, orchestrated and coordinated by Soviet agents ordered to replace Ceausescu's brutal, old-fashioned Stalinist communism with Gorbachev-style glasnost communism.
But, more than anything, we are what we eat, or so the saying states and the bulk of the book is dedicated to detailed explanations of how to properly kill a pig, take it apart, process the various parts and organs, cook it and eat it. And there are so many ways to cook a pig. Deep-frying in the pig's fat is or was most important to a Romanian-style breakfast back in 1989. Pig fat, guts, meat, blood, brains, ribs, skin, even the pig's raw ears are treasured and consumed all throughout the winter and pig parts can be traced even in some of the more traditional delicious Romanian deserts.
And, as the various methods and recipes are revealed, the Romanian revolution rolls on. New leaders grab power, bloody fights are staged, everybody gets hysterical, bullets fly, people get drunk, people are killed, Ceausescu and wife are executed, Romanians are free, life goes on.
Sadly, freedom is never free. The revolution marks the abrupt transition from delicious and nutritious home-cooked meals made from organic but usually hard to get (because Ceausescu had them rationed) ingredients to genetically modified, cheap processed foods that cause children to be dumb and fat and housewives to lose important homemaking skills such as cooking. In the free and more democratic country people no longer slaughter pigs with their little kids traditionally riding the dying animal as grownups are collecting its blood in buckets and the new color TV sets that used to be dedicated to broadcasting communist propaganda are now airing mindless game shows or Latin soap operas.
The few days of the Romanian revolution and the few covered events experienced by the young Florin Grancea mostly through TV watching seem to be the canvas on which the grownup author projects his own views on the meaning and benefits the transition to a West-style mass-consumer society. And the author goes down to the very foundations of our existence: the foods people eat/ate, the tastes, textures and flavors and the food's availability.
Florin Grancea's story is surprisingly readable but it's far from perfect. Probably the author's first 'book', he makes a mistake common to most debutant writers: the belief that editors are optional. They are not if one's ambition is to produce a quality text. And an editor is even more needed when English is not the author's native language. A friend, no matter how well-meaning can't replace a professional editor. The story as published abounds in 'distractions' such as completely unneeded vulgar expressions, references to events not known to those unfamiliar with Romania's recent history, stylistic excesses such as the author providing the reader with someone's last thoughts as the person dies, strident statements of opinion, unsourced allegations presented as undisputed facts.
The idea of anchoring the coverage of a political event around a series of traditional pork-based recipes is original and it does make for some interesting reading but, in the end, the material appears unprofessional (no editor), unpolished (done in a hurry), too opinionated and not properly sourced (written by a journalist?). Three stars would stand for "It's Okay" but, in my view, "The Pig's Slaughter" is not Okay. The author seems to have things to say and to want to say them loudly but the loudest voices aren't always the ones that are heard. I believe that he has the talent needed to say them in the form of a good book but it will have to be a future work or a major re-write of this one.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A little too raw, 
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This review is from: The Pigs' Slaughter (Kindle Edition)
Pig's Slaughter is an almost-stream-of-consciousness recall by the author, his attempt to reconstruct the 4 days that changed Romania, his native country, around Christmas time in 1989. Florin Grancea was 14 then and he and his family watched the events on television whenever the slaughter and processing of the family-raised pig and the dressing of the family Christmas tree permitted. A 14 year old living in a remote Transylvanian town wasn't exactly plugged into the reported events and neither the television or the wild rumors could be relied upon but, 20 years later, the now mature Florian Grancea was apparently able to fill in some of the gaps with the conclusions of unquoted but probably serious and reliable studies and investigations. They apparently proved that the so-called Romanian revolution was a badly executed, scripted event, orchestrated and coordinated by Soviet agents ordered to replace Ceausescu's brutal, old-fashioned Stalinist communism with Gorbachev-style glasnost communism.
But, more than anything, we are what we eat, or so the saying states and the bulk of the book is dedicated to detailed explanations of how to properly kill a pig, take it apart, process the various parts and organs, cook it and eat it. And there are so many ways to cook a pig. Deep-frying in the pig's fat is or was most important to a Romanian-style breakfast back in 1989. Pig fat, guts, meat, blood, brains, ribs, skin, even the pig's raw ears are treasured and consumed all throughout the winter and pig parts can be traced even in some of the more traditional delicious Romanian deserts.
And, as the various methods and recipes are revealed, the Romanian revolution rolls on. New leaders grab power, bloody fights are staged, everybody gets hysterical, bullets fly, people get drunk, people are killed, Ceausescu and wife are executed, Romanians are free, life goes on.
Sadly, freedom is never free. The revolution marks the abrupt transition from delicious and nutritious home-cooked meals made from organic but usually hard to get (because Ceausescu had them rationed) ingredients to genetically modified, cheap processed foods that cause children to be dumb and fat and housewives to lose important homemaking skills such as cooking. In the free and more democratic country people no longer slaughter pigs with their little kids traditionally riding the dying animal as grownups are collecting its blood in buckets and the new color TV sets that used to be dedicated to broadcasting communist propaganda are now airing mindless game shows or Latin soap operas.
The few days of the Romanian revolution and the few covered events experienced by the young Florin Grancea mostly through TV watching seem to be the canvas on which the grownup author projects his own views on the meaning and benefits the transition to a West-style mass-consumer society. And the author goes down to the very foundations of our existence: the foods people eat/ate, the tastes, textures and flavors and the food's availability.
Florin Grancea's story is surprisingly readable but it's far from perfect. Probably the author's first 'book', he makes a mistake common to most debutant writers: the belief that editors are optional. They are not if one's ambition is to produce a quality text. And an editor is even more needed when English is not the author's native language. A friend, no matter how well-meaning can't replace a professional editor. The story as published abounds in 'distractions' such as completely unneeded vulgar expressions, references to events not known to those unfamiliar with Romania's recent history, stylistic excesses such as the author providing the reader with someone's last thoughts as the person dies, strident statements of opinion, unsourced allegations presented as undisputed facts.
The idea of anchoring the coverage of a political event around a series of traditional pork-based recipes is original and it does make for some interesting reading but, in the end, the material appears unprofessional (no editor), unpolished (done in a hurry), too opinionated and not properly sourced (written by a journalist?). Three stars would stand for "It's Okay" but, in my view, "The Pig's Slaughter" is not Okay. The author seems to have things to say and to want to say them loudly but the loudest voices aren't always the ones that are heard. I believe that he has the talent needed to say them in the form of a good book but it will have to be a future work or a major re-write of this one.
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