Review: A great series even if I didn't really get the ending
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 23, 2012
**spoiler alert**This is me navel-gazing.I didn't want this series to finish and I already suffer from abandonment and loss. There is nothing like this series in terms of writing style and development, I rarely read characters so intense, I rarely found myself wanting to keep my eyes open despite the grittiness and realism of a few episodes. I think Aleksandr Voinov has the gift to open and push the boundaries of his readers because his stories always takes place on the edge.About this last installment, I don't think I can really write a review, I can only tell what I experienced. When I got to the last page, I was lost and confused, and also maybe a bit angry, because the ending was too nice and since I felt increasingly disappointed with Stefano, I was mad that he got his cake and ate it too. I was so frustrated, it was like preparing for a trip to the Caribbean and ending up in Alaska. Why? When? How did this happen?So I got back to the first installment, Dark Soul 1, to understand where I got lost, where my personal likes and dislikes (for example I hate pentiti with a vengenance) were clouding my judgment. I think I got it.When we meet Stefano at the very beginning, he is a mafia boss, fighting to keep his business afloat. The meeting with Silvio shakes him and brings out this craving for power. At the time I thought it was a way to transfer a natural inclination into his bedroom. Little by little it was clear that Stefano is a reluctant mafia boss, who just followed into his father's step, because he felt he had to. It was there since the beginning: In DS1, while Silvio is tied to the fan, Stefano has to rein in his lust and he pretends to be in control because his bodyguard Vince is in the same room. Stefano adheres to rules he doesn't believe in, he is the head of a famiglia he wouldn't belong to if he had a choice. That's why it was so easy for him to forfeit his old life. I also think that as he didn't fight to achieve his position into the organization, the loss of it wasn't that important. I resented him a lot for the off-handed comment about Vince, that his old bodyguard would probably get out of the situation with little problems, because even if being a boss wasn't his call, he had been responsible for some of his men, and Vince had been wounded for him, so... yeah, Stefano was a disappointment in this regard (but who gave Sebastiano Silvio's name? I have the idea it was Vince). I feel that abandoning your post to follow your heart and damn the consequences is probably romantic, but it grated on me (for personal reasons).I also feel that in the end all fights were taken from Stefano. The situation with his wife was solved because of Donata; he didn't have to defuse the mutiny because Sebastiano took care of it for him; he didn't fight for Silvio, because he left him behind like a good doggie, confiding Silvio would find his way home. What did he do? He gave Silvio the puppy and kept his name out. This was a showing of passive commitment in my opinion. So, I was unsatisfied.Sebastiano was another interesting Spadaro's brother, who chose a different path of life, dedicating his life to justice. I liked that at the core he is very much like his brother Silvio. Sebastiano is a killer, but he uses the law instead of a gun and at the same time he exploits the weaknesses of his opponents in the best Machiavellian way. What he does to Stefano is blackmail, pure and simple. The goal is noble, the means to achieve it, not so much.Dark Frost is, in my opinion, the best part of the whole series. It shows how lucid Silvio is in the assessment of Stefano's situation. Even if it seems he is not receptive to what Stefano tries to tell him about love and commitment, I felt that his "resilience" was a way to push Stefano to read what's going on with a cold and clear mind. At the beginning of the series I had the impression that Stefano would heal what was hurt and broken in Silvio, but I should have listened better to Falchi's words at his villa, when he told Stefano about the price for his help: "I might ask something personal of you. Something that might change your life." And Silvio acknowledges that price: "I did take his desire, his passion, his love in exchange. And later: "Stefano wasn't teaching him, wasn't protecting him. If anything, those role were reversed.Sorry for all the babbling, I don't even know what I want to say anymore. This story just blew me away and I honestly can say that I was so invested in the characters that it became personal, and for this it's like I'm doing a disservice to the book, because I can't help projecting parts of me, so I might have gotten it all wrong.