The Book Mistresses
June 2016 - Book # 142
The Nightingale
Chosen by Jane
Excerpt from cover:
In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France … but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can … completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.
The Nightingale
Why read this book:
Though the story is charming in several ways, it is relevant because it sets the landscape of the severity and brutality of all French citizens in the midst of the German occupation of France during WWII. There seems to be no escape from suffering whether one is Jewish or not. However, to be Jewish is in essence to be given the ultimate suffering and a death sentence. Yet through the cruelty, suffering, and inescapable hardships of war, relationships get stronger or break, the human spirit crumbles or emerges in heroic form. Each person must figure out their path to survive and being a parent, a spouse, a sibling or a friend impacts one's judgement and actions. What stands out in this novel is the women. Usually considered the shadow figures of war, they however, are really the fabric; sustaining family and country while their men are no longer present in daily life.
First Sentence: "If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are."
Here the author clearly states that ones ideas about love will be challenged by war. This first statement alludes to the narrator's own experience in relationships and perception of self during wartime. This serves to be the premise and overriding theme of the novel.
Does the story work:.
Yes, the story flowed, it was engaging. As a whole the story lines made sense for historical fiction.
Characters:
Two sisters, young women at the time of the German occupation are the lifeblood of this novel. The secondary characters add to the complexity of the story and give the main characters frameworks to bind and to separate their worlds.
Strengths:
The author balances the emotional tightrope the characters tread along side the horrors of war.
Greatest strength:
It is important that we remind ourselves what happened and what could happen still. Using fear and oppression as tools to force people to be complicit to extremism can give way to horrific actions. We need to learn from the past to prevent history from repeating itself.
Foreshadowing serves to build up to the climax of any story, this one included but the surprises and unexpected twists were welcomed.
Flaws:
Many in our group felt the first chapter was too juvenile. Ultimately, it changed tone and the reader was drawn in. One in our group felt the author betrayed one of her main characters towards the end of the book and hence felt played on as a reader. However, that was not the consensus of the group.
Style: Kristin Hannah is a gifted story teller.
Recommend: A unanimous yes!
by Krisin Hannah