What I’m Reading: Anna and the Swallow Man

I just finished up listening to  Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit.

Here’s what Amazon had to say about the book, “Kraków, 1939. A million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. This is no place to grow up.  Anna Łania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father, a linguistics professor, during their purge of intellectuals in Poland. She’s alone.  And then Anna meets the Swallow Man.  He is a mystery, strange and tall, a skilled deceiver with more than a little magic up his sleeve. And when the soldiers in the streets look at him, they see what he wants them to see.  

The Swallow Man is not Anna’s father—she knows that very well—but she also knows that, like her father, he’s in danger of being taken, and like her father, he has a gift for languages: Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, even Bird. When he summons a bright, beautiful swallow down to his hand to stop her from crying, Anna is entranced. She follows him into the wilderness.  Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers, and even, despite their better judgment, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous. Even the Swallow Man.  Destined to become a classic, Gavriel Savit’s stunning debut reveals life’s hardest lessons while celebrating its miraculous possibilities.”

Okay…you read the description…Doesn’t it sound like something I’d like??I sure thought so.

Bottom line.  Don’t bother.  The book was a lot of walking from place to place.  No one was personable.  No one did I feel sympathetic towards.

This is very much literature.  There is likely some type of deep meaning that suppose to arise when reading it….I never found it.  I never cared to look that deep in the book.

Amazon says 3.9 stars.  I honestly have trouble rounding up one star to give to it.  Don’t bother with this one….