This book was rather frustrating. It started off with a bang – in 1992, somewhere in South America, a young man named Leo wakes up in a hospital to find out that his girlfriend Eleni was killed in a bus accident. He has no memory of the crash, and is utterly overwhelmed with grief. This story then alternates with something completely different – in 1914, a young Jewish man named Moritz, who lives in what would later become Poland, is off to the war to fight for the Austro-Hungarian empire, leaving behind a girl he loves. So the book is about these two men in different eras, whose lives revolve around the memories of the women, and who go on quests spurred on by love – a more physical one in Moritz’s case, a more spiritual one for Leo.
