Review: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

You wouldn't believe how long I've put off reading Brideshead Revisited. A friend of mine read it when we were 17 or so and adored it - unfortunately when I picked it up based on her recommendation, I couldn't get past the first page. I'm not sure what made me pick it up now - other than my new TBR challenge, anyway. Perhaps I just felt particularly masochistic that day. Did I enjoy it? Umm... well, parts of it. Read on.

Plot summary: The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.

'The golden age?' Seriously? If this is golden, I'd hate to see what the 'grey and depressing age' looked like.

Even when I'd pulled this from the shelf and settled down in my chair to read it, it took me forever to start it. You know when you're holding a spoonful of particularly nasty medicine and you're aware of how awful it's going to taste, so you keep bringing it to your mouth but then inadvertently stopping yourself? Yeah, that. It took me about 30 minutes to read the first line after a continuous pattern of opening the book, finding the right page... and then snapping it shut again immediately.

Once I eventually had begun reading, I was pleasantly surprised. The prologue is a little dreary as it's set in a rainy military camp, but I understand why that was a necessary part of the plot. After that the book changes completely and becomes rather charming.

I love Sebastian (even though I can't seem him as anyone but Hugh Laurie in my head) and his teddy bear, Aloysius. He's eccentric but in a loveable way - he reminds me of a more mischevious Jay Gatsby. Every single page was a pleasure as I delighted in the light-hearted atmosphere of their days at University.

"That," said the barber, as I took his chair, "was Lord Sebastian Flyte. A most amusing young gentleman."
"Apparently," I said coldly.
"The Marquis of Marchmain's second boy. ... What do you suppose Lord Sebastian wanted? A hair brush for his teddy-bear; it had to have very stiff bristles, not, Lord Sebastian said, to brush him with, but to threaten him with a spanking when he was sulky." 

I was beginning to wonder what people were talking about when they stated how bogged down in religion and morality Brideshead Revisited is. I just didn't understand - there was only teddy-bears and wine! And then I knew. Oh how I knew.

So we have the prologue which is miserable but necessary, and then it switches to light-hearted teddy-bear romping. Unfortunately it then changes back but adds an extra dash of sheer despair for good measure. My god this book is depressing. Nobody is happy in this book - alcoholism, unrequited love, Catholic hand-wringing... it's all here.

It seems like nothing actually happens - there are lots of problems and issue, but none of them are ever resolved. I don't mind sad novels if there's a point to them, but I just don't understand what that would be in Brideshead Revisited. Obviously there is one as it's a hugely popular classic novel but honestly, I lost interest in trying to figure out what that might be (other than Catholicism = misery). I still don't understand certain key aspects, such as why Charles and Julia couldn't get married. 

It doesn't help that nobody is actually likeable in this book; not after they leave University, anyway. I felt that Sebastian was the key figure and I missed him when the narrative moved away from him - everybody was too busy swanning about in despair to actually make me like them.  

I can sort of, kind of, maybe see why this is a classic, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. 

Don't think I'm not aware of what a philistine-ical (hey, that's a word) review this is - just whining about how depressing Brideshead Revisited is and completely missing all of the themes etc. In my defence, I read and review for enjoyment. Frankly and finally, I did not enjoy this.

Help me out - what am I missing with Brideshead Revisited?

Review: Atonement by Ian McEwan

After I finished reading Atonement, I sent out wary feelers to my Reading Friends to see if I was the only one who felt this way. Apparently I am.

Warining for very strong language below... taken straight from the book, I might add.

Plot summary:

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge.

By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

As it turns out, I had absolutely zero idea what this book was actually about before I started reading it. I was expecting a reasonably generic, 'coming of age,' family saga, but I watched the film trailer when I was a quarter of the way through the book and appaaaaaaaaarently not. There's lots of drama. And also children that can't act, but that's (almost) beside the point. 

I found Atonement to be surprisingly accessible when I had expected it to be dry and a little dull. The prose was fine, if a little purple, but unfortunately it just can't compensate for the sheer awfulness that is the rest of the book.

The main problem with this book lies with Briony, the protagonist. I would normally despise her and have a little rant about how awful she is, but I actually have no feelings about her. Do you know why? Because she is completely unbelievable as a character. Firstly, no eleven year old speaks like that. Even adults don't philosophise as pretentiously as she does.

She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider at the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge.

Oh my God, shut up. Does it sound like an eleven year old came up with that? Anyway, secondly, her actions make no sense. I understand she was young and naive and all that, but the reasonings given for her are silly and unrealistic. I've never read such a narcissistic, self-important character - I understand the need for flawed characters, but this is too far and therefore I can't take it/her seriously. The pretentious, grandiose ramblings of a learned philosopher professor just don't fit with her OTT naivety.

Her mother was forty-six, dispiritingly old. One day she would die. There would be a funeral in the village at which Briony's dignified reticence would hint at the vastness of her sorrow. As her friends came up to murmur their condolences they would feel awed by the scale of her tragedy. She saw herself standing alone in a great arena, within a towering colosseum, watched not only by all the people she knew, but all those she would ever know, the whole cast of her life, assembled to love her in her loss.

ARRRGH. But even now, I'm not annoyed with Briony - I'm annoyed with the writing. Sometimes it's just bewildering. At one point, it says, 'He caught a whiff of underarm perspiration, which put him in mind of freshly cut grass.' Hmm? Sweat reminds you of grass. Well, alrighty then.

The timeline is very jumpy, discussing her feelings throughout the trial before anything even remotely relevant has happened. This can work in some novels, but here it didn't particularly help that I didn't care what her feelings were.

I'm not usually a fan of soldiers-in-the-trenches descriptions so I might be a little biased, but I don't understand the purpose of Part Two. It contributed nothing to the plot as it didn't make a blind bit of difference whether anybody went off to war or not. Book Three would have been exactly the same regardless so it just seemed like a dreary piece of filler fiction.

I also don't like the ending, but I doubt that will come as a massive surprise to you at this point. There's no conclusion and no answers - what did she decide to do? Is the issue resolved? What happened? I was also disappointed In Briony during the epilogue - I had somewhat higher hopes for her, but they were eventually dashed against the Rocks of Unbelievability.

I aware and have always been aware that Atonement was written and published 2001, and yet I can't get it out of my head that this is a classic book from the 1940s or thereabouts. Naturally then, it shocks me when it frequently uses words like 'cunt,' but I think it's meant to shock readers which automatically irritates me. It's cheap.  

So this is obviously a fairly neutal review. Bet you're amazed at how impartial and unbiased I am. I do have to admit that Atonement has stayed with me during the month between reading it and writing this review, but not in a good way. If Briony had been slightly less... well, we won't go into that again, but if she had been written better and Part Two had a purpose, it could have been an interesting the novel. The premise had promise (ooh. That's my new favourite phrase) but it's just so over-the-top that I couldn't take it seriously.

Read an infinitely more positive review of Atonement at Book Addicted Blonde. 

Review: HHhH by Laurent Binet

From now on, for a good length of time, you're pretty much only going to get reviews of books I was given for my birthday or that I purchased afterwards. We're decorating my bedroom at the moment and my wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves have been covered with dustsheets so I can't get to any of my books, except the ones obtained post-dustsheet that are stacked downstairs. HHhH was a present from Charlotte and the first book I picked up from the pile in the living room. It's amazing - go read it.

Summary:Two men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo. This is Operation Anthropoid, Prague, 1942: two Czechoslovakian parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich - chief of the Nazi secret services, 'the hangman of Prague', 'the blond beast', 'the most dangerous man in the Third Reich'.

His boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich', which in German spells HHhH.

All the characters in HHhH are real. All the events depicted are true. But alongside the nerve-shredding preparations for the attack runs another story: when you are a novelist writing about real people, how do you resist the temptation to make things up?

It took me a while to work out what this book actually is, and I'm still not entirely sure now. It's filed under 'fiction' in Waterstones, but it's also partly autobiographical as the author explains his interest in WWII Czechoslovakia and how his investigation procedeeded, alongside actually explaining its history to you. It's never really made clear what the book is meant to be and it's slightly bewildering.

It works though, when you get used to it. It's uses a stream of consciousness style as he explains how and why he's writing as he goes along.

I've decided not to overstylize my story. That suits me fine because, even if for later episodes I'll have to resist the temptation to flaunt my knowledge by writing too many details for this or that scene that I've researched too much, I must admit that in this case - regarding Heydrich's birthplace - my knowledge is a bit sketchy. There are two towns in Germany called Halle, and I don't even know which one I'm talking about. For the time being, I think it's not important. We'll see. 

It's almost as though Laurent Binet wrote the book without going back to edit. For example, he'll state that he doesn't know a certain fact (like in the quote above), but a few chapters later he'll pop up and go "Oh, I've checked it now - it's this...!" At one point he refuses to buy a certain reference book about Reinhard Heydrich but then ends up buying it a little later. 

This makes it a little hard to follow - just look at the arrows in my review notebook as I was trying desperately to keep track of everything. It discusses the Wannsee Conference at one point and then goes back to discuss it forty chapters later, after Mr Binet had read something about it in a different book!

I actually really like this style, which surprised me. It's chatty and informal, but there's some wonderful prose in and amongst. It's also an interesting look about what it's like to research and write a non-fiction book - such as suddenly hearing Heydrich mentioned everywhere when he'd never noticed before or occasional comments his girlfriend made whilst he was writing.

After a while, it does settle down and the chapters start to alternate - one chapter of narrated fact (told like historical fiction but with no inventions, not even dialogue) and then one chapter of discussion. It stops being quite so jumpy but also makes it even harder to pick a genre for HHhH.

When a writer tries to bring a conversation back to life in this way, the result is often contrived and the effect the opposite of that desired: you see too clearly the strings controlling the puppets, you hear too distinctly the author's voice in the mouths of these historical figures.

What I liked most about HHhH is that it's a non-fiction book, but told by a person rather than a historian. It really helps you to understand the atrocities committed because you're not being lectured on it by an expert who's taught 57,000 other people and has become inured to it - instead, Laurent Binet is as shocked about it as you are. What really got me was the emphasis on the little people - the normal, non-military people who risked torture and death for even the smallest chance of aiding the rebellion.

I examine a map of Prague, marking the locations of the families who helped and sheltered the parachutists. Almost all of them paid with their lives - men, women and children. The Svatoš family, a few feet from the Charles Bridge; the Ogoun family, near the castle; the Novak, Moravec, Zelenka, and Fafek families, all farther east. Each member of each of these families would deserve his or her own book - an account of their involvement with the Resistance until the tragic denouement of Mauthausen. How many forgotten heroes sleep in history's great cemetery? 

The ending of the book nearly made me sick with grief, shame and admiration. When you know that these people really existed and accepted their fate in order to do what was right, you look at yourself and just find yourself... lacking. We all know what the Nazis did but I think we've become so accustomed to it that we just don't take it seriously anymore. This book brings it home all over again.

I learned a lot from HHhH (admittedly mostly via Wikipedia as it does demand a certain amount of prior knowledge) but I never felt bored or patronised. This is a unique masterpiece, combining the reliability of non-fiction with the atmosphere of fiction, and I really can't recommend it highly enough.

This book was:

• The Most Thought-Provoking Book of 2014
  

Read A Lit Addicted Brit's review of HHhH here.

Review: Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

Well this is a new one for me - having to justify why I chose to read a book that seems strangely sympathetic to Hitler. My defence is that Ellie made me buy it in Waterstones last week. Blame her. I'm glad she did though - it's not what I expected but it's actually very impressive indeed.

Plot summary: Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.
People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition - to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights. 

I was hooked on Look Who's Back by the end of the third page. Adolf Hitler wakes up in modern-day Berlin and is surprised to discover that his last order, to raze the city to the ground, wasn't carried out. By his reckoning, Germany shouldn't exist at all and he's a little annoyed that it does, actually. The novel and I just 'clicked,' and I settled down this odd but engaging book in one sitting.

I especially enjoyed Hitler's assumptions about modern life. It's fascinating how he interprets simple things like the amount of people picking up their dog's waste and the prevalence of mobile phones. He decides that modern slang and language was implemented purposefully in order to allow the Turkish workers access to a simple language suitable for their lesser intellect.

Indeed, from those Turkish pupils I was able to observe how my principles had obviously been acknowledged as correct, and later implemented as directives. I detected barely any correct syntax; it sounded more like a linguistic tangle of barbed wire, furrowed with mental grenades like the battlefield of the Somme. ... in accordance with ideas that I myself had developed and wished to implement. Admittedly, it had been intended for the Ukraine and the conquered Russian territories, but of course it was just as suitable for any other population group under German domination. And I witnessed a further technological advance: evidently the Turkish pupils had to wear tiny earplugs, to prevent them from picking up extraneous information or unnecessary knowledge.

The story never even tries to explain why he suddenly ended up in 2011, but that's alright. It's hardly the point of the story and I'd rather it didn't bother than came  up with some half-arsed, silly reasoning. What's more interesting is Hitler's own rationale about why he's been sent forward in time, which is basically that the country has gone to the dogs and the time is right for him to step forward and save it from the incompetant female Chancellor, the European Union and, of course, the Jews.

It's not pro-Hitler or anti-Hitler - it's actually as objective as something like this could be. Occasionally I started to sympathise with his lonely, befuddled character but then he would demonstrate his true views and I'd feel revolted all over again. It doesn't make apologies for his decisions, policies or views but it does explore what might have been going through his head at the time.

It's written very, very well in a slightly formal tone (as one would expect from Hitler, I suppose) but it still remains accessible. I don't think the title fits with the tone of the book but that's most likely down to a poor translation. I do think that you'd need a certain amount of history knowledge, mostly relating to World War II, as words like lebensraum and the Treaty of Versaille are bandied about. I got by just fine with GCSE History but you'd need to know something to fully appreciate Look Who's Back.

   The truth could only be understood by the man who knows the Jews, the man who knows that with them there is no left and no right, and that both sides work hand in hand in perpetuity. And only the perspicacious spirit who sees through all the disguises could recognise that in their aim to eliminate the Aryan race, nothing had changed. ... And the aim was so clear that only a fool could deny it: the Jewish hordes were planning once more to flood the Reich with their repulsive masses. But they had learned from the last war. Because they realised their inferiority, they resolved to undermine, reduce and annihilate the valour of our Volk. ...
   I was chilled to the bone with horror. And the nature of my mission was transparent.
   I must resolutely follow this path.

The knowledge and detail that have gone into this book is astounding. Mr Vermes even knows how much the chandeliers in the Reich Chancellery weigh! This isn't some silly book and I'm surprised that the review quotes on the cover mention how funny it is, because I don't see it that way at all. It's obviously not meant to be taken that seriously, but it's not comical either.

In a way, it's actually kind of terrifying. I hope somebody pretending to be Adolph Hitler and spouting his views on national television wouldn't really amuse the nation to that extent. If somebody like him devolves into just a joke, then how would we recognise it if it happened again? Would the fictional audience in the novel still be laughing if they realised it really was Hitler? Probably not. Perhaps we don't take World War II as seriously as we should.

The basic point, or the one I took away, is that Hitler was elected once, by a rational, logical society. We look back at what a tyrant he was but at the time an unhappy body of people just voted for a strong man with strong views. He was a person, not a boogeyman. These are the things we need to remember in order to prevent it ever happening again.  

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Review: The Auschwitz Violin by Maria Angels Anglada

I desperately wanted to read The Auschwitz Violin as soon as I saw the review posted by the Lit Addicted Brit. Months later I convinced my doting Father to buy me a copy on Christmas Eve, the annual day of buying-Hanna-whatever-she-wants-for-no-reason. It reminded me a little of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas before I'd even opened it - it's of a similar size and obviously there's a similar topic. Truth be told though, The Auschwitz Violin can more than stand on its own feet and I'd be hard pressed to say which I enjoyed more.

In the winter of 1991, at a concert in Krakow, an older woman with a marvellously pitched violin meets a fellow musician who is instantly captivated by her instrument. When he asks her how she obtained it, she reveals the remarkable story behind its origin. . . .

Daniel is a talented luthier, but he is also an inmate at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland. He has kept his true occupation a secret in order to avoid the gas showers, but when he offers to repair a broken instrument belonging to the Commander, he makes a mistake that may cost him his life.

Somehow, hearing the story of one individual can be more traumatising than being told the statistics of the estimated 1.1 million people that were slaughtered at the Auschwitz camps. I can't take credit for that particular revelation - go thank The Lit Addicted Brit for the insight. When I read that review though, something just kind of clicked inside my head - it's true. We've all heard the horrifying figures from our history lessons and TV documentaries, but we don't really feel it until we're told the story of one particular inmate, even if it is fictional. That's why books like these are so important - they might not be 100% completely accurate, but they get the true feeling across more than any Wikipedia page ever could.

I liked Daniel but I couldn't help but feel I should have connected to him more. Perhaps that's more to do with the short length of the novel than any fault of the writing, but even so. That said, I respected him and his love for violins is palpable. It's clear a lot of work has gone into researching craftmanship - each stroke of sandpaper and tightening of string is meticulously detailed, and it's easy to get as drawn into to its creation as Daniel does.

He's close to giving up hope and sometimes feels like the violin is the only reason he hasn't given in to despair. I have an Irrational Hatred (so frequent it needs to be capitalised) for whiny characters even if they have every right in the world to complain. However, even despite my usual dislike, Daniel never bothered me. Not once. If that's not a glowing recommendation, I don't know what is. It's just a very subtle book, I think. It doesn't need to bludgeon you with the desperation because you can feel it slowly seep in around the edges and that's much, much more effective. 

The only thing that didn't seem to make much sense were Daniel's feelings towards the violin. I understand that its creation was possibly the only thing keeping him alive at that time, and yet I didn't really believe that he would love it so much. Surely after going through such a horrendous ordeal, he'd never want to see the damn thing again, much less ensure that his family keep hold of it after he's gone. Not a huge point, don't get me wrong, but I didn't think it was explained very well.

Interspersed between chapters are genuine documents from the time when Auschwitz was functioning. These detail punishments meted out to the inmates along with their living conditions and experiments performed. There's just a few scattered in and amongst - not enough to overwhelm the story, but enough to cement your impression of its horrors  and remind you that the story may be fictional, but the camp was not. 

I enjoyed The Auschwitz Violin. It's strange though - having finished it, I put it on the shelf and wandered off to do something else without feeling particularly moved or pensive. It does keep coming back to me though, and it's nearly a week since I finished it. Parts of it will pop up in my head for no apparent reason and I can't help but feel they'll be haunting me for a while to come.
 

Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

It's such a horrible shame that Mary Ann Shaffer died in 2008, because I swear I'd run out and buy every book she ever wrote. I've read this before, back in 2009, but I loved it just as much this time round. I'm going to try not to gush about it, but just keep in mind that I actually had to stop myself from nuzzling the damn thing at one point.

It's 1946 and Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name.

If you've read 84, Charring Cross Road by Helene Hanff, this is very similar. If you haven't... well, what's wrong with you? It's written in epistolary form - a collection of letters between an author and the members of a book group on the island of Guernsey. Eventually Juliet goes to visit her new friends and writes back to her closest friend and publisher in London to keep him updated on the Guernsey happenings. As the letters progress, more and more of the island's life under Nazi occupation is revealed - the rationing, the hiding, the beatings... for such a cute little book, it's very brutal in places.

I think that's what makes it's so wonderful. It's so quaint in a chattering, friendly way but it doesn't sugar coat the true horrors of the War. The way the islanders all banded together to survive and keep up their spirits is truly moving. I've never seen such wonderful characterisation in a book - they all have their own personalities and that's a hard thing to achieve in epistolary form. I especially like the Benoit sisters - a very, very minor part in the book, but it amused me no end. And Elizabeth, oh Elizabeth. That's all I can say without giving anything away, but if she were real I'd spend my days tracking her down so I could hug her and cry on her shoulder.

   Honestly, Juliet, she had those children crying and sobbing as though their hearts were breaking. I was too shocked to move, but not Elizabeth. No, quick as an adder's tongue, she grabbed Adelaide's arm and told her to SHUT UP.
    Adelaide cried, 'Let me go! I am speaking the Word of God!'
   Elizabeth, she got a look that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face - nice and sharp, so her head wobbled on her shoulders - and dragged her over to the door, shoved her out, and locked it. Old Adelaide kept hammering on the door, but no one took any notice.

I love how Juliet comes to be accepted by the inhabitants of Guernsey as one of their own, and how even Kit goes to stay with her. I can't really explain the homely feel of this book, you really must go read it. It gives you such a warm fuzzy feeling when you think you actually know these people. Their pain is your pain and their joy is yours.

I've just been reading the notes at the back of the book, and apparently the real story isn't that dissimilar. Ms Shaffer was born in the 1920s and happened to visit Guernsey right after the War. So she genuinely was an author struggling with her current book who got distracted by the history of war-time Guernsey. It gives it a nice ring of authenticity, I think.

'Why, there'd be soldiers on guard in the back of potato lorries going to the army's mess hall - children would follow them, hoping potatoes would fall off into the street. Soldiers would look straight ahead, grim-like, and then flick potatoes off the pile - on purpose. They did the same thing with lumps of coal - my, those were precious when we didn't have enough fuel left.'

You might have gathered by my subtle hints, but I'm rather fond of this book. I know, I hid it well, but it's true. I tried to write a balanced review, I really did, but there is quite literally nothing negative to write about this book. I adore it and I think I might give in to my inclination and just nuzzle the damn thing.

Review: Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

I swear I'm not going to read another World War II book for the next seven years. With Alone in Berlin, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Making History and The Postmistress, I think I've pretty much Hitler-ed myself out. Still, it's been interesting to read accounts from different perspectives - we've had a narrative from a little German boy, an American journalist, an English modern scientist, and now a contemporary account from a German war-opposer.

Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, deception, betrayal and murder ensue, tightening the noose around the Quangels' necks ... 

Firstly, this is a slow book. I was probably at least 2/5 of the way through before I really started to get into it. It has a slow beginning, as a multitude of different characters are introduced without really showing us how they inter-connect or what relevance they have. Stick with it. After a while, you really start to understand the characters and how the oppression present in Nazi Germany affects them all differently.

For me, the turning point was when I read the Afterword. In certain cases, Afterwords affect a reader's view the book to such an extent that they should really put it at the beginning. I only came across it when I was skipping forward to the end of the story (I know, I know - I'm one of Those People) and flicked through it. Previously, I thought that Alone in Berlin was a relatively modern novel, but it's not at all. Hans Fallada lived in Germany during the Nazi regime (well, he didn't, because that's a pen-name, but you get the idea) and was unfairly denounced as an anti-Nazi conspirator. An earlier work of his, The World Outside, was condemned as being too sensitive to convicts and he was forced to alter many of his other novels. At the back of Alone in Berlin, there are photographs of the prison documents used to convict the real people these characters were based on.

So, I didn't 'get it' until I read the after-word; now I do, and I think it's wonderful. It's not just a mundane account of the day-to-lives of generic workers; it's more than that. It's about how the Nazi propaganda was so powerful, so brainwashing, that even the slightest rebellion from inside Germany was quashed, and even the smallest insurgence was dealt with as harshly as possible. No-one would stand up and fight against Hitler, because they were too scared of recrimination. Otto and Anna's fight against the Nazis in Alone in Berlin signifies how useless any fight would be and how in the end, it was foreign powers that ended the disgrace, not the German workers.

Trust me, I hate that I had to read the afterword to understand the entire point of the book. But hey, I can live with that -  I can suffer the indignity of admitting my ignorance because it allowed me to get everything I could from the novel.

It's not an easy book to read, but you'll be rewarded if you do. The characters are so full and so lively, that it's easy to see that the author based them on real people. They're not all likeable (in fact, very few of them are) but that adds to the reality of it. Some people are trying to do what they think is right - either by keeping their heads down or fighting the power, but some are out to gain from the misfortune of as many people as possible.

I really, really enjoy it when I end up liking a book a lot more than I expected to. It feels like I've somehow broadened my horizons and made a new friend.

Review: The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

As I mentioned in my The Time Will Come post, I've recently reorganised my bookshelves so that all my TBR books are on one looooong shelf instead of several different piles. The end with the oldest books is closest to my bed, so they're all staring me in the face and I can easily convince myself that I actually want to read them. Or that's the theory, anyway. Of the last seven books, six have been from that end. I'm oddly proud... Anyway, The Postmistress is the latest addition as I bought it ooh.... early 2010? 

The wireless crackles with news of blitzed-out London and of the war that courses through Europe, leaving destruction in its wake. Listening intently on the other side of the Atlantic, newly-wed Emma considers the fragility of her peaceful married life as America edges closer to the brink of war. As the reporter’s distant voice fills the room, she sits convincing herself that the sleepy town of Franklin must be far beyond the war’s reach. But the life of American journalist Frankie, whose voice seems so remote, will soon be deeply entangled with her own. With the delivery of a letter into the hands of postmistress Iris, the fates of these three women become irrevocably linked. But while it remains unopened, can Iris keep its truth at bay?

The majority of the story follows Frankie, an American journalist in London seeking first to report the truth of the Blitz across the seas, and then to travel across Europe telling the story of the Jewish people pushed out of their homes. Unfortunately, she's the most irritating character. She's selfish, stroppy and naive and somehow expects wandering into Nazi Germany to be completely problemless. I did like her vague jobs at the censors behind her broadcasts though - they seemed to fill her out as a character and make her a little more real somehow.

The Postmistress herself doesn't seem to feature that much, which is a shame as she's by far the most interesting woman. 40-year-old Iris runs the rural Post Office by herself and loves the order and perfection that comes with such a job. Every letter in its place, every stamp in its corner. She isn't interested in the secrets the mail might possess - she never reads the back of a postcard or even notices who's sending perfume-scented enevelopes overseas. She just does her job and does it well.

Emma is the new wife of a young doctor in Cape Cod. She's heavily pregnant and hasn't heard from her husband in months, as he's gone to provide medical aid to the bombed residents of London. She refuses to believe he's dead as she has heard no news and the letters he used to send daily have stopped.

I did like the book, but it's not what I expected. Firstly, it's not a whole lot to do with either the Postmistress or letters. Like the blurb states, she does withhold a letter... but it's not even integral to the plot. The whole Post Office side could have been cut out of the story and the book would barely need to change. Ms Blake's notes at the back say that she saw her own Post Lady slip a letter into her own pocket once and that's what inspired the story, but I think that got lost somewhere along the way. It kind of defeats the purpose for me. Fair enough, Frankie had a more action-packed story, but don't pretend that the story's about a Postmistress when it's plainly not. 

The prose is beautiful though. Sarah Blake clearly has a gift for providing stunning imagery, whether its the sandy dunes of Cape Cod or the train station in Berlin packed with Jewish immigrants. Even the dialogue flows naturally, although I found that the viewpoint would change suddenly and we were being shown somebody else's opinion with no obvious gap inbetween. 

I felt that the ending was slightly anti-climactic too. The whole book was building to this big revelation... and then it was dealt with quietly and shoved under the carpet. After the entire point of the book turned out to be different than promised, the lack of any real ending was the icing on the cake.

I think I can sum it up best by saying that I loved the writing style and the characters that felt so real. The War felt gritty and terrifying, and wasn't glossed over like it is in so many books. I loved everything... apart from the story. It ruined it for me. It just kind of meanders around and then peters out gradually. It could have been such a brilliant book, but it just, well... wasn't.

Review: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

I got an urge to read this after being subjected to too many hours of the History Channel. It might as well be renamed to the Hitler Channel actually, as that's all they seem to know. I mean, I like Hitler as much as the next girl (err, that came out wrong...) but history had other characters too, you know? Anyway, that channel's on constantly in Hanna Manor (haha, say that out loud- I'm seriously calling my house that from now on) because Father Dearest has to have some form of noise constantly. Anyway, obviously the incessant discussion of Auschwitz must have seeped into my subconscious because I found myself reaching for The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas this morning.

The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about. If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. (Though this isn't a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence. We hope you never have to cross such a fence.

Guess there wasn't much point in posting that useless plot synopsis was there? Anyway, I'm sure most of you know what this is about. Nine-year-old Bruno and his family are forced to move out of Berlin because of his father's huge promotion. Their new house is nothing like the old one, mainly due to the huge barbed wire fence at the bottom of the garden. Bruno has no idea what's going on but resolves to find out who the people are in the striped pyjamas behind the fence.

Flicking through some of the other reviews on goodreads, it looks as though you either love this book or you hate it. The people that hated it can't seem to get past the tiny plot-holes and complain that it's unrealistic, but to me that's missing the point of the novel. It doesn't pretend to be a hard-hitting expose on Nazi concentration camps, it's just a moving story of a boy whose innocence is slowly being eroded.

The people that loved it each seemed to get a different message from it. This is the second time I read it, and I took from it that during the war, even good people like Bruno's father were persuaded to do things that would previously have been seen as wrong. During my first read-through however, I remember thinking more about the innocence of the children forced to be a part of the war. I think it's one of those books that you can read it over and over and each time get a new message.

Actually, that reminds me of the one gripe I had with The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. Bruno is a little too young. He's meant to be nine years old, but lacks any of the understanding and intelligence that a normal boy of that age should have. I understand that his innocent is exagerrated to promote the point of the book, but why not just make him a younger child? He's just generally a very selfish and irritating boy.

Regardless of how old he should be, Mr. Boyne narrates very well in the voice of a nine-year-old. I especially liked his slow realisation that the servants were people too, with their own war-related troubles. It really is very clever - he speaks and thinks exactly as a small boy would, either about the war or his day-to-day life.

I love this book. You have to be willing to just go with it and accept certain things, but it really is a moving book. I don't really fancy the film as I can't see how they'd manage to show it all from Bruno's perspective, but the book will always be a favourite for me.