Sarah's Key

     Wow. This book is completely astonishing. I absolutely could not put it down; honestly I don't know how anyone does! I will start by saying that this book will break your heart, or at least it did mine. Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay is a story about lives affected by the Holocaust, specifically the Vel d'Hiv' roundup on July 16, 1942. During this roundup, the largest of any on French soil, oven thirteen thousand men, women, and children were taken from their homes and most adults were sent directly to concentration camps whereas families were kept in the Velodrome d' Hiver stadium for 6 days before being split from their children and sent to different camps.

     This novel traces two completely different lives, 60 years apart. Sarah is ten years old, Jewish, and living with her family in Paris in 1942. Julia is 45 years old, American, and living in Paris with her French husband and daughter. The story begins at Sarah's home on the night of July 16th, when the French police came to pick up her family. Sarah's father was already in hiding in a local shop because at this time it was believed that the police were only rounding up men, which left Sarah, her mother, and brother at home. When the police knocked on their apartment door, Sarah was not afraid. She believed that because the French police were at the door, not German, her family would be safe. When the police asked them to gather their things to leave, Sarah's four year old brother was afraid and refused to go, saying he would hide in their secret place. He climbed into a secret cupboard and Sarah locked him in from the outside, placed the key in her pocket, and promised to let him out soon, when it was safe. From the apartment the family was taken to the Veledrome stadium and only after they had been kept there for several days under horrendous conditions did Sarah realize that she would not be returning home. After six days they were transferred to an intermediary camp, away from Paris, so that the children could be separated from their parents. From that point on, Sarah learned at a very young age the cost of survival and that some wounds never recover.

     Julia is a writer for a magazine, directed towards Americans living in France, and is assigned a story on the 60th anniversary of the Vel d'Hiv' roundup. Julia has never heard of this roundup and had no idea that France played such a significant role in the Jewish exterminations. As Julia continues to research that horrific summer she discovers a secret held within her husband's family that links them to Sarah. Once the secret is uncovered, Julia will stop at nothing to find out what happened to Sarah and her family, whatever the consequences.

     The most significant moment of the book for me was when a Frenchman that Julia is interviewing asks her why she is so interested in finding out these details, to which she responds that she would like to apologize to the family. The man is surprised and wonders what on earth an American would have to feel sorry about regarding the Vel d'Hiv' roundup in France. She replies, "Sorry for not knowing. Sorry for being forty-five years old and not knowing." I was touched by this admission because I am ashamed to admit that I had also not heard of this terrible event. I was unaware of how large a part France played in the Holocaust.

     This book is devastating in the best kind of way because it makes you realize that the things you think are problems really aren't. At least that's how it was for me. I think this is a hard but important book to read because it helps to understand the magnitude of this tragedy, to honor the lives that were lost, and to remember what is really important in life.

Ghost Stories

     I began reading The Turn of the Screw because it was one of the books on my "To Read in the Future" list. Once I had finished it my need for suspense and mystery had not yet been fulfilled so I thought it would be interesting to then read a ghost story written by a different author during the same time period. I am absolutely a fan of Edith Wharton. I read several of her novels in college and immensely enjoyed The Age of Innocence (earning her the honor of first woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize in fiction). I had never read a ghost story by either of these authors, but having read other works by both, I was confident that they would be impressive in their own ways.

     The Turn of the Screw by Henry James begins with friends sitting around a fireplace telling ghost stories, as was apparently the tradition on Christmas Eve. The story that everyone is most anxious to hear is told by a man that has come into possession of a woman's manuscript through a friend. The actual narrator of the story is a twenty year old woman that remains unnamed throughout the story. This narrator began her journey by accepting the position of governess to two small children, Flora and Miles, in the wealthy home of their benefactor. The governess is immediately taken with the beauty and charm of the children, though the boy is mysteriously expelled from school for unknown reasons. In fact, the job seems to be perfect until she sees the ghost of a man staring down at her from the house. She has never seen this man before and when she describes him to the housekeeper she is informed that the description matches that of the master's deceased valet.  She then sees the ghost of the children's former teacher, who was also the previous valet's lover. What is most shocking to our narrator is that the ghosts seem only interested in the children. They seem to only watch the young boy and girl which leads the governess to believe that they mean the children harm and she must therefore protect them at all times. As the story progresses it becomes obvious that we are dealing with an unreliable narrator. After situations or conversations that the reader has been privy to, when asked about such events, she appears to be making things up rather than relating the truth.  Another odd thing is that the governess is the only one that can see these ghosts. Every time she attempts to prove their existence by pointing them out to another person, it becomes clear that this narrator is alone in her visions. For me, most of this book was spent trying to decipher whether or not this woman was in fact seeing ghosts or suffering from some sort of psychotic break. To add even more confusion to the plot there also seems to be a strange sexual tension between the governess and the young boy which is a bit disturbing. By the end of the book I was convinced that this woman was seeing illusions resulting from her internal struggles, and not the ghosts of previous employees.

     The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton on the other hand seems to contain actual sightings of ghosts and other haunting disturbances. Of the stories I read I chose to discuss The Lady's Maid's Bell because there were quite a few similarities to James' story. This story tells of a young woman that has also recently taken position in a wealthy home. Hartley is the new maid/companion of Mrs. Brympton, a sickly woman that has lost both of her children. The ghost that Hartley begins to see is also a previous employee, Emma Saxon, the former lady's maid. This ghost does not seem interested in Hartley, but in Mrs. Brympton alone. After Emma Saxon died, Lady Brympton  refused to ring the bell for any future maid. Therefore, when Hartley begins hearing the bells in the middle of the night, she knows something is wrong. When she arrives at her mistress's door however the husband asks, "How many of you are there?" This must mean that the ghost of Emma Saxon greatly resembles Hartley and that she arrived as soon as the bell rang, before Hartley. The questions that stood out to me were, "How involved is this ghost with the family's daily lives?"  and "How can she be confused for a living person?". Another interesting similarity between these works is that both stories end with a sudden death. The most significant difference between these two works however is that in The Lady's Maid's Bell, several people are disturbed by Emma Saxon's ghost therefore presenting the existence of a ghost as fact whereas The Turn of the Screw is famously ambiguous and leaves most of its plot up to the reader's interpretation.
 
     As an added bonus, both books come with an author's note explaining their thoughts behind the work. The autobiographical note at the end of this Edith Wharton collection is especially interesting because she admits that after suffering from typhoid fever as a child she developed the greatest fear of all things supernatural. The following is from her note,

"I had been naturally a fearless child; now I lived in a state of chronic fear. Fear of what? I cannot say--and even at the time, I was never able to formulate my terror. It was like some dark undefinable menace, forever dogging my steps, lurking and threatening...But how long the traces of my illness lasted may be judged from the fact that, till I was twenty-seven or -eight, I could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story, and that I have frequently had to burn books of this kind, because it frightened me to know that they were downstairs in the library!"

I think it is fascinating that a woman with this plaguing fear would one day overcome it and go on to write an excellent collection of incredibly haunting stories. The following illustrations are by Laszlo Kubinyi and are featured in The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton.

The Lady's Maid's Bell



Afterward

Mr. Jones

Empire Falls

    

     More often than not, when I am reading a book all sorts of questions, themes, and ideas pop into my mind and remain with me long after a book is finished. That was not exactly the case with this book, in fact I had some trouble going back and picking it up again, a rarity for me. It's not that this book is bad; on the contrary, it is actually quite intricate and affecting. Richard Russo has an incredible ability to layer in memories with present events that make the entire story come together in a profound, intriguing way.

     Empire Falls is a small town in Maine consisting of life-long residents that never quite got back on their feet after the local shirt factory closed down decades earlier, leaving many people unemployed. This town is full of individuals that did not live up to their own expectations, that think they have more figured out than they really do, and that turned out exactly as everyone had expected. Miles Roby is the central character that, much to his own chagrin, has been working at the Empire Grill for the past 20 years. His adolescent ambition was to be a professor or writer which did not pan out due to his return home from college when his mother became ill. Years later he still runs the restaurant that is owned by the wealthiest woman in town, with continued hopes that she will give him ownership upon her death. The side stories of Miles' ex-wife and daughter provide different perspectives that add depth to the central character and also illustrate Richard Russo's ability to create greatness out of the seemingly mundane. Unique characters such as Miles' dad Max, who's deepest desire is to score $500 so he can drink it away in Key West, and Walt Comeau, Miles' ex-wife's new husband that owns a health club and visits the diner daily due to his own guilt and vanity, are what develop this novel's humanity and remind us of the greatness found in small-town, blue-collar America.

     If you were to read a book after me, you would inevitably be disturbed by the markings I have placed all over the book, i.e. lines or quotes that I want to remember, questions that I have and hope are resolved in the end, etc. Shockingly, I only marked one passage of this book but the emotions were so perfectly and beautifully conveyed that I believe it provides a nice glimpse into Russo's arsenal of impressive writing.

"Today's photo was of the old Empire Shirt Factory's office staff, taken in 1966, the year before the factory closed, and the only person in the second row not looking at the camera was a young and beautiful Grace Roby. Miles quickly checked the caption below, relieved to see that his mother was among the identified, because it would have broken his heart to see a "Does anyone know this woman?" affixed to her. Still, seeing his mother so unexpectedly gave Miles a sensation not unlike the one you'd have standing on railroad tracks and feeling, or imagining, the far-off trembling of something large racing your way--not danger, exactly, unless for some inexplicable reason you were duty bound to remain right where you were. Perhaps it was the fact that Grace was not looking at the camera, but rather of at an oblique angle, that suggested she might have been listening to that same distant rumbling. If indeed it was an intimation of her own mortality she was hearing, Miles reflected, it had been closer than she thought."  (p.297)

The Time Traveler's Wife

 Wow. I kept thinking about what to say as an introduction to this post but the only word that kept coming to mind was: Wow. This novel, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, is a complete love affair/ time traveling powerhouse. I knew immediately that I would love this book because the excerpt before the first chapter was from Rainer Maria Rilke...it was clearly meant to be a favorite. I would also like to begin this post by stating that there are not enough good things I can say about this book and I am absolutely sure that nothing I can say will in any way do it justice. You simply must read it.

  This novel tells the story of Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire as they spend their lives together and apart. Henry (an intelligent, sometimes volatile time traveler) meets Clare (a spirited and extremely patient artist) when he is 28 and she is 20; whereas Clare meets Henry when he is 36 and she is 6. This may sound confusing, and it is, but after you adjust to the discontinuity the resulting story is an immensely powerful journey that is so gripping it makes longing and separation seem somehow appealing.

Henry is a "Chrono Impaired" individual that has no control over where or when he travels. He compares it to epilepsy, in that stress and flashing lights can often prompt these bouts of travel. Things like sex, meditation, and running help him to stay rooted in the present. Henry is unable to take anything with him when he travels so he always end up at his destination stark naked. As you can imagine, this makes things quite difficult and results in Henry's great ability to lie, steal, and run for his life.

Clare, on the other hand, seems to be the most patient and understanding woman in the world. Though it is frustrating for her, she handles being continuously left behind with such security and grace that it makes you wonder how she manages to live this way her entire life. Clare is a character of such strength and spirit, it is almost impossible to not love and admire her.

This dazzling novel will leave you completely entranced and wondering, "Why is love intensified by absence?" The following two excerpts were my favorite from the book and I feel as though they encompass the ideas and feelings behind each moment of this book.

Oh not because happiness exists,

that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.

But because truly being here is so much; because everything here

apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way

keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.

...Ah, but what can we take along

into that other realm? Not the art of looking,

which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing.

The sufferings, then. And, above all, the heaviness,

and the long experience of love,--just what is wholly

unsayable.

                                             --from The Ninth Duino Elegy,

                                                             Rainer Maria Rilke

"What is it? My dear?"

"Ah, how can we bear it?"

"Bear what?"

"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"

"We can be quiet together, and pretend--since it is only the beginning--that we have all the time in the world."

"And every day we shall have less. And then none."

"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"

"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."

                                  --A.S. Byatt, Possession