Tag: World War II

Review 2598: A Place to Stand

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The first novel I read by Ann Bridge was contemplative. This one becomes much more action oriented. But both are about women developing new conceptions of themselves. This one is about a young woman becoming an adult.

A Place to Stand was published in 1951, but it is set ten years earlier. Hope Kirkland is a little bit spoiled, a nineteen-year-old American whose wealthy father is an oil executive living in Budapest for the last eight years. Although she and her mother have lived there that long, neither of them seems to understand much about what’s going on around them politically.

Hope is engaged to Sam Harrison, a young journalist who has just been transferred to Istanbul. At his departure, he gives Hope a large box of chocolates, which she thinks is an odd goodbye gift. However, when she opens it, she finds it contains two passports for young men and money with a note of where to take them. So, she does. In a less desirable neighborhood, she finds a group of Polish refugees, an old woman, her two sons Jurek and Stefan, and Jurek’s fiancée Litka.

Hungary is neutral, but Poland is fighting the Nazis. Some Hungarian politicians are pushing the country toward Germany, so Polish refugees are in potential danger. Stefan and Jurek are almost ready to leave the country, but they are waiting for something to arrive from Poland first.

Hope is immediately drawn into the affairs of the Polish group. She is struck by what was clearly once a wealthy family having no home and no possessions. Then the Nazis arrive in Budapest and immediately begin looking for Poles. At the same time, the Americans are asked to leave the country.

I had to get over my initial reaction to Hope and her general obliviousness, which was made worse for me by Bridge’s continual use of the word “little” to describe just about everything about her, her little hand, her little figure, etc. However, this novel turns into an adventure that results in self-discovery for her. I enjoyed it quite a bit, acknowledging that probably many rich American girls at the time were silly and clueless (although ones living right there in Budapest? I’m not so sure).

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Classics Club Spin Result! Review 2595: The Passenger

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I know I’m early in reviewing my Classics Club Spin book, but it just so happens that when it was picked for the spin, I had just read it but not reviewed it yet. Lucky for me, because so many of the books remaining on my list are really long!

I am not sure how The Passenger made it onto my Classics Club list, but its origins are certainly interesting. Boschwitz, who had already escaped Germany with his mother, was so affected by the events of Kristallnacht that he wrote this novel in a great hurry. It was published in England in 1939 and in the U. S. in 1940, but then it just vanished. Revisions he mailed to his mother never arrived. Then, in 1942, he and his manuscript were on a passenger ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat, and they were lost. Nearly 80 years later, a correspondence with Reuella Shachaf, Boschwitz’s niece, mentioned to Peter Graf that the manuscript for the book was held in an archive of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. So Graf looked it up and helped edit it and get it republished. It came back out in 2018.

The book opens with wealthy Jewish businessman Otto Silbermann handing over 51% of his business to a friend, Becker, to save it from being taken. As Becker points out, there is nothing Silbermann can do about it because he’s Jewish. Jewish men are being rounded up, but Silbermann has an advantage of not looking Jewish.

Back at home with his Christian wife, he tries to sell his house to another friend, Findler, who cheats him. Again, there is nothing he can do about it. Then thugs begin pounding on the front door, so Findler sends him out the back, saying he’ll protect Elfrieda.

Silbermann begins a journey lasting days, traveling by train from one city to another to find a way to escape Germany. His goal is to go to his son Eduardo in Paris. But Eduardo has been unable to get him the papers he needs. In the meantime, he lives in a state of paranoia, listening to constant insults to Jews, fearing strangers, and thinking he’ll be arrested any minute.

This is a tense novel that seems very realistic, although Silbermann occasionally becomes incandescent with anger about the injustice, thereby risking his own life. It’s a compelling novel.

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Review 2572: Sarah’s Key

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In 1942, Sarah Starzynski is 10 years old, a Jewish child in Paris. There have been rumors of a raid on Jewish homes, but usually the French police take only the men. So, Sarah’s father hides in the basement while Sarah, her mother, and her four-year-old brother go to bed as usual.

But this time, the French police are there to take everyone. They don’t seem to know about her brother, so Sarah locks the little boy in his secret place, thinking she will come back soon and let him out. In the street, her mother has hysterics and screams her father’s name so that he comes out. All of them are taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver, ultimate destination Auschwitz.

In 2002, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist who lives in Paris, is assigned to write an article about the 60th anniversary of the infamous roundup at Vel’ d’Hiv’, as the velodrome is known. Julia has never heard of it before. Aside from the ultimate destination, the Vel’ d’Hiv’ is known because, like with Hurricane Katrina, thousands of people, mostly women and children, were there for days without food, water, or sanitary facilities.

As part of her research, Julia asks French people if they know about this story. Most of them claim not to, but Julia learns from her father-in-law, Edoard, that the flat her husband Bertrand has been renovating became a possession of the family after the removal of its Jewish family on the night of the Vel’ d’Hiv’. In fact, that family was the Starzynskis.

The novel follows Sarah’s journey for a time, alternating with Julia’s story, as her personal life becomes entwined with her desire to find out what happened to the Starzynskis, particularly Sarah, who was not recorded as having died in Auschwitz. After about half the book, Sarah’s narrative stops.

I know I never read this book before, but some plot points seemed familiar, so perhaps I saw the movie. The plot was compelling enough, but I still had some issues with it, particularly that I couldn’t imagine that after a while a four-year-old child wouldn’t have made enough noise to be found in almost any apartment building.

I had more problems with the writing, though, particularly of Sarah’s sections, and the characterization. I think Sarah’s sections are written in a way to suggest childishness—the sentences are short, most of them in a subject-verb-object order that results in choppiness. Her reactions are naïve, much more so than I can imagine from any Jewish child of ten at that time and place. And ten-year-olds can have as complex thoughts as adults. She seemed, especially at first, more like a much younger child.

The writing is better for Julia’s parts, but there are still inapt word choices and no very strong use of language. It’s mediocre. For example, a glass of limoncello is described as “a beautiful yellow.” Ho-hum.

I felt the novel was interesting enough to finish, but just barely.

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Review 2497: Novellas in November! School for Love

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This year, I thought I’d try to pop some novellas into my October reading so that I could participate in Novellas in November, hosted by Bookish Beck and Cathy of 746 Books. I actually read School for Love for my Century of Books project, but was delighted to see that at 191 pages, it qualified for this one, too.

Felix Latimer arrives during a snowstorm in Jerusalem from Baghdad. He is newly orphaned, his father having been killed during the war (WW II) and his mother having recently died from typhoid. So, he is being taken in by a family connection, a woman named Miss Bohun who runs a boarding house, until he can get on a boat to England. The war is winding down, but at this point places are reserved for soldiers and government personnel.

Felix is in his mid-teens, but for a long time I took him for much younger. He has been taught by his mother to look for the good side of people, and he is disposed to be grateful to Miss Bohun, but readers see her another way right from the beginning. Although she runs a fringe religious organization and talks about good works, early on she sits down with Felix to figure his share of expenses and while adding up her household expenses, includes some things twice, then remarks that they should divide the costs in half even though she has another boarder (although admittedly, he is very poor and we don’t know how much he pays). Even so, his half of £36 mysteriously ends up at £21, leaving him pocket money of only a few pounds a month. (Later, she tries to raise the rent to take the full amount.) She also feeds the boarders poor and scant food.

At first, Miss Bohun confides in him and he is confusedly willing to take her part in her concerns. Although we learn that she has stolen Frau Leszno’s house and furnishings from her by putting the house into her own name to “protect” it, and actually uses Frau Leszno as a servant, Felix is ready to take Miss Bohun’s part because Frau Leszno seems so unpleasant. He likes Mr. Jewel, the other tenant who lives in the attic, but he still takes Miss Bohun’s part when she tells him he has to leave the next day, even though he has nowhere to go. (He ends up in the hospital.)

Miss Bohun is scheming, we find, to oust Mr. Jewel and move up into his attic herself so that she can rent her room to Mrs. Ellis, a young widow. Once Mrs. Ellis appears, Felix is smitten, and he begins to see the other side of Miss Bohun after taking in Mrs. Ellis’s sarcastic remarks. We eventually learn that Miss Bohun has promised Mrs. Ellis the whole house in the fall, a promise she has no intention of keeping. In fact, we realize all along that she has been trying to replace her tenants with more wealthy or prestigious ones, with the idea of getting more rent.

Although there is some action, most of the novel is concerned with the interactions among these characters and a few more. Felix begins to wake up to some realities.

The portrayal of Miss Bohun is a masterly one as we note her constant hypocrisies. As for love, although Felix begins with a crush on young Mrs. Ellis, it’s only really between Felix and a little cat, Faro.

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Review 2486: A Chelsea Concerto

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A Chelsea Concerto is Frances Faviell’s memoir of the Blitz. Although I have now read several memoirs and novels set during this time, this one is remarkable for its integration of war news and its detailed descriptions of air attacks and their results. Faviell lived in Chelsea during the Blitz—an area that was very hard hit—and the book ends with a massive bombing of the area.

The book begins before the official war, with Faviell getting involved with working with Belgian refugees because of her ability to speak several languages. It continues to follow events of the war and the Blitz. It’s so detailed as to indicate that Faviell must have notes or diaries to refer to, as the memoir was not published until 1959. The descriptions of damage caused by the bombings is very vivid.

Unfortunately, Faviell often assumes knowledge on the part of readers that they may not have, either because it was common knowledge at the time or that it was so familiar to her that she didn’t think it needed explaining. This problem includes unexplained abbreviations, people identified only by name with little context, and at the end of the book, a mysterious reference to some event three years after the events of the memoir.

Also, there are lots of people mentioned in the book but characterization of only a few of them. This led me sometimes to be confused about who they were.

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Review 2473: My Father’s House

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Helen of She Read Novels has posted a note about Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP XIX), which I always forget about but usually participate in. As somewhat of a suspense novel, My Father’s House qualifies, so let this be the start of my participation this year. Most of the action is on Instagram at @PerilReaders, but I am not a great user of that.

My Father’s House is a book I read for my Walter Scott project, and it is also the first in O’Connor’s Roman Escape Line trilogy. It is based on the true story of the Escape Line, a group of people who helped captured soldiers and others escape from the Nazi occupation of Rome. In particular, it focuses on Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, one of the group’s founders.

After Rome is overrun by the Nazis, the Vatican gives Monsignor O’Flaherty a duty of ministering to British soldiers in Nazi captivity. Being an Irishman, he isn’t eager to do this duty. However, when he sees the condition of the men and the ease with which the Nazis break the Geneva Conventions, his manner to the Germans is such that he is removed from the duty. In this way, he comes to the attention of Obersturmbannführer Paul Hauptmann.

O’Flaherty then decides to form a group to help soldiers escape from the Nazis. The group becomes successful enough that Hauptmann begins receiving threatening communications from Himmler.

Much of the novel centers around a Rendimento, as the Choir, the central group that runs the Escape Line, calls their missions. The group has planned its mission for Christmas Eve (1943), thinking that Hauptmann won’t expect it, but in the last few days, Sam Derry, an escaped British major who would normally run it, is incapacitated. They begin training Enzo Angelucci instead.

The main focus of the novel is whether the mission will be successful, but the narration travels around in time and person via transcripts of interviews of several of the participants. In some respects, this structure is interesting, helping you get to know the other characters, but they didn’t all have distinct voices, and you didn’t get to know them well. There is also the disadvantage that the approach tends to interrupt the building suspense.

I thought the novel was very interesting in its subject matter. I’d never heard of the Escape Line. However, as the first of a trilogy, I’m not sure how much more there is to say, even though no doubt there are many adventures to recount. I didn’t feel as if I got to know most of the characters in the novel, not even the Monsignor.

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Review 2466: Table Two

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One of the main characters of Table Two is more of an antihero. It’s Elsie Pearne, a bitter, disillusioned middle-aged woman who works for the Translation Office of the Ministry of Foreign Intelligence. She is intelligent and hard working, but she has a chip on her shoulder and a tendency to paranoia and doesn’t understand that it’s her own behavior that makes people dislike her.

She works at Table Two of the translation office with some eccentric coworkers. One blasts the room with cold air every morning while another can’t stop talking. A third takes delight in others’ misfortunes.

At the beginning of the novel, London has not had much of a problem yet with bombing, so the Ministry employees are simply bored and frustrated during the frequent occasions when they have to take shelter during the workday. But soon that changes.

Offsetting the character of Elsie is that of Anne Shepley-Rice, a young woman of the upper class who comes to work in the department. Elsie takes a fancy to her and takes her under her wing. But although Anne is grateful, she is much less invested in the friendship than Elsie is.

In the workplace, a plot centers around who is going to be appointed the Deputy Secretary of Table Two once the competent Mrs. Jury leaves for family reasons. The question is important because the Director, Miss Saltman, although a pleasant manager, is hopelessly disorganized, and Mrs. Jury does most of her work.

On the personal front, Anne feels she is hopelessly in love with Sebastian Kimble, her long-time friend and neighbor. Not only does Seb show no signs of wanting to settle down, but Anne’s family has lost its money, so she feels she is no longer a catch.

Although I’ve read quite a few novels set during World War II that are contemporary to that time, this is the first one that deals so much with the workplace. It is acerbically funny but also could be about a modern workplace, dealing with the same concerns of getting along with disparate people.

Elsie is not likable, and she creates her own problems, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her at times. Anne is sympathetic but a bit milk-toasty.

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Review 2463: The House Opposite

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I didn’t like the main character of The House Opposite at first. Elizabeth is having an affair with her boss, a married man with two children, and she sees his wife and children only as people who get in the way of her happiness. She’s dating a young serviceman, Bob, simply to hide her affair. She apparently referred to the boy across the street as a “pansy” in his hearing, and the remark has made him doubt his sexuality.

Nevertheless, she’s friendly to her coworkers and as she begins to help with the war—working as a warden and helping in the hospital—she begins to grow on me. As warden, she is partnered with Owen, that same boy she insulted, and it is the developing friendship between the two that is a focus of the novel—that and her own self-evolution.

One of the interests of this novel is the detailed descriptions of what it was like to live through the Blitz in London. Although other novels recount an incident or two, most of the characters in this novel have chosen to stay in London and sustain many attacks, most of them even staying in their homes and feeling a little superior to those who seek shelter.

Although Elizabeth takes a long time to recognize that her lover is a stinker, she otherwise shows herself to be quite likable. There are a lot of themes, involving Owen growing up, Elizabeth humanizing her lover’s wife and children, Owen’s father’s involvement in the black market, and so on.

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Review 2455: Spam Tomorrow

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Spam Tomorrow is Verily Anderson’s memoir. Although it briefly hits other times of her life, it concentrates on the war years and ends shortly after D-Day.

The book begins with Anderson’s marriage to Donald, an event not encouraged by her parents because of his lack of wealth and an age difference that is unstated but I figure has to be at least 20 years.

At the beginning of the war, Verily, having already been warned off Donald , volunteers as an ambulance driver. At first, the drivers mostly just wait around to be dispatched, and later, she is erratic in her actual attendance at this job, getting very sick and later going off when she feels like it. She keeps running into Donald, though, who is found unfit for the military because of physical reasons and instead is working for the Ministry of Information. Finally, they decide to marry.

Most of the book has to do with the struggles—sometimes serious ones but related in a lighthearted manner—of living in London during the Blitz, of a difficult pregnancy, of motherhood, and of problems trying to find a suitable home to raise children when you’re not well off and being bombed.

Again, although sometimes concerned with serious problems, like Verily’s difficult first childbirth and subsequent illness, the memoir is related in a lighthearted manner and is often amusing. It provides yet another angle on British life during the war.

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Review 2431: Forest Silver

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Forest Silver is a love story but not the kind you might expect. It is steeped in the love of the Lake District, particularly Grasmere.

It’s early in World War II, but Wing-Commander Richard Blunt has already been invalided out. He has received the Victorian Cross but been told his heart is not up to much. He has also broken off his engagement. Aware that the engagement news will be published soon, he jumps on a train to the Lake District to get away from everything.

Arriving in Grasmere, he finds it stuffed with evacuees as well as vacationers. He manages to get a room, but noting an island in the lake, he decides he’d like to live there and asks who owns it. He is directed to Bonfire Hall to speak to Miss de Bainriggs.

Much to his astonishment, he finds his prospective landlord is a tall teenaged girl who dresses like a boy. She agrees to lease him the island, which is occupied by a sort of barn called a hogg-house. However, there is some unpleasantness because a Gypsy woman named Jownie Wife has been living there and has to be evicted.

Corys de Bainriggs takes seriously her ownership of the estate and is determined not to sell an inch of it even though she is broke and a wealthy evacuee is offering large sums, foreseeing that the local hotels will be commandeered. However, Jownie Wife takes her revenge on Corys by burning down the house of one of her dependents, Old John. Old John refuses to live anywhere but his own home, and because she’s afraid he will die, she sells some lake acreage to Mr. Lovely so that she can rebuild Old John’s house.

Blunt befriends Corys and eventually understands himself to be in love with her. But Corys is much too young for such things. Things are made more complicated by the appearance on the scene of Gerald Lovely, a university student, and of Maimie Ozzard, Richard’s ex-fianceé, whose parents have been killed by a bomb and has no one to turn to.

The descriptions of the area are beautiful and the picture of wartime life in a place that has to adjust to so many new people is interesting and different than the wartime stories I have read. Ward is an evocative writer and storyteller.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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