A WWII Story I Recommend

I finished reading this Pulitzer Prize novel very early this morning. I could have finished it last night but chose to read the final 43 pages today. For some reason, I didn't want to come to the end of this compelling novel written by Anthony Doerr.

And so, at 6:15 a.m., I sat in the quiet house and read to the end of this bestseller. You can't help but wonder if the world needs one more WWII story but perhaps we do, perhaps we need to be reminded on a frequent basis what the world became during those years. When they are as beautifully written as this book, they are a satisfying read. Despite the abundance of WWII books, each one tackles one small part of that war, introduces us to a handful of the thousandas actually involved. I've always thought that historical fiction is a painless way to learn history, and this novel deals out a healthy portion of history to the reader as well as some scientific knowledge.

The story begins in 1934 and centers around two children. Marie-Laure is a blind child who lives in Paris with her father, a locksmith in the Paris Museum of Natural History. Werner is an orphan who is being raised with a younger sister in an orphanage in a coal mining town in Germany.  He is gifted in the science of radio transmission and all involved with it. As a result he is sent to a training school for Nazi youth and eventually becomes a soldier. Marie-Clare and her father flee Paris when the Germans come. The go to Saint-Malo, a town on the seacoast of Brittany, where they stay with Marie-Clare's great-uncle. Etienne has never recovered from his WWI experiences and remains housebound in his tall, six story house, due to his never-ending fears. 

The book moves back and forth effortlessly between the two children and what occurs in the lives of each. It is only late in the book that their paths cross and then for only one day. As we follow the lives of these two characters, we also get involved with a mystery of the whereabouts of a huge diamond named The Sea of Flames. 

There is much more but I prefer the reader find it on his/her own. The story is fascinating and gripping. Not being of scientific mind at all, I felt I learned some things about radio transmissions during this period of history as well as learning something of what it is like to live without sight as Marie-Clare did from early childhood on.

I also reveled in the beauty of the prose. Some paragraphs almost felt like a prose poem as they were written in language that spoke to my heart.

I found a veil of overwhelming sadness throughout the story. How can a war story be anything else, I asked myself. Even the ending pages which take place long after the war ends did not leave me with joy or hopefulness. But this is not a reason to pass over this novel. 

Read it for the fascinating story. Read it for the beautiful prose. Read it for a painless history lesson. 

Five Stars For This Historical Fiction Novel

I recently finished Kristin Hannah's latest novel, The Nightingale. Author of twenty-two novels, Ms Hannah had been a lawyer before turning to a writing career. Many lawyers who write concentrate on criminal and mystery novels. Kristin Hannah stays with stories about human nature, how events make people do things, and about relationships within families and among friends. Hers are 'people' stories.

The Nightingale has stayed in the top ten on the Bestseller List for weeks. This historical fiction novel pulled me in immediately and kept me reading farther into the night than I'd intended. I found myself picking it up when I had a half hour to read now and then. 

The story centers on two sisters in France during the Nazi Occupation of WWII. Vianne is married and mother to Sophie. They live in a small village where her husband, Antoine, is the postman. Isabelle, the younger sister, lives in Paris and, at eighteen, has been expelled from several schools. The two sisters do not get along nor do they have a good relationship with their father who lives in Paris. 

With the occupation of France by the Germans, life becomes increasingly difficult. Vianne and Isabelle argue about what each should do. Isabelle becomes part of the French Resistance while Vianne stays in her village to raise her child and await her husband's return from the army. As the war goes on, both face hardships and heartbreak over and over, as well as great danger. Isabelle's name within the Resistance movement is The Nightingale. She meets danger head-on again and again. Vianne must give a home to a German officer who is at times kind to her but also the enemy. The hardships of war grow greater with each year for both sisters. They meet occasionally and continue to argue, continue to lament their miserable relationship with their father, and continue to mourn a mother lost to them in childhood. 

At the war's end, the sisters finally reconcile, only after each has experienced the horrors of war and living in an occupied country. 

The story is narrated by one of the sisters in 1995 but the reader does not learn which sister it is until the end of the book. The author kept me guessing as to which sister was telling the story, rich in detail and emotion.

A friend who read the book said she found it depressing. Perhaps one could let that be the overwhelming feeling but, for me, I found it to be encouraging as the spirit of the French people and the will to survive comes through. This book is not only about wartime survival but about a relationship between sisters, the loyalty of friends, the fierce love of a parent for her child, and the mending of a broken father-daughter relationship. The writing flows in such a way as to move the reader seamlessly through the story. Ms Hannah is a master storyteller. Critics of The Nightingale cite it as possibly her best book.

I would give it five stars and recommend it, especially if you like historical fiction as much as I do. 

One More WWII Novel

I finished reading The Girl In The Blue Beret last night. It's another WWII setting, well written by Bobbie Ann Mason who is a writer in residence at the University of Kentucky. The list of awards she's won is impressive. Besides a good story, I look for good writing in novels.

Ms. Mason has done extensive research for the background of her story. In 1980, Marshall Stone is a commercial pilot who is forced to retire long before he's ready only because of airline policy. His wife died a couple years earlier, his two children are adults and independent. At loose ends, Marshall decides to go to France to find the people who helped him when his plane was shot down in 1944. There were many who hid him, then moved him on to others who did the same. He wants to thank them personally and to know more about these everyday heroes.

The one who stands out in his mind is a young schoolgirl who guided him through Paris. He stayed in her family's apartment while they forged papers for him and found a way to get him to back to his base in England. He would need to go south to Spain, crossing the Pyrenees and then fly on to England. The young gilr wore a blue beret--one that all her schoolmates wore.

Marshall finds one of the couples who helped him, and their son aids him in finding others. He finds an apartment in Paris and becomes a part of the city, reveling in its beauty and freedom. During the war years he hid and ran secretly during the Nazi occupation.

Eventually, Marshall finds Annette, the schoolgirl he remembered so well. Now, she is in her fifties, only a few years younger than he. She is a widow, a mother and grandmother. Through her, he learns more about the resistance movement during the war years and what happened to many of those people when they were caught. He learns why ordinary citizens risked so much for others, and he learns a great deal about himself. Once again, it is Annette who guides him on this journey.

The characters are varied and many stand out due to the skillful writing of Ms. Mason. If you're a history buff, you'll soak up the historical bits and pieces that serve to illustrate this story. If you're a romantic, you'll revel in the love story that emerges.

I liked everything about this book except the ending. I won't spoil the story for you by revealing it. Just suffice it say that I read the final page and said out loud, "What?" Then slammed the book shut. Maybe it's only because I like endings wrapped up neatly in pretty ribbons. Someone else who reads the book may be completely satisfied with the ending. I'd love to hear from others who read The Girl In The Blue Beret. Let me know what you think.

WWII Novels

There seems to be a plethora of novels set during WWII. I wrote about The Soldier's Wife last week, and in a post last year, I wrote about reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. There have been many others including Sarah's Key, Winter Garden, and a brand new one that I'm reading now--The Girl In The Blue Beret. All of the above are set in the European theater of war, but there are also books set in the Pacific theater.One I talked about a few weeks ago is titled Beside A Burning Sea.


For a reason unknown to me, I have always gravitated to novels set during WWII years. Perhaps because  that era was part of my childhood, and I still remember bits and pieces of wartime shortanges, newsreels in theaters, a trip on a troop train and more. Or is it because, as horrible as it was, a tremendous number of good stories have come out of those years. So, the publishing trend of these novels suits me just fine

Place/setting is of great importance in a story, and in these wartime novels, place is of prime importance. It's also one easy for a novelist to research, or perhaps remember.

WWII novels are at the forefront ahead of ones about Korea or Vietnam because it was a war that was fought with more honor, fewer politics and  we came out victorious. Not so easy to say that about wars the USA has been involved in befyond the 1940's.

Novels do go in trends as do nonfiction books. Memoirs came roaring to the front of the nonfiction lists quite some time ago, and they are still popular. Is it our innate curiosity that makes us read them, to want to peek inside other people's lives. Will the memoir book suddenly take a nosedive?  An unknown, but I think that they will stay around a long time because we've learned that the past is important to our future, particularly so in families. And that allows me one more time to stress the importance of writing your famiy stories!

But I've strayed from the original subject quite a bit. As I said, I do like WWII novels, but many people may not. If you think it's a period you don''t care about or want to know more about, try one of the novels mentioned above and see how you like it. It's like your mother making you try just a bite of something to see if you liked it when you were a toddler. If you don't try, you'll never know.