The Last Hundred Days - Patrick McGuiness

I remember meeting a musician who I worked with some years ago.  We have now lost contact, however, he was an extraordinary musician – not valued anywhere near enough in this country.  He was originally a Romanian, now a naturalised Australian.  That’s all well and good; but, one day when we were teaching together – a group of us started talking about authoritarian governments and the worth of studying Yr. 12 History ‘Revolutions’.  Not knowing much about Romania – Petré (named changed) opened up about his experiences living in Romania during the reign of the Ceausescu’s.  He talked about having unstable electricity, ½ hour of TV on Friday afternoons that are Party propaganda; he talked about never being able to share political views – even with one's closest friends.  You simply never would – you never know who will inform the Secutariate of treachery.  Further, he talked about how in 1989, the shooting of Nicolai & Elena Ceauşescu was sprayed, repeatedly on the TV for all to see.  It is now easily available on YouTube – the trial and killing by firing squad.  He was happy that they were gone – but he left Romania, in search of a better life and to leave the Socialist propaganda.

A few years later I read that amazing book, ‘Tortured for Christ’ by Richard Wurmbrand.  This Romanian hero was important for blowing the lid off of Romanian Christian persecution.  The stories he told are unbelievable barbarity, mixed with astonishing strength of faith and courage.  Then a trip to the Romanian Baptist Church in the outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne furnished me with real stories of faith and suffering.

Then with the mention of Patrick McGuinness’s book the ‘Last Hundred Days’ against the background of the Romainian revolution in 1989 – my interest was piqued.  The book was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2011, that didn’t bode well – but I steamed ahead anyway.

McGuiness is an academic, this worried me as the list of academics who are great writers, one can count on a single hand.  This is his first book and he can write extraordinarily well; yet it is his familiarity with the milieu that really piques one's interest, the great writing is the paint that describes the city of Bucharest during the last days of Ceauşescu's reign.

"In the cemeteries the graves were marked out with wooden planks, table legs, chairs, even broomsticks.  Ceauşescu's new palace of the People could be measured not just in square metres but in gravestones." p.33

 The city of Bucharest is really the central character in the story.  The grey drabness of the city and the wistful memories of what Bucharest; coupled with the desire to document the remaining areas of uniqueness by Leo - puts the city as, not only the backdrop, but in some ways the hidden protagonist.

The main person in the story is an unnamed Westerner who comes to take an undeserved position at the Bucharest University.  There he meets Leo, another professor - he has some romantic relationships, even gets removed from the country - all while facing the corruption and brutality of the Socialist ideal in Romania.

But this is in the advent to the fall of the dictator:

"With Leo around, daily life was felt less as Stalinist terror than as shady ineptocracy - brutish and clumsy, sometimes comical, usually absurd.  Our sense of the system's viciousness was offset by our belief that it was not sufficiently organised to implement that viciousness." Chapt. 7

The climax of the book revolves around the public killing of Nicolai & Elena, and his last speech in public from his Palace.  Both of these events were broadcast on TV.  Indeed my friend told me that the firing squad shooting the couple was played over and over again for nearly a week on TV.  Well these things are now available on YouTube.  I watched the shooting and the speech and the book puts this all in context.  All written by an man who was there.  This really is the height of Historical fiction.

Extrodinary writing, riveting plot, historical accuracy and pathos.  This has it all. 4/5 Stars