A League of Their Own (1992)

The relationship between rival baseball-playing sisters Kit and Dottie is what lies at the heart of "A League of their Own." The film is set against the backdrop of World War II, where able-bodied men were sent to fight and society wanted it both ways- for women to step up to the task of "man's work" while staying true to their femininity.

Well-liked Dottie (Geena Davis) and tomboyish Kit (Lori Petty) live a tough and mostly uneventful life on a dairy farm in Rural Oregon in the 40's. When obnoxious agent Ernie Capadino (John Lovitz) offers them a chance to play baseball professionally, Kit jumps at the chance, but Ernie wants Dottie, resulting in a ultimatum -- Kit can tag along if Dottie comes too.

Kit has never felt as capable, beautiful, or talented as Dottie, and resentment colors her behavior throughout the film. Dottie reluctantly comes to the tryouts, and she and Kit end up on the same team, the Peaches. Sound like a recipe for trouble?

Film Review: Everyman's War & A Few Thoughts on Our History "Curriculum"

In exploring history with my homeschoolers, I basically have two goals. I am not interested in my kids memorizing names, dates, and battles. I never thought that was the proper goal of history instruction, and in the era of Google, it seems even more pointless. First, I want them to understand the "big picture," the links between interconnected events. This helps us grasp the complicated, far-reaching consequences of choices our leaders make, the lessons history has to teach us. It enables us to become thinking citizens.

Monday Round-Up/Homeschooling With Tarantino

This week we found ourselves inching back into a "normal" routine after the holidays. Trisha was VERY excited to get back to school. She attends a small private school, part time, as a homeschooler.

Weekly Round-Up: Books, Films & Homeschooling (No Zombies)

There has been a little too much crazy around here lately. Sometimes I feel like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day. Waking up every day to the same old mess, hoping something changes yet powerless to make it happen. :-P Things are starting to look up, though.

Film Review: Au Revoir Les Enfants

Au Revoir les Enfants (1987) Written and Directed by Louis Malle
viewed in French with English  subtitles

Excerpt from The Siren of Paris by David LeRoy

This is an except from David LeRoy's self published novel, The Siren of Paris, which I previously reviewed. I also posted an interview with the author here.

The Siren of Paris is currently on tour with Nikki Leigh of Promo 101.

Marc, a French born American student, never suspected that he would become trapped in German occupied France when he came to Paris in the summer of 1939 to study art. While smuggling a downed airman out of the American Hospital, through the Paris resistance underground, his life is plunged into total darkness when someone he trusts becomes a collaborator agent for the Gestapo. Marc then must fight to save his soul when he is banished to the “Fog and the Night” of Buchenwald, where he struggles with guilt over the consequences of having his trust betrayed.

      Marc lay in the back of the truck with the others from the YMCA, along with some British soldiers and a few employees of a Belgian aircraft company. It was about 1 a.m. and though they had been traveling for hours, they were not yet ready to bed for the night. And they were not alone. All along the valley road were others still on the move. Everyone seemed to be going someplace, anyplace, wherever they could get in a hurry, with a great determination. “I am really looking forward to getting out of France. When I get home, I am going to go straight to Elizabeth’s house and spend the night. I have not been able to write her for two weeks. She probably thinks I am dead,” Allen said to Marc. Marc stirred from his self-loathing mood. He played over and over in his head the number of times he could’ve left France. He resented himself for staying too long, just for Marie. He even doubted the sincerity of the promise of engagement.

I Served The King of England -- Novel and Film

Set in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in the period surrounding World War II, this satirical novel follows Ditie from a teenager to an aging man. He begins his career working as a busboy and peddling hot dogs at the train station. He often filches money from his train station customers, and he becomes obsessed with money and everything it can buy. Watching the wealthy patrons in the restaurant where he buses tables, he comes to believe that wealth can buy respect, companionship and a place in society. After saving his tips for some memorable visits to a brothel, he concludes that it can also buy love.

Ditie works his way up and eventually waits tables in several elegant hotels. He is drawn to Zdenek, the head waiter in one of these restaurants, a fun-loving man who recklessly strews money wherever he goes. Another head waiter, Skrivanek, becomes his mentor. Skrivanek, who once waited on the king of England, has an uncanny ability to tell, just by looking at a customer, where he's from and what he will order. When asked how he knows these things, he simply responds "I served the king of England." In that restaurant, Ditie serves the emperor of Ethiopia. Later, when asked how he knew things ("How did you know Germany would end up at war with Russia after all?"), he'd reply "I served the emperor of Ethiopia."

Ditie's thirst for material success continues to grow. After the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia, he meets a young German woman named Lise, a passionate follower of Hitler. They decide to get married. After some digging into Ditie's family history, to reveal that he has Aryan roots, Ditie submits to medical tests to prove that his sperm is "first-class and worthy of inseminating an Aryan vagina with dignity." While he's offering a sperm sample, fellow Czechs are being lined up and shot by Nazi soldiers. This reflects the tone and style of the whole novel -- ridiculous, darkly funny things are tangled with moments that are purely tragic.

After Ditie and Lise marry, they set to work conceiving an Aryan child for the new Germany. They make their fortune as war profiteers, and after the war, Ditie eventually realizes his dream of being wealthy and owning a hotel. However when Communists seize control of the country, private property is confiscated. After a sentence in a hilariously relaxed minimum security prison, Ditie ends his life humbly working on rural roads.

I Served the King of England is written in a straightforward narrative style, without dialogue. At moments I thought the prose was beautiful, and at other times it felt tedious. The plot and characters, which ranged from quirky to insanely bizarre, held my interest from beginning to end. There is little sentiment in this novel. For example, while there are a few tender moments with Lise, Ditie never seems to connect with his wife or his developmentally disabled son. He talks about them in a detached way. And he is somewhat disconnected from the horrendous events he lives through, focused on his own life and his quest for wealth.

Later in the story, Ditie realizes the absurdity of his quest for wealth and prestige and enters an introspective stage of his life. As an old man, working on rural roads, he is finally sought out by local villagers for who he is, not what he has -- they enjoy his knowledge and unusual outlook on life. I found his change in perspective interesting. For example, he remembers his old friend Zdenek, the head waiter who drew people to him by strewing his money. Now he remembers a different story: Zdenek was loved for his kindness and generosity, not for his material worth. Readers see the same story from a different angle, which gives us a sense of his metamorphosis.

On the other hand, at the end of his life, Ditie remains self absorbed and his awareness of the events he's survived, the Nazi occupation and the rise of Communism in Eastern Europe, seems shallow. I completely understand why Publisher's Weekly wrote "Ditie's moral transformation is not entirely persuasive." Maybe this is intentional, reflecting Hrabal's gift for edgy satire. People's obliviousness to what is happening around them is an important theme here. For instance, in an absurd scene that stands out in my mind, a knife fight among gypsies suddenly breaks out in the hotel where Ditie is working. At a nearby table, a patron happily reads a book while he is splattered with blood and body parts are strewn around.

I Served the King of England is well-crafted, disturbing, darkly funny, and unique. Though I didn't fall in love with it, I recommend it to other readers. The author has a unique approach, blending Ditie's memories, which change shape over time, with fun, racy hilarious scenes, and horrific moments which seem to strike abruptly.

Although I usually prefer to read a novel before seeing the film adaptation, in this case, I'm glad I saw the movie first. The film's vivid imagery stayed with me throughout the book, and helped guide me through the narrative.



The movie, by Czech director Jiri Menzel, followed most of the novel closely, though it omitted or radically changed some important parts. It was true to Ditie's character and the colorful, odd, darkly comic quality of the movie. The cinematography was lovely, making the film visually striking.. And if you happen to like images of food and naked or scantily clad women, you will be richly rewarded. :-P

The movie also didn't lose Hrabal's satirical edge. I agree with Roger Ebert:

Menzel doesn't pound home his points. He skips gracefully through them, like his hero. He takes the velvet-glove approach. Here is a film with a hatred of Nazis and a crafty condemnation of communist bureaucracy and cronyism.

The movie actually offers a stronger indictment of the Czech communist government than the book, as Ditie's treatment by them is much less benign in the film.

I liked both the novel and the movie adaptation of I Serve the King of England, but I enjoyed the movie more. The movie's imagery more than compensated for the interesting details in the story that were left out of the film.

This movie is rated R for nudity and general naughtiness.  

Read More Book Reviews: Novel Insights, Book Snob

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

The Siren of Paris by David LeRoy

Born in Paris and raised in the United States, 21-year-old Marc Tolbert enjoys the advantages of being born to a wealthy, well-connected family.. Reaching a turning point in his life, he decides to abandon his plans of going to medical school and study art in Paris. In 1939, he boards a ship and heads to France, blissfully unaware that Europe -- along with the rest of the world -- is on the brink of an especially devastating war.

However the story begins at the close of Marc's life. In the opening lines of this novel, we find ourselves at a graveside, in 1967, as Marc's spirit watches the living pay their final respects. Surrounded by the ghosts of men lost in the war, Marc sees snippets of his life flash before him. Before he can leave this world in peace, he must reconcile the sadness and guilt that burden him.

Soon we meet Marc on his carefree voyage to Paris, a place that seems far removed from the looming Nazi threat to Eastern Europe. When he arrives at l'École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, more ominous signs surface. There are windows covered with tape, sandbags shielding the fronts of important buildings, whispers of Parisian children leaving the city, and gas masks being distributed. Distracted by a blossoming love affair, Marc isn't too worried about his future, and he certainly doesn't expect a Nazi invasion of France.

Marc has a long journey ahead of him. He witnesses, first-hand, the fall of Paris and the departure of the French government. Employed by an ambassador, he visits heads of state, including the horribly obese gray-haired Mussolini and the charismatic Hitler. He witnesses the effects of the tightening vise of occupation, first-hand, as he tries to escape the country. He also participates in the French resistance, spends time in prison camps, and sees the liberation of the concentration camps. During his struggles, he is reunited with the woman he loves, Marie, who speaks passionately of working with the resistance. Is she working for freedom, or is she not to be trusted?

I've read many kinds of historical fiction. In some historical novels, the setting and events unfolding are merely a backdrop for the characters and story the author has created. In The Siren of Paris, the historical setting and events are the story. While the characters and their lives are important, the exciting and horrific events of this period drive this novel. Carefully researched, well chosen details bring these events -- from pre-World War II France through the liberation -- to life. While I generally gravitate toward more character driven novels, I was absorbed and fascinated by the book.

The author's meticulous historical research really shines. Events are described in incredibly vivid detail and in a very personal and human way. For example, we see detailed news footage of the German invasion of France. We see people cramming themselves into and piling on top of train cars, trying to escape the country. We experience the destruction of an ocean liner, are drawn into the intrigue of the French resistance, and feel a character's psychological deterioration in a prison camp. The novel also touches on the post traumatic stress the protagonist suffers after the war.

I also liked the spirituality that runs through the novel. We see a priest who is well versed in dogma and without compassion contrasted with a loving, spiritual man of God. This story explores themes of faith, despair, betrayal, guilt, forgiveness, redemption, and the pivotal choices that make us who we become. There are also lightly rendered paranormal elements and interesting dream/hallucination sequences as well as a wise, thoughtful moment, at the end, where Marc's spirit realizes what he needs to achieve peace.

While it is packed with information, The Siren of Paris is readable and entertaining. This is an excellent living history book for adults and mature teens, and it might be a valuable resource for homeschooling families. Parents may want to know that while the violence is not very graphic, there are very disturbing elements along with some strong language and very mild sexuality.

I received this e-book, with no expectation of anything other than an honest opinion, as part of a virtual book tour through Promo 101 Book Promotion Services. For more information about this virtual book tour, please visit -- http://bookpromotionservices.com/2012/05/22/siren-of-paris-tour. For more information about this novel and author, see http://www.thesirenofparis.com/. You can also follow David on Twitter @studioleroy or on Facebook.

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Mudbound by Hilary Jordan

Henry and I dug the hole seven feet deep . Any shallower and the corpse was liable to come rising up during the next big flood: Howdy boys! Remember me?

As this story opens, in 1946, Henry and Jamie McAllan are burying their father in the flat, muddy fertile land of Henry's farm. Henry's city-bred wife Laura, trapped in a grueling life she didn't choose, stands by with their two girls. As they dig, the brothers realize they've accidentally unearthed the grave of a runaway slave.

"We can't bury our father in a nigger's grave," Henry said. "There's nothing he'd have hated more."

No one seems to be grieving the death of "Pappy," an old man who was defined by his hatred and died under suspicious circumstances. Why did this happen? To answer that question, the story loops around, delving into the characters' history and how they came to this farm in the Mississippi Delta. It moves seamlessly among different points of view, each with a distinctive voice and personality.

The story revolves around two families: the McAllans and the Jacksons, a family of "colored" sharecroppers living and working on their land. Under the feudal system of sharecropping, the Jacksons and others like them farm the McAllans' land, barely earning a subsistence wage.
Their lives are shared by Henry's kind-hearted, charismatic brother Jamie, fighting a losing battle against the demons that followed him home from World War II.

The Jacksons' oldest son Ronsel also returns from the war. After serving his country in the 761st "Black Panther" Tank Battalion, and expanding the boundaries of his world through his tour of duty in Europe, Ronsel is no longer content to keep his eyes down and go through the back door. In Mississippi, where racial discrimination is enforced through vigilante violence, this is likely to lead to disaster. Ronsel's mother Florence, who loves him passionately and has prayed continually for his return home, knows he can't stay. It is only a question of whether he'll leave Mississippi before it's too late.

It's incredibly difficult to tell the truth about racism. Often stories written in a setting like this, exploring these themes, offer us characters who seem color blind and are willing to fight the injustices they see. This makes the topic palatable for us. But it also presents us with characters who seem out of their own time, and it often doesn't ring true.

In Mudbound,  racism controls the lives of people in the community, while in a hole in the muddy earth, the skeleton of a runaway slave takes us back to a time of even more vicious racial inequality. This powerful image reflects the themes in this novel, which explores the many strata of racism. Racial hatred rules "Pappy," who seems to thirst for the blood of black people. He is almost a caricature of a bigot, yet chillingly, he is wholly believable. But it also encompasses seemingly decent white folks who have a paternalistic sense of superiority over blacks, which they view as a simpler, almost feral race. And it includes those who are kind to "colored" folk, but never let them forget their place, and never consider their needs as equal to their own.

I admire this author for telling the truth, without hiding its complexity. Today, when racism seems invisible to many people, the picture she painted reflects what I've seen throughout my life. "Jim Crow" laws and lynchings are a thing of the past, thank God, buried like the bones of the old slave. Yet so many levels of racism do exist in my lifetime -- sometimes glaring and sometimes so subtle you just see glimmers of it, yet you feel its destructive energy.

I grew up in a university town in Eastern North Carolina. The street I lived on ran through my little neighborhood, which clustered around the university. It was populated with many faculty families like my own. We lived modestly, but quite comfortably. If I rode my bike up my street, and through downtown, it took me through what the locals shamelessly called "Nigger Town," a neighborhood made up of neglected roads and tiny, ramshackle houses. I met few middle class African American families in my town. People didn't talk about it, but my parents wisely made sure my eyes were open.

In my school, desegregation was probably only about a decade old. Black and white children rarely sat together in the cafeteria. it just wasn't done, and no one commented on it. Many students, like me, had what I'd consider privileged childhoods. My parents were always on a tight budget, but we never lacked for anything we really wanted or needed, and they always managed to scrape together money for ballet or music lessons. Other students -- many of them black -- wrapped up part of their lunches, because there might not be a meal at home later. It surprises me, and saddens me a little, that I never said anything or tried to help. But I certainly never forgot it or stopped being grateful for the tremendous changes I've seen in my lifetime.

Mudbound is a beautiful novel but not a comfortable one. I found myself liking characters who had decidedly unenlightened views about racial equality. I saw the complexities of marriage in a time when a relationship was shaped by the man's need for dominance and control. I felt angry, hopeful, compassionate, horrified, and sad. The people and events in this book stuck in me like thorns, and they're still with me.

And damn -- this book was a page-turner! I kept finding excuses to pick it up, no matter what I needed to do, eager to find out what would happen next. It was heart-wrenching, but I loved it. It is one of those books I will never forget.

This novel won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, which was founded by Barbara Kingsolver and recognizes outstanding literature of social change.

Read More Reviews:
Boston Bibliophile
Bookdwarf
MostlyFiction Book Review
Fyrefly's Book Blog
The Compulsive Reader


Rating: 5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt April 16, 2002

As for me, I was sired in 1977, the same year as the hero of this story. In truth, my life has been very ordinary. As I mentioned before, I do many good things with myself and others, but they are ordinary things. I dig American movies. I dig Negroes, particularly Michael Jackson. I dig to disseminate very much currency at famous nightclubs in Odessa. Lamborghini Countaches are excellent, and so are cappuccinos. Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper ... That is why I was so effervescent to go to Lutsk and translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. It would be unordinary.

This is the voice of Alex Perchov, one of the narrators of Everything is Illuminated, a quirky and often endearing Ukrainian twenty-year-old who is enthusiastic about American culture and proud of his sexual exploits which are, in fact, figments of his own fertile imagination. He has learned English with the help of a thesaurus, creating a monologue that prompted Francine Prose of The New York Times Book Review to write: "Not since ... A Clockwork Orange has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio."

Alex's father runs a small tour service, driving Jewish Americans to the places where, several generations ago, their relatives died in The Holocaust. Jonathan Safran Foer has come from America, searching for the woman who may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Alex's grandfather, haunted by his own memories of World War II, is his tour guide and driver, and Alex serves as translator. The three of them set off, with a dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, the "seeing eye bitch," adopted from "the home for forgetful dogs," to find Jonathan's ancestral village, the shtetl of Trachimbrod.

They travel the Ukranian countryside, beautiful but still ravaged by World War II, 50 years ago. When they reach the site of Trachimbrod, they find an old woman who has made herself the curator of the shtetl's memories; her home is filled with boxes of photographs, bits of jewelry, and other remnants of what was once a thriving community.

Alex's narrative about their "very rigid search" for Trachimbrod, and for the woman who may have rescued Jonathan's grandfather, is one of three strands intermingled throughout this novel. The second is a heavily fictionalized narrative Jonathan is writing about his ancestors and the history of Trachimbrod. It is a blend of storytelling, in which the past and future are often tangled, magical realism, and assorted thoughts on art and life. It begins when Jonathan's great great great great great grandmother, Brod, is rescued from the river as an infant, the only survivor of a horse and wagon accident. It continues through the life of Jonathan's grandfather, a man with an unusual disability and a prodigious history of sexual exploits.

This narrative is full of odd, quirky characters. These include Yankel the disgraced usurer, forced to wear an abacus bead as a reminder that he cheated someone. He lovingly raises Brod and as he ages, fearing he will lose his memory, he scribbles notes about his life on his ceiling with her red lipstick. It also includes the mad squire Sofiowka and The Kolker, who survives an accident at the flour mill with a blade in his head.

Throughout this fictional history, things are also vitally important, beginning with the detritus of the wagon accident which surfaces in the river when Brod is rescued and the bead Yankel wears to remind him of his disgrace. These things, including prayer beads, shawls, glasses, and other objects, fill much of people's lives and signify remembrance. This is reflected in Jonathan and Alex's odyssey, in present time, in the way the old lady from Trachimbrod carefully saves the possessions of Holocaust victims in piles of boxes, just in case someone comes searching.

Alex reads Jonathan's fictionalized history and discusses it in his letters, and this provides the third strand of the novel. It's an interesting addition to the book, because in effect, the novel reflects on itself and explores its own meaning. We also see Alex's character develop through these letters, as he sheds some of his silliness and prepares to take responsibility for himself and his beloved younger brother.

Jonathan Safran Foer is a tremendously gifted writer, with the courage to try something new and different. At moments I was awed by the story and by his writing. I really liked Alex's voice, and I quickly got used to his quirky use of the English language. I loved much of the magical realism in Jonathan's fictionalized history, and I admired the themes of memories, forgiveness, and coming of age.

On the other hand, I found the novel quite uneven. I ran the gamut from being absorbed by the writer's brilliance to barely wanting to keep turning the pages. It especially fell down during Jonathan's fictionalized narrative. At moments, it was splendid, but at other times it seemed self-consciously clever and disjointed. Some of the sexuality also disturbed me. I am all in favor of not shirking from explicit sex, when it fits the story, and I enjoy a bit of gratuitous literary smut here and there. But some of this sexual content was just bent.

Overall, I thought this was a unique and compelling story with memorable characters, that illuminates the the second world war and the holocaust and how it affects us several generations later. It shows us an empty field where a shtetl stood for generations, seeing births, marriages, feuds, friendships, and deaths, obliterated by Nazis in one afternoon. This image is more powerful than anything that could be expressed in words. It also does a beautiful job of exploring the theme of remembrance, through myriad layers, and I admired the way the author combined quirky humor with somber memory and reflection. This is definitely a novel I will remember.

Read Another Review of This Book At: Books and Other Stuff

Rating: I don't know how to rate this one.


 

Thoughts on the Movie Adaptation: The movie recreated one strand of this complicated novel, the journey Jonathan, Alex, and Alex's grandfather made to Trachimbrod. It offered excellent acting and gorgeous imagery, including a luminous moon shining on the river and a lush field of sunflowers.
While it followed Foer's novel closely in many ways, it made radical changes. Like the book, it revealed secrets about Alex's grandfather, who had been hiding his own memories of World War II. However, the grandfather's story is completely different; I am still puzzling over why screenwriters changed it.

The movie also created a new facet to Jonathan's character by making him a "collector," a young man with the quirky habit of taking things that evoke memories -- photos, his grandmother's false teeth, dirt from her grave -- and bagging, labeling and saving them. I think this may have been done to capture some of the elements of Jonathan's fictionalized history, which isn't presented in the film . It reminded me of its emphasis on multi-generational memories, and on the things that make up much of people's lives. When asked why he collected all these objects, the film version of Jonathan said, "I'm afraid I'll forget." It reminded me of the way Yankel, in the fictionalized history, scrawled his memories on his ceiling with lipstick. I also think the movie's authors wanted to reinforce the theme of remembrance which was explored so richly in the novel.

I liked the novel and the movie equally but, for me, they were very different. The book offered incredibly rich, though uneven, narratives about history and memory that could never be duplicated on screen. The film offered the advantage of not having to wade through the bent and self-consciously clever parts, of course. It also created gorgeous imagery and made the characters more three dimensional and human, somehow.

Another thing I admired about the movie, which I saw for the first time several years ago before picking up the book, was the way it revealed the history of antisemitism in Europe. It seems that too many accounts of the Holocaust treat it as if it were disconnected from the rest of Europe's history, as if Hitler somehow conjured the evil of antisemitism. Like much of Eastern Europe, Ukraine had a long history of progroms and other forms of persecution. Jonathan pointed out, in a very apt and poignant moment, that at first many Ukrainian Jews came to the Nazis to protect them from the Ukraine.

I recommend this movie, though it's not for the squeamish. Take a peek at Roger Ebert's review of this film. I agree with his comment that this is a movie that "grows upon reflection" -- it also benefits from a second viewing.

The Boy In the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Nine-year-old Bruno enjoys his life in 1940's Berlin with his school and his three Best Friends for Life, despite the fact that his father is always busy with work and his bossy 12-year-old sister, Gretel, is A Hopeless Case. However, after a visit from The Fury, with his tiny mustache and blond girlfriend Eva, his life changes. Bruno's father has received an important work assignment far from Berlin. Bruno comes home from school to find the family's maid, Maria, packing everything in his wardrobe, even the things he'd hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else's business.

The family's new home at Out With is swarming with soldiers, who call Bruno's father Commandant, and new servants who seem angry and frightened. Then there are the people who live behind the fence, surprisingly thin, identically dressed in striped pajamas. Bruno's father doesn't talk much about those people; he simply tells him that they're not really human.

Lonely for his friends, Bruno meets Schmuel, one of the children behind the fence. The boys share a birthday and even look a bit alike. They have both recently been displaced from their homes. Day after day, they sit on opposite sides of a barbed wire fence, talking and sharing snippets of their lives, without Bruno ever grasping what life is like on the other side.

John Boyne has written a short, deceptively simple story in which Bruno's extreme innocence and naivety is deliberately contrasted with the extreme cruelty and evil that we know is the backdrop for the story. Written in a simple, somewhat formal style, this novel is stripped down to bare bones. When an atrocity occurs, all the details are omitted; in a sense, this makes them even more disturbing.
Boyne ends the story with the ironic lines: "Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age."

In his afterward, he takes us back to the image of the two boys sitting on opposite sides of the fence, a picture that came to him and compelled him to write this story. "Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one."

This story has been described as a parable. We see Bruno, sitting at the fence day after day, clearly glimpsing Schmuel's humanity, but not really understanding what's on the other side. He is surrounded by adults who know what's happening on the other side but deny the humanity of the people there.
This does seem like a particularly apt metaphor for our world, doesn't it? In a world plagued with wars, and with the overarching evil of genocide still alive and well, I identify with the child outside the fence, kind-hearted but shockingly oblivious to what's in front of him. As I got pulled into this simple story, I realized how powerful that image is, and I found myself looking at my reflection. It prodded me to ask the question: "How can I live in this world comfortably, not really looking at what's right in front of me?"

I recommend this thought-provoking book to all readers. And while I don't think it was written for children, it might be a good choice for middle grade or pre-teen readers who are ready for an introduction to The Holocaust. I'd preview it first, because while it leaves out all the gruesome details, it provokes disturbing questions. You might try pairing it with The Diary of Anne Frank or Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. For mature teens who are ready for gruesome details, you might couple it with The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. If there are excellent young adult novels about the Bosnian conflict, the Rwandan genocide, and similar topics, these might also be a good fit.

Read More Reviews of this Book:
Bermuda Onion
Bibliophile by the Sea
Bloggin' 'bout Books

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

The Dresser

The late director of The Dresser, it seems, has a great love of theater. He also appears to have an interest in Borderline Personalities. The movie has the amplified acting and general feel of a stage play and provides us with one of the most annoying characters in some time: the peculiarly named Sir, played by the great British performer Albert Finney.

   Sir is dramatic, narcissistic, and generally a pain in the whoseits whatits. "Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do!" He bellows at a moment when he feels especially wronged. Appropriately, he's also an actor.

   Behind every jackass there's a victim of their jackasserie, and though Sir's antics cause much unrest, the main victim in question is Norman, played by Tom Courtenay, who works for him, cares for him, and may also be in love with him.

   As Sir's "dresser" and make-up artist, Norman puts up with Sir's Borderline schtick daily. (Norman's name puts me in mind of the classic Norman Bates. "A boy's best friend is his mother," I announced while watching, but my mom didn't get it.)

    Together, Sir and Norman are part of a theatrical group performing Shakespeare in war torn London, England during World War II. Sir has little or no sympathy for the victims of the war, preferring instead to dwell on his own ego and suffering.

   Sir's rants are irritating yet strangely amusing, while Norman is sympathetic, but slightly WEIRD at times. Norman, who is so effeminate he could have come out of Roger De Bries' crew in "The Producers" (not a criticism, just an observation) is not short on funny quips, and this and Sir's frenetic acting out give the film a kind of black comedy quality.

   It is, however, a serious film st heart, as Norman becomes increasingly lonely and put out at Sir's rambling,. The acting seems at times to be a little in your face, though ultimately one can't complain. Norman's homosexual interests are implied rather than shown, so fans of hot gay sex scenes can look elsewhere.

    Ultimately, the viewer feels for Norman, and if they are a better person than me, for Sir, who becomes convinced of his own impending demise. It is mostly well-acted, often funny, and intriguing for people interested in the historical aspects of homosexuality.

 

 

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

   The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is about a regular kid -- not a child prodigy, not particularly wise beyond his years. The only thing that separates him from the willfully blind adults who surround him is that he has not yet learned to hate. The film never depicts him as a hero, at least an intentional one, just a kid who acts like any other would act, innocently unknowing of the expectations and prejudices of those around him.

     The protagonist is a blue-eyed, brown-haired eight-year-old named Bruno (Asa Butterfield) living in a stage were fantasy and reality remain merged. He resides with his family in Germany, with his older sister, soldier dad, and mom. He tries to find fun as best he can, with no help from his sibling, who is the simpering lapchild type, engaged in a misguided coming-of-age, decorating her walls with appreciation for her country and throwing aside her dolls.

     After living comfortably in their home, his family announces they are to move away, closer to the new job. His father has earned a promotion. This is supposed to be good news, but isn't for Bruno - he wants his old house and friends and doesn't want his life changed. Worse, he has no say about the matter and is moved to a base where men in gray pass him stiffly,  talking to his father.

    There are no children he can see, until he stumbles quite by accident on a farm occupied by underwashed, underfed people. He is encouraged to stay away, as his father tells him the people are not humans and shouldn't be treated as such. But they seem human enough to him, especially Schmeul, a boy his age who catches his attention. They meet and laugh at each other's names, and promise to visit more.

     In a different situation, the friendship would be considered harmless, and Bruno would be able to freely play with the boy before his return. The fact that he is living in Auschwitz puts a damper on that ideal. As is, Schmeul is treated as a flea-ridden cat -- don't bother to get attached to him, he'll be gone soon enough. But love for his fatherland has not impressed itself in Bruno's mind yet, and he ignores the others warnings', pleased to have another child to interact with.

     This film is based on a young adult novel by John Boyne, described as a "fable" by the author. It contains telling details of the holocaust, but from a child's eye view -- nothing is treated as if Bruno's concentration was turned, and yellow stars and fences are interspersed with the normal thoughts of a kid - toys, friends, and irritating siblings. It is a small but powerful story, meant to send a message with only as much information as we need. The rest we know for ourselves.

     For basically first-time actors, the young boys who play Bruno and Schmeul do fairly well. However, I was annoyed by the skips and jumps in Butterfield's performance. In scenes of fantasy and play, he behaved naturally, but when the story becomes more intense, he seemed slightly confused about how to react to the script, which hampered the believability somewhat. He did a generally good job, however, and one shouldn't want him to progress too fast to avoid a Culkin-ish speed-up of maturity.

     The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is quiet and infused with moral ambiguity. Bruno doesn't view his father as a monster even as he begins to know more. Even his mother doesn't seem completely aware of the situation, and although she knows of the prisoners, it still comes as a shock when she figures out what the torrent of smoke streaming into the air is.

     Also, it contains the most shocking and unexpected ending since The Life Before Her Eyes. Although the adults turn away, reminding themselves of their good fortune that they are not within the barbed fence, they are forced, in the most horrendous way possible, to look back. Everybody finds their inner humanity, and no one wins (Rated PG-13.)

*

A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson

Ellen is a conundrum to her mother and two doting aunts. Passionate suffragettes and civil rights activists, they have spent their lives helping turn the conventional role of women on its head. Yet Ellen passes up the chance to pursue higher education, and she loves to cook, clean, and nurture people.

Her passion for cooking and nurturing leads her to a position as housemother at an eccentric Austrian boarding school. The local villagers warn her away from the Hallendorf School -- a "devilish" place where atheism prevails, children run wild, and their eccentric professors insist that everyone swim in the nude. Nonjudgmental and passionate about what she does, Ellen sets to work cleaning, making excellent meals, and looking after her flock of neglected children from wealthy families.

Ellen meets many interesting characters at Hallendorf School, including Tamara, an Englishwoman who has reinvented herself as a Russian ballerina, Hermine, the mother of Andromeda, the "self regulating baby," who never uses diapers, and the mysterious and resourceful Marek, who has a secret mission. Along the way, Ellen helps a Jewish refugee escape from Germany, finds romance, and eventually returns to England to provide loved ones a safe haven during the war.

A Song for Summer is a fun novel with several plot twists. The author uses gentle humor, with light shades of Jane Austen, and takes you to the Austrian countryside, pre-World War II Vienna, and London during German bombings. It also explores the world of classical music, which adds another delightful dimension.

I enjoyed the cast of likeable, eccentric characters and the gentle humor, and I loved the scenic views of the Austrian countryside, glimpses of European culture, and bits of world history. However I found myself wishing that I had gotten to know the characters a bit better. My relationships with them felt superficial.
I recommend this book to historical fiction lovers and readers of light romance.

Many thanks to my friend Jen B. for recommending this book. Read another review at The Compulsive Reader.

Rating: 3.5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Evelyn is almost 16 and filled with adolescent yearning. She is eager to grow up and start her life. She wants to be beautiful and desirable like her mother and experience love. It is 1947, and many soldiers have returned from the second world war, including Evie's beloved stepfather, Joe. Unfortunately, he is bringing home secrets, and his attempts to escape his past take the whole family down a slippery slope.

The author of What I Saw and How I Lied appears to have meticulously recreated the mood and language of the time, and the book has many elements of noir -- a film and book genre that blossomed in the post-war period, spinning stories of mystery, sexual tension, and human corruption.
According to Bookslut:

This is a book that sings of Bogart and Bacall, Raymond Chandler and Robert Mitchum and utterly and completely of Gene Tierney. You do not have to be a noir fan to enjoy it however, and it is assuredly a teen drama with wide appeal. I found a great deal to admire in Blundell’s writing here, and in her willingness to take a chance on a setting and style rarely visited for teens. There is a reason why this book is an award winner; it is completely cool.

In true noir style, the mystery keeps readers wondering what's around the next corner, unsure whom to trust. It is also a multi-layered historical novel that reflects attitudes and economic changes in post-War America. It delves into antisemitism and racism, foreshadowing the societal changes ahead.

Above all, it's a rich coming of age story. We watch Evie reach the brink between innocence and sexuality and between trust and cynicism. It is both fascinating and heart wrenching. She is also being forced to choose between youthful dependence and relying on her own strength, while making a life changing decision about whether to lie or tell the truth at any cost.

This novel kept me up well into the night. The mystery lover in me was sorely disappointed in the unanswered questions that lingered at the end of the book, but in a literary sense, the ending worked. I highly recommend this book for mature teens and adults who enjoy coming of age stories, including those who don't usually enjoy historical fiction.

Read More Reviews:
Becky's Book Reviews
Shelf Elf
The Ya Ya Yas
The Reading Zone

Rating: 4

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei

Irene's three daughters were grown up; the youngest, Sophie, was about the graduate from high school, when her husband Bill walked out, "needing a break." Irene said something when he left, words of bitterness and hurt, which she came to regret when Bill died in a tragic accident. These words drove a wedge between Irene and her daughters. Now, at 55, she finds herself alone, desperate to reconnect with her children.

Daughter of a Taiwanese feminist and revolutionary, who immigrated to America after fleeing civil war, Irene was raised to be an exceptional woman at all costs. Irene became a biologist, immersed in important research that might solve the riddle of Alzheimer's Disease. Yet she was torn between her career and motherhood.

Her mother, Lin Yulan, lives across the country. They are separated by a rift caused by Lin Yulan's expectations of her daughter. Twenty years ago, at age 60, Lin Yulan left her chronically unfaithful husband, and she harbors deep secrets about what she suffered in China.

The legacy of needing to be an exceptional woman, beyond all else, filtered down to Irene's daughters, all high achievers. Nora, now in her late 20s, is a successful financial trader. She overcame a professional subculture of sexism and racism to be respected by her male colleagues. She's in a difficult relationship with her live-in boyfriend, terrified to compromise or commit to him. Kay, in her mid 20s, is living in deplorable conditions in a Chinese dormitory, determined to learn her ancestral language and reclaim her Chinese identity. She drifts among three different men, never settling into a real relationship, and tries to rescue Chinese prostitutes from sexual exploitation. Sophie just graduated from high school. A brilliant student and artist, she has won acceptance to Stanford. She struggles with her relationship with her mother, her attachment to her African American boyfriend, who seems to sincerely love her, and an eating disorder.

On New Year's Eve, Irene reaches out to her sister Susan. A professor and poet who "sees life in moments," focusing on "life crystallized" and ignoring the narrative, the cause and effect, Susan is very different from her sister. Irene plans a trip for herself and her daughters, Susan, and Yu Lin. Ironically they find themselves in their ancestral country on a packaged tour, buying overpriced souvenirs and not understanding the language. There is a great deal of awkwardness, misunderstanding, and frustration among the six women. But in the end, they've achieved something -- not reconciliation, but a bit more acceptance.

Deanna Fei's narrative shifts among six points of view, speaking in the voice of each of these women. Her characters are well drawn, and she does a magnificent job of seeing the world through the eyes of women in three different generations. I was absorbed by the aspirations, fear of intimate commitments, and confusion navigated by gifted, ambitious women in their twenties. I was also captivated by the hopes and losses of midlife and the challenges of old age, when one has a rich history but few people alive who were there with you to bear witness.

This story has many layers. It reflects both the prejudices toward and high expectations of Chinese Americans. In her review, Amy Finnerty of the New York Times, wrote: "It is to Deanna Fei’s credit that she so squarely and honestly takes on a misunderstood ill — the burden of the so-called model minority." It explores Chinese history, including the legacies of the revolution and the tragic holocaust under Japanese occupation. This novel also looks at the complexity of women's issues. Kay is inspired by her grandmother's feminist revolutionary past. She scours personal ads, preparing to rescue Chinese women from exploitation.

"Handsome European male fluent in English and Chinese would like to meet Japanese and Korean girls. NO SPEAK ENGLISH? O.K. I LIKE YOU. WE HAPPY" ... These women couldn't understand how what seemed like romance, or at least mutual attraction, was shameless capitalization; or the historical context of Orientalism; or the subtext of those English ads -- how, for starters, that "Handsome European male" preferred his Asian women inarticulate, if not voiceless; or how such presumptions coiled around people, until they no longer knew how their own identity had been constricted. (pp. 72-73)

Then she discovers the sexually "exploited" women she reaches out to don't want to be rescued, and glimpses the reality that this issue is more complex than she had imagined. For these women, paradoxically, prostituting themselves offers an unprecedented kind of freedom.

Similarly, Deanna Wei captures the complexities of both traditional marriage and modern relationships and of the struggle between a woman's career, and her drive to make a mark on the world, and her desire to be in a "safe" intimate relationship and raise children. She respects her readers enough not to suggest easy answers. And the characters she portrays -- both male and female -- are flawed, vulnerable, and vividly real.

Q & A with the Author: Adoption. Et cetera.

Read More Reviews: Largehearted Boy (includes the author's music playlist for this novel); Book Addiction; Daisy's Book Journal


Rating: 4.5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Blackout by Connie Willis

 

 In the year 2060, time travel has been perfected and harnessed by academia. At Oxford University, historians travel back in time to study the past first hand. Three scholars find themselves in World War II England. While studying the Blitz, the German bombing of London, Polly works as a shop girl in a London department store. She spends her nights with neighbors in a bomb shelter. Her days are spent among stores that have been shattered by bombs but are still open for business, watching Londoners courageously trying to continue with the flow of their lives, refusing to give into their terror.

Merope has gone "in service" in a rural English manor to observe children evacuated from London in anticipation of the Blitz. The manor is overrun with children, many of whom have lived in unspeakable deprivation in the London slums. And her energy is consumed by a brother and sister who misbehave so spectacularly that their reputation precedes them everywhere they go.

Michael has arrived to observe the evacuation of Dunkirk. He is meant to be in Dover, observing the rescue of English soldiers from a safe distance. Dunkirk is a divergence point, a place where any action, large or small, might alter the course of history. Therefore, due to "slippage," he doesn't arrive in the exact time and place he'd planned, and things go in a completely unexpected direction.

Although "nets" are in place to prevent historians from inadvertently changing history, Michael is terrified he's had an impact on the war. What will change? What if England loses? These young historians struggle with everything from absurd bureaucratic red tape in academia -- apparently some things never change -- to terrifyingly obnoxious children, as well as bombings, diseases, and injuries in the line of duty.

Then things go horribly wrong. This novel, written in a simple but somewhat elegant style, is a pastiche of historical events in World War II England. It switches among various characters and different settings. I found this distracting at first, but I quickly learned to go with the flow, and it contributes to an intriguing sense of time being nonlinear that fits the premise of the book. The story is woven on the framework of time travel, with tangled threads of history running together, and chaos theory (the butterfly effect). These elements are sufficiently developed to be intriguing without being overbearingly technical or challenging.

Blackout also offers a wealth of characters, time travelers as well as the "contemps," people living around 1940. However this is not a character-driven novel. There's a tremendous number of people, flitting on and off the screen, in this book. And we know little about the back story of even the three main historians. This lack of depth left me a bit frustrated.

On the other hand, the main characters felt real; I enjoyed being inside their heads as they navigated their adventures. I sensed they were very bright, though in some ways, naive. And they sometimes tended to have tunnel vision, because they had immersed themselves so deeply in the periods they were studying. There were occasionally surprising gaps in their knowledge, and I sometimes wondered whether they were confusing actual historical events with documented rumors and propaganda.

This characterization of bright, focused young students struck me as being right on the mark. And all the secondary characters were well drawn and delightful.

The novel's real strength, however, was in the wealth of historical detail. The author meticulously researched the events she explored in this novel, and she told the story slowly and in great detail, highlighting the complex reactions people show in the midst of war, including their spontaneous acts of kindness and heroism. Everything seemed so real, I felt I could reach out and touch it, and by the end of the book, I felt like I'd "been there."

The downside is that the end of this long novel (490 pages) is a cliffhanger, and all the complicated threads the author unfurled won't be tied up until the next book, All Clear, which will be released next month. I will be eagerly awaiting my copy.

Rating: 4.5

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me

Broken Birds by Jeannette Katzir

Katzir's articulate, well written memoir is really three separate stories. The first two stories tell how each of her parents survived the Holocaust. Her mother, Channa, joined her brother in a band of Partisans when she was just 12 years old. They lived in the forest, waging guerrilla warfare against the Germans. The author's father, Nathan, survived the ghettos and two concentration camps. They met in New York after the war and began a family; their survival and the births of their five children were an affirmation of life and a triumph over Hitler.

The third story was about the life of the author, Channa and Nathan's second child. Most of it focused on the long, grueling legal battle that followed their mother's death. This enmeshed family, including the author, her father, and four siblings, fought over Channa's estate, churning up a lifetime of rivalries, heartbreak, and pain. The effects of her parents' wartime experiences, particularly Channa's, run throughout the story.

We see how their family's life was shaped, in part, by the lasting terror and insecurity this imprinted on Channa. She was terrified her husband would abandon her, and this warped their relationship. She hid large amounts of cash in various places. After all, when her family was seized by the Nazis and moved to the ghetto, they could carry only what they were able to hide in their clothing. And she conditioned her children to expect the worst from life and distrust anyone outside the family.

The parts at the beginning and near the end of this book, which dealt directly with the Holocaust, were by far the most powerful. I was absorbed in Channa and Nathan's experiences during the Holocaust. Near the end of the book, Nathan returned to his homeland with three of his children. They looked at places where he lived his early life, where he was imprisoned, and where he escaped. They faced baffling denial in modern day Germany about the Holocaust. This part of the story was riveting.

The author's account of her life, and of battles fought with her siblings, were not as compelling. She made a case that everything that happened stemmed from her parents' experiences in Europe; they were deeply scarred, and they handed these wounds down to their children. I don't challenge this. The author knows her family best, and I believe family history causes ripples that last for generations. Yet while I find the impact of their suffering on their children and grandchildren an intriguing topic, this didn't fully come together. A great deal of the conflict was about money and business squabbles, and this thread wasn't enough to hold the whole narrative together.

On the other hand, there are many things I liked about this book. In addition to the parts exploring the Holocaust, there were many things that moved me, including the author's description of her mother's deterioration and death. And I was intrigued with the way she came to understand her troubled, complex parents, loving them even as she faced their flaws. For most people, this is a complicated, ongoing journey that doesn't end after childhood, and Jeanette Katzir explored it eloquently.

Other Reviews: The Bookworm; The New Podler Review of Books


Rating: 3

5- Cherished Favorite	4 - Keep in My Library	3 - Good Read	2 - Meh	1 - Definitely Not For Me