Fragments of a Crooked Mirror - Readers Reviews

by Vince Tamas Pongor

Here is what some readers have to say about Fragments:

This is the 21st century. Full of change, the age of technology, possible life on Mars. We can get used to many new things, we cannot live without our phones, cannot imagine life without TV sets and laptops…but we cannot accept homosexuality. The love of the same sex. Why is this so strange to us? Why people think this is something that should be punished…even with a death penalty!!!

This book is a fantastic thriller. I liked the title itself. The Crooked Mirror depicts something that can be seen differently, it can give us a different picture of us, or even about our thoughts.  While reading it I had the feeling that the whole book takes me into a deeper and sometimes untouchable level.

I liked the frame where the fragments are poured. Everything is so inconceivable but it is so direct. I liked the religious side of this book. It rags serious subjects. The relationship between religion and homosexuality can vary greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and sects, and regarding different forms of homosexuality.

 "Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." -Romans 1:27  After reading this quote it was strange to me that in the name of Christianity people did what they did in that fictitious world.

-        G. Tarcali

 

Most of us are well aware of the ways gays in Uganda are treated (although mistreated is probably a better word). We hear of the horrors and the atmosphere of hate and find it hard to relate to but even worse is that we know we are not getting the entire story. Vincent Pongor wants to let us know what is really happening there to our gay brothers and sisters.

Pongor lives in Budapest where he was born and raised but he feels that he cannot be silent about what is happening in Uganda. He believes in heroes and he dedicates his book to them—to those “who fight for nothing more than being themselves”. He also gives a special nod to Rachel Maddow and Lady GaGa “who understand that we were born this way”.

Pongor bases his book on the anti-homosexual bill that was written in Uganda. It was radical in that the death penalty could be the price one paid on serial homosexual offenders. The bill has not yet passed and trouble continues.

Pongor’s book does something a bit different being set in another world where heterosexuals are in the minority and the anti-heterosexual bill was successfully passed because it had organized religion behind it as well as a councilman and a local priest. So when the author does here is very clever—he turns to tables and we see the reaction of heterosexuals’ who are discriminated against.

They rally but the police break them up and the leaders are executed. Interesting to see how the differences fall. The book deals with other issues as well such as stereotyping, bullying and religion.

We are quick to understand that the focus of the book is on religion and as thinking adults we know what organized religion can do. Furthermore since we really do not know for sure when the scriptures really mean they can be used for any situation. We must remember that the Bible was written by men, divinely inspired or not, the men who wrote the Bible were men who could make mistakes. It was man who decided which books the Bible should contain and which rules should be observed. It is only common sense to understand that the most important thing that we learn from the Bible is to love one another as we love God.

The very idea that the government of Uganda might be able to pass a bill that would kill some of its citizens as outrageous. Are we even capable of imaging what kind of world we would have after a bill like that? Pongor’s use of allegory here is brilliant because what he says is so true. O do not know if the author is a native speaker or not but this English is excellent and his writing is sublime. While he used fiction to get his idea across, it is very effective and at times frightening. The book is also courageous in that something like this can certainly rile the Ugandan powers that be.

“Fragments” is reality based but uses reality as a jumping off place as it looks at what happens and here it becomes fiction. We read about good and evil and we see that appearances deceive and nothing is always what it appears to be.

I recommend this for several reasons—it is important that we know what is going on in the world and it is about time someone took Uganda to task. Furthermore, it is well written and compelling and necessary for us to know.

- A. Lassen