From the synopsis on the back of the book, the storyline seemed captivating enough: Parisians fleeing the city in advance of the inevitable German occupation, transitioning to a look at how life in a small village is affected by the presence of German soldiers. After reading the translator's note at the beginning of the novel, I further understood that these two stories were only part of a larger whole, a whole that was not completed due to the untimely death of the author in Auschwitz. In spite of that, I still was definitely not prepared for the content of the two stories, especially the transition (or lack there of) between the two. I've since read the appendices (which include some of the author's original notes on her plans for the whole five-part novel) and some additional information online, and I now have a much better understanding of the two stories. An understanding that I wish I would have had prior to reading.
The biggest issue for me was the fact that the two stories had very little connection. They could almost stand alone as individual novels, which is not something I was prepared for. I kept waiting for familiar characters to show up in the second story, which kept me from getting into it as much as I could have. Once I was able to let that issue go, I rather enjoyed the second story. It reminded me of Resistance with it's discussions of how the presence of the German soldiers affected life in the village, but with more development on how the occupation affected the Germans as well. And despite the fact that it was only the second story in what was intended to be a five-part novel, it had a good amount of closure and wrap-up to the main plot line.
The first story, however, was definitely lacking some of that sense of closure (which is probably why I expected the stories of those characters to be continued in the second story). It wasn't all bad, though; I didn't mind terribly that there were lots of characters to keep track of (a little similar to the movie Love Actually with it's network of characters and plots that overlap in random places), and I actually rather enjoyed reading about how a wide variety of people dealt with with impending German occupation of Paris (as well as the issues they ran into in their attempts to flee). But at the time, I just couldn't get over the feeling that I was left hanging (which, I suppose I should have expected to happen since technically the entire novel is unfinished).
As I was finishing the book, I probably would have told you that I would not recommend it. It definitely wasn't one of those "can't put it down" kind of books, and I actually considered not finishing it at all. However, now that I've done some research (and read through it once already), I think at some point I might actually be interested in going back and reading it a second time. Since I know what is going to happen, I won't be tempted to "wait" for the re-introduction of some character that isn't going to happen (and thus allow myself to actually get involved in the story that is evolving). And I would probably even read the first story differently; since I know that many of those characters don't reappear, I would probably read a little deeper into them and seek out the closure that exists instead of waiting for it to come later.
If you do decide to read this book, hopefully my notes will keep you from making some of the same mistakes that I made and you'll be able to enjoy it for what it is: two (mostly separate) stories of an unfinished whole, written as the author herself was facing some pretty harrowing circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment