THE PARIS ARCHITECT by Charles Befloure

  THE PARIS ARCHITECT by Charles Befloure

What's not to like about a story that involves people trying to outwit the Nazis? This is a great story, a really good read written by an architect about an architect living in Paris in 1942. Paris is occupied by the Nazis, everyone is soley concerned with staying alive and out of the way of the occupiers. Jews are being hunted and rounded up and sent away. Everyone is suspicious of everyone else, people are on rations and hungry, life is not easy, collaborators are everywhere, the Germans are quite random in their use of violence, and the search for Jews, espcially rich ones, is relentless.

Lucien Bernard is a very talented architect. A patriot to the core, he hates the Nazis, but also knows he needs to stay out of their way. He has little time or energy for the Jews of the city, but when he is approached by a wealthy industrialist to design very secret hiding places for Jews on the run in return for being able to design buildings for the Germans, and thus earn money and prestige, he has to swallow all his misgivings. His secret hiding places are a success, and against his will he finds himself doing more such work. Over the course of the story, his conscience, his survival instinct and his very humanism are constantly fighting against each other.

Being an architect himself, the author has peppered the story with all sorts of interesting architectural and design detail. One finds a new appreciation for buildings as works of art. So iit is a book that informs as well as entertains. I wouldn't say he is the best writer in the world, and that his talents perhaps lie more with a drawing pencil rather than a writing one, but this is a terrific story. Well told, very real characters, and like many books that have been inspired by WWII, make us question how we would behave in a similar set of circumstances.

MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins

MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins

Well, number three in The Hunger Games trilogy, and 17 year old Katniss Everdeen is out there fighting for her life...again. Surprised that girl does not have grey hairs strewn through that beautiful blonde braid. Plus the ever present Peeta and Gale - who to trust, who not to trust. Certainly gives a different perspective on the life of a teenage girl than those reading these books could ever lead. And yet despite her toughness and outstanding attributes as a hunter and master of weapons, her unwanted destiny as leader and figurehead, she still manages to retain the angst and anguish of being a teenage girl, especially with regards to boys. Is this the real secret of the amazing success of these three stories? That beneath the horrific plot lines, sickening themes and all round ghastliness of it all, there lurks a normal teenage soul, that makes her so relateable to her audience?

And yet, something has been lost in this last chapter in Katniss's fight against the Capitol and President Snow. Yes, it has a gripping plot line, full of surprises and the unexpected. Characters we have grown to love and admire die -  violently. In fact I don't think one single person dies a peaceful death in the whole series of books. Where would be the fun in that. but as a whole this book lacks the page turning intensity and frightening suspense that was on every page of The Hunger Games, and almost every page of Catching Fire. There are many pages in this last book where nothing happens, and it actually got just a little boring. When Katniss was in fighting/survival mode, it was marvellous stuff, but the reader has to read a lot of pages before the Katniss we know and love asserts herself.

Taking up right where Catching Fire finishes, Katniss, unsurprisingly, is a bit of a mess, with her home destroyed and her life upside down. She doesn't know who or what she is. In common with many 16/17 year old girls and boys. Maybe it is because she is now nothing more than a pawn or a tool  in the war between the rebels and the Capitol that it seems like this. She is continually torn between Gale and Peeta, her mother and sister don't seem to need her as much, her best relationship seems to be with her sister's cat Butterscotch. She doesn't seem to like anyone else, nor they her.

Still as expected the Good Guys win, the Bad Guys don't, and there is some Happy Ever After. It is a good story, but somehow to me, it just all seems a bit tired. Hope the movie is better.....

IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote

IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote

No review from me will ever do this book justice. I can't say marvellous, fabulous, fantastic and all those other uplifting and positive words, because the book is about murder most horrible  - in cold blood  no less. But as a quality book, a well written, put together and very memorable book to read, it is, for me, right up there with the best. There are many, many very interesting and insightful and passionate reviews on Goodreads and other places about this book. The most memorable review I read was by a man who grew up in the state of Kansas. It was near the small town of Holcomb in south west Kansas, that one night in November 1959, the Clutter family of four were tied up, tortured then shot in their beds by two petty criminals looking for a safe full of money. The reviewer met a librarian who grew up not far from the Clutter farm, and vividly remembers her father putting locks on all the outside doors of the house after the murders. She sounds scared when she is telling the reviewer this some 55 years later. Truman Capote also conveys very vividly this fear that the local people had about what had happened in their small safe farming community.

The book is subtitled 'A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences'. It marked Capote's first foray into what we now call the non-fiction novel, a new genre at the time he wrote this book in the 1960s. After the murders occurred Capote and his friend Harper Lee travelled to Kansas and interviewed as many people as they could about the family, the community, the murder and so on. Smith and Hickock, the two killers, were eventually hanged for their crime. But not before Capote also spent time interviewing them. His book also tells their stories and how they came to be killers. Apparently some of the things in the book are not strictly correct, but it does not detract from what is a captivating read, the perfection of his character portrayals, the whole horrifying next door feel about it all. It is a book of horror, chillingly so, made more so by it being written in the neutral tones of reportage. 

THE VIRGIN AND THE WHALE by Carl Nixon

THE VIRGIN AND THE WHALE by Carl Nixon

How appropriate to read this in the year of the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. And such a great tribute to the ordinary people - the survivors of the fighting, their families and the people who worked hard to rehabilitate them. This is a really good story, in fact it is several stories really, and centers itself around the power of memory in narrating those stories. Not just the stories we tell each other, but as Oliver Sacks puts it in an opening quote - our 'inner narrative', our own personal story.

Set in 1919, in the city of Mansfield, (very recognisable as Christchurch, NZ), Elizabeth Whitman is a very capable nurse who has worked with injured soldiers, injuries of both physical and mental nature. She has a husband, presumed missing, and a four year old son. She lives with her parents in some sort of limbo zone, unsure of how to proceed with her life.  Lucky is one such very damaged soldier who she finds herself assigned to look after and try to discover what, if anything, can be done to fix him. It becomes very quickly apparent that all of his memories prior to a head injury he received while in the trenches have been completely obliterated. Elizabeth realises this fairly quickly, but has considerable trouble convincing Lucky's wife and medical team that this is the problem, and that he is not schizophrenic needing to be locked up.

Alongside the stories of these two people, Elizabeth is narrating to her young son the story of the Virgin and the Whale, the lead character being the Balloonist, supposedly representing the missing husband and father. How else do you explain to a four year old that no one knows where Daddy is.  Nothing like a bit of magic.

Yet another story comes out of this. The author himself, also takes on the role of story teller. He opens his novel with the story of how this story came to be. He was approached by the son of Elizabeth, with the very attention getting line, 'My mother fell in love with a man who had no memory'.  The author tantalises us with whether this could be true or not, and in the end it does not really matter. Because the story he weaves between the chapters set in 1919 keeps our own thought processes alive and engaged, and the hold that memory has in our own understanding of ourselves.

THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton

THE MINIATURIST by Jessie Burton

Would you look at that cover! Who would not want to explore further such an exquisite house, a cabinet sized replica of the beautiful home once lived in by a wealthy Dutch family in the the late seventeenth century. In the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam the cabinet house of Petronella Oortman is on display. Petronella was the wife of a wealthy merchant and did what lots of wealthy wives did - had a replica made of her home, made with marble, tortiseshell, art works by artists of the day and so on. Exquisite, extravagant and expensive do not even begin to adequately describe such works of art. The author has based her totally fictional historical novel on this lady and her cabinet house. But as there is no further information about the lady and her life, the story created by the author is totally fictional.

When it was published earlier this year, this novel was highly anticipated, and Ms Burton was touted to be the new Sarah Waters or Donna Tartt. Bit off the mark on that one I am afraid. It starts off promisingly however - 18 year old Petronella (Nella), daughter of an impoverished but well connected widow, arrives in Amsterdam from a country town, married in haste to an older man, the very successful and widely courted merchant trader Johannes Brandt. In the tradition of Rebecca and Jane Eyre, the man of the story is absent much of the time, leaving the poor young naive heroine in the clutches of a number of other residents of the house. In this case Johannes' sister Marin who is the other main character in the story, and the two house servants - Otto who happens to be African, and Cornelia. Naturally there is much mystery surrounding each of these characters.

The absent husband, with his own mysterious background and dodgy deals, arranges for the house replica to be delivered to Nella as a wedding gift. It immediately fascinates her and in her lonliness and isolation slowly takes over her life. She very intrepidly locates a miniaturist - a craftsman  - to furnish and decorate the house for her, and fill it with people. For me, at this point, it really started to get just a little bit fanciful. And also quite complicated in its plot. From the title I thought the book was going to be about the miniaturist and the relationship between that person and Nella. But it moved away completely from this idea, with Nella becoming an observer/spectator to what was going on around her of which there was plenty. And I can't say anymore as it will give too much away!

Overall this was not a satisfactory read. The author is definitely passionate about her subject, and has done considerable research, but there was almost too much going on, too many characters with complicated stories and objectives. I didn't get confused, I just got bored.  On her website the author says her book 'focuses on two women’s very different journeys to find a slice of freedom in a repressive, judgmental society.' And it does, but it just does not seem to hang together very well to achieve that aim. 

SHIFTING COLOURS by Fiona Sussman

SHIFTING COLOURS by Fiona Sussman

Review copy kindly provided by Allison & Busby Ltd, via Booksellers NZ

I remember as a  university student in the early 1980s, fresh out of a sheltered existence at my high school, being confronted almost head-on with The World as seen through the eyes of the university student newspaper. Apart from the usual gripes that students had towards the tertiary education policy of the day, the overwhelming memory I have of those weekly student newspapers is the ongoing coverage of the violence and injustice of life in South Africa. As a very naive 17 year old, I literally felt my eyes and mind being saturated and filled up with far away happenings.

Reading this novel took me right back to how I felt when I read those student rags, with their vivid and emotional reporting, engaging peoples' physical and emotional pain, the little control they have over the path their lives take, and how hope and human kindness can still be found in the most unexpected places. It is a fabulous story, carefully and sparingly written, not too emotionally awful, but enough to make one ache for the characters and  how little they are able to change their condition.

Opening in 1959, in Johannesburg, six year old Miriam lives with her mother Celia who is the maid for an English couple, Ria and Michael. Life is tough for Celia, although Miriam, being a child much loved by her mother, knows no different. The continuing unrest in South Africa leads to Celia's employers returning to England, and giving Celia a terrible choice - they wish to adopt Miriam and give her the life that she could never have in Johannesburg. It breaks Celia's heart, and Miriam finds herself living in Norwich. The book then alternates Celia and Miriam narrating their stories as the years pass. Both suffer in their respective environments. Celia has trouble finding and retaining work, she has three older children and has to provide for them as well, black unrest continues unabated and Celia finds herself caught in the crossfire. Meanwhile in Norwich, where black people in the 1960s are almost unheard of, Miriam also has a terrible time. Unable to adjust in any way to life in England or to her new 'family', she is a most unhappy girl. An accidental meeting with an Indian girl and her family is the one bright thing in her life, and also becomes her anchor in the years to come.

Eventually Miriam, as an adult in the mid-1980s, finally realising that she needs to attend to the unfinished business of her early life in South Africa, makes the journey back to find where she came from. This perhaps was the most interesting part of the whole book. For here we have a black woman, well educated, speaking with an English accent, with the same rights as all other people in the UK, suddenly finding herself a repressed person, a second class citizen, subject to random searching, violation, and with very few rights.

I met the author socially at a dinner. This book had just been accepted for publishing and all she would modestly say about it was that it was set in South Africa. Very evasive. I am quite blown away that this is what her book was all about, and that it has been written with such humanity, power and intensity. She is South African born herself, and at university found herself drawn to the protest movement. Knowing that background now, it is hardly surprising she has written this book with injustice and identity as central themes. 

THE ASSAULT by Harry Mulisch

 THE ASSAULT by Harry Mulisch

There is something immensely appealing about small books. In an age when bigger is better, and publishers produce books of 400 pages with enormous font and large paragraph spacing there is something reassuring about novels well short of 200 pages. Yes, big things can be said in small packages. And so it is with this.

Originally published in Dutch, the language of the author, this is a powerful piece of fiction writing. Anton is a twelve year old boy, living with his parents and older brother in a town in occupied Holland during WWII. It is 1945, the Nazis are beginning to realise that the tide is turning against them and their retributions whenever a Nazi or collaborator is killed are particularly vicious and somewhat random. So it is in Anton's small town one night when a collaborator is shot by an unknown. The result of this violence is that Anton, in turn, finds the violence turned upon him and his family and he is left an orphan. His life unfolds over the course of the book in a series of episodes between 1945 and 1982 where he grows from boy to man,going through the various stages of a life. At each episode he is confronted in some way by the tragedy of 1945, which was never really explained to him then or since in any way that enabled him to process or make sense of what had happened. Over the course of his life, during these episodes, he gradually comes to understand what really happened that day, and also finds the peace that has eluded him for all of his life. The world as seen through a child's eyes is, as we know, totally different from the same view that an adult may see. And that is what this book is about - the slow peeling away and probing of the secrets and reasons that people do things in a small community, not only to protect themselves, but also to protect those around them. And the healing that occurs as a result to those most damaged.