THE BLACK ALBUM

This jagged-edged novel of young, revolutionary Pakistanis in London is by the writer of the much-lauded British film My Beautiful Laundrette. The closely observed characters are not particularly likeable or interesting. At least not as interpreted on this tape. Narrator Varla gives distinctive, memorable renderings of the large cast, though he makes none of them particularly sympathetic. He excels at animating scenes of violence and sensation but has less success with either the intellectual content or sarcasm. Nor does he convey any sense of the book's architecture. The listener receives a brutal, misanthropic political study of intermittent power and long stretches of tedium. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JAN 98]