The Cage by Alberts Bels
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
My journey into Latvian literature continues, thanks to my friends at Latvian Literature who hooked me up with a review copy of The Cage by Alberts Bels. As problematic as it is to classify a nations output on the very few titles I’ve read (here’s my review of In The Shadow Of Death), I’m very much in love with the introspective philosophical edge that I keep finding. These are books that think very much about what they are, and what they want to say – there’s a care in every word, and The Cage is a perfect example of such. I loved it. There’s so much here to think about, to hold, to consider.
The Cage is a mystery novel set in Riga, and concerns itself with the disappearance of a local architect. And yet, as with many novels that can be summed up in such a way, it’s about everything other than that. It’s about the people in the story, their lives and loves and intersections. It’s about a society that’s tightly woven to prevent this sort of Unusual Thing happening – there’s some very deep and pointed political commentary here which gains extra resonance when you learn that The Cage was first published in 1972, during the time when Latvia was under Soviet rule. And it’s about the cages that all of these people – and us, ourselves – live in. Real, metaphorical or otherwise.
I liked this a lot. There’s some big philosphical questions here but it wears them lightly, and you’re able to savour it at a whole range of levels. If you want to figure things out you can, but if you don’t – if you just want a superbly crafted and rather fascinatingly told mystery – then you can have it. It’s the sort of book that lets you come back to it (I’m on my second reading at the moment, fascinated by the twisting edges of it – the way it dances and slides always a little bit ahead of me) and I think there will be a third. The Cage is the sort of book that can give you that. It’s very worth hunting out.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.
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Daisy May Johnson 