Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania as is Dorrigo Evans, the hero of his new book. Flanagan's father survived the notorious Death Railway as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II. The building of this railway through Thailand and into Burma, to facilitate a Japanese invasion of India, forms the setting of this novel. The title comes from a 17th century classic of Japanese literature about a long journey on foot, told in a mixture of prose and haiku.
Dorrigo Evans is a medical officer in the Austrailian army when he is captured by the Japanese and made to tend to his fellow captives who have been pressed into slave labor cutting through the jungles of Thailand and building the railroad. It was called the Death Railway because it killed nearly 100,00 allied troops, 9000 of them Aussies. This harrowing subject is penned with care by Flanagan. The book is beautifully constructed with occasional poetic quotes which stand in contrast to the stark and frightening conditions the prisoners endured. Flanagan weaves several stories through the bildungsroman of Dorrigo's life, from his childhood in Tasmania, to his love affair with the fascinating and beautiful Amy. The centerpiece of the book is the Prisoner of War Camp where Dorrigo attempts to maintain as much civility as he can, for the men he is responsible for saving. When the war is over those men who make it through are forever scarred, and this includes Evans who becomes a hero in his country, but not much of a father or husband.
After the war has ended, the reader also follows the fate of Marjor Nakamura the protagonist of the prison camp. Flanagan does an admirable job of expressing the confusion of Nakamua who has to work out the dichotomy of blind obedience to the Emperor and his desire to be thought of as a good man. He spends his life trying to work out this puzzle.
The theme of the novel is life's journey and meaning for all the men, Austrailian and Japanese. It seems to elude these men damaged by war. For Dorrigo Evans it is connected with his attachment to Tennyson's poem "Ulysses" who finds life's meaning always just beyond his grasp. Also Evans looks for meaning in the dark Haiku poems of Shisui who at his death had nothing to say that wasn't contained in his final brush painting of a perfect circle.
Flanagan has written a story based on truth that will stay with the reader long after the final page is read. It is well-deserving of the Booker Prize which it won in 2014. Though it deals with man's dehumanizing brutality to man, it also shows us the consequences of the aftermath of war and the hope of rehabilitation. I highly recommend this book to all readers.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Saturday, January 17, 2015
DEATH OF THE ADVERSARY by Hans Keilson (fic)
Hans Keilson was born in 1909 and died at age 101 in Amsterdam where he lived and worked. He is considered by many to be one of the world's greatest writers. By the nature of its subject matter, his books are dark and not easily absorbed. Keilson's parents died in Auschwitz, and he managed to escape to Holland in 1936 where he joined the underground. After he emigrated, he continued his study of medicine and pioneered the use of psychoanalysis in treating war trauma in children.
A few years back I read his "Comedy in Minor Key" which equally affected me. Keilson grew up with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and this book is semi-autobiographical. He deals with the dangers and finality of National Socialism in a very different manner than most books which cover this subject.
"Death of the Adversary" was not published in America until 1962 and was recently reissued. In this book, he delves deeply into the mind and motives of a man he calls his "enemy" and "B" but he never mentions him by name. Eventually the reader realizes he is referring to Hitler. He also never mentions the words Nazi and Jewish. He fights the battle with his enemy in the secret recesses of his mind. He illustrates a mutual deadly attraction the main character has with his enemy by incorporating into the story a Russian fable of the strange attraction between deer and the wolves which hunt them. As for his own experience he says, "I could not give him up; I needed him. His existence meant my destruction in the near future, that much was certain. But his sudden death, or some other event that would have robbed me of his threatening presence, would equally have destroyed me. Between us two, ties and obligations had come into being, perceptible only to those whose share in the things of this world lies in suffering. A strange and questionable share, perhaps; but who can break the community that secretly establishes itself between the persecutors and their victims?"
Self-deception is the theme of the book, and the contradictory thoughts brought on by denial. Why do people stay in dangerous situations when they know the inevitability of the ending that awaits them? At another point in the novel, the main character states, "Self-deception is the pleasantest form of lying. It is a panacea for all personal ills and injuries, it can heal even metaphysical wounds."
"Death of the Adversary" is an exceptional work by a great writer. Because of its dark subject-matter and its delving into the deepest recesses of the main character's mind, it is a book that will not interest a number of readers. If you are fascinated by the workings of the psyche, it most likely will be of value to you.
A few years back I read his "Comedy in Minor Key" which equally affected me. Keilson grew up with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and this book is semi-autobiographical. He deals with the dangers and finality of National Socialism in a very different manner than most books which cover this subject.
"Death of the Adversary" was not published in America until 1962 and was recently reissued. In this book, he delves deeply into the mind and motives of a man he calls his "enemy" and "B" but he never mentions him by name. Eventually the reader realizes he is referring to Hitler. He also never mentions the words Nazi and Jewish. He fights the battle with his enemy in the secret recesses of his mind. He illustrates a mutual deadly attraction the main character has with his enemy by incorporating into the story a Russian fable of the strange attraction between deer and the wolves which hunt them. As for his own experience he says, "I could not give him up; I needed him. His existence meant my destruction in the near future, that much was certain. But his sudden death, or some other event that would have robbed me of his threatening presence, would equally have destroyed me. Between us two, ties and obligations had come into being, perceptible only to those whose share in the things of this world lies in suffering. A strange and questionable share, perhaps; but who can break the community that secretly establishes itself between the persecutors and their victims?"
Self-deception is the theme of the book, and the contradictory thoughts brought on by denial. Why do people stay in dangerous situations when they know the inevitability of the ending that awaits them? At another point in the novel, the main character states, "Self-deception is the pleasantest form of lying. It is a panacea for all personal ills and injuries, it can heal even metaphysical wounds."
"Death of the Adversary" is an exceptional work by a great writer. Because of its dark subject-matter and its delving into the deepest recesses of the main character's mind, it is a book that will not interest a number of readers. If you are fascinated by the workings of the psyche, it most likely will be of value to you.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr (fic)
Doerr is a mesmerizing story teller and he had my attention after the first chapter. The book was impossible to put down after that. His sentences are economical and his chapters short. With this book, it is a blessing because it is so engrossing, that should you need to attend to other things, the end of a chapter is just a few pages away.
I loved this story which was chosen as one of the 10 best books of 2014 by The New York Times. The story which begins in 1934 is told mostly in the present tense until we near the end which takes place in 1974. It is essentially the tale of two young children, one German, one French who grow up during the war years. The chapters alternate between the two until their lives intersect during the German bombing of St. Malo.
We first meet the six year old blind girl, Marie-Laure Le Blanc who lives in Paris with her father, Daniel, who is a locksmith and works in Paris's Natural History Museum. Daniel is an accomplished wood worker and has built a miniature replica of the their neighborhood which helps Marie-Laure find her away around. Marie-Laure and her father manage to escape Paris when the Germans occupy the city and begin their pillage of valuable paintings and museum collections. The reader soon suspects that a famous diamond called the Sea of Flame has been entrusted to Daniel by the museum director who knows the Germans will be searching for it.
The parallel story is that of Werner Pfennig a young German orphan who lives near the Essen coal mines which claimed the life of his father. He and his sister Jutta are being brought up in an orphanage run by a kindly french woman. Werner shows an early ability to repair radios and as a young engineering prodigy is awarded a scholarship to a famous military school called Schulpforta. Conditions at the school are brutal as these young boys are being trained to obey without question and ultimately become the elite of Hitler's army. Here Werner makes two lifelong friendships, but here he also questions the morality of what he is being trained to do.
Eventually Marie-Laure and her father safely make their way to St. Malo where her great uncle, Etienne lives with his fearless housekeeper, Madame Manec, a wonderfully drawn character who runs the household and is involved with the French Resistance. Daniel quickly goes to work making a scale model of St. Malo for Marie-Laure, and one day when he is taking measurements of the neighborhood, he is captured by the Germans who suspect he is a spy. Not long after this, Marie-Laure and Etienne join the resistance and begin making clandestine radio transmissions to British and Americans.
As the story develops, it is inevitable that the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure will diverge, and the diamond plays a large part in moving this along. Doerr may not be the most masterful writer one has read, but his ability to spin a tale is indeed masterful. While reading, I was aware that the writer's style and word choices were American rather than those a French or German character might use, but the story was so very good, that I hardly noticed until later when I reflected on the book. I highly recommend this book to all readers who love a good well-written yarn that is impossible to set down. Happy reading.
I loved this story which was chosen as one of the 10 best books of 2014 by The New York Times. The story which begins in 1934 is told mostly in the present tense until we near the end which takes place in 1974. It is essentially the tale of two young children, one German, one French who grow up during the war years. The chapters alternate between the two until their lives intersect during the German bombing of St. Malo.
We first meet the six year old blind girl, Marie-Laure Le Blanc who lives in Paris with her father, Daniel, who is a locksmith and works in Paris's Natural History Museum. Daniel is an accomplished wood worker and has built a miniature replica of the their neighborhood which helps Marie-Laure find her away around. Marie-Laure and her father manage to escape Paris when the Germans occupy the city and begin their pillage of valuable paintings and museum collections. The reader soon suspects that a famous diamond called the Sea of Flame has been entrusted to Daniel by the museum director who knows the Germans will be searching for it.
The parallel story is that of Werner Pfennig a young German orphan who lives near the Essen coal mines which claimed the life of his father. He and his sister Jutta are being brought up in an orphanage run by a kindly french woman. Werner shows an early ability to repair radios and as a young engineering prodigy is awarded a scholarship to a famous military school called Schulpforta. Conditions at the school are brutal as these young boys are being trained to obey without question and ultimately become the elite of Hitler's army. Here Werner makes two lifelong friendships, but here he also questions the morality of what he is being trained to do.
Eventually Marie-Laure and her father safely make their way to St. Malo where her great uncle, Etienne lives with his fearless housekeeper, Madame Manec, a wonderfully drawn character who runs the household and is involved with the French Resistance. Daniel quickly goes to work making a scale model of St. Malo for Marie-Laure, and one day when he is taking measurements of the neighborhood, he is captured by the Germans who suspect he is a spy. Not long after this, Marie-Laure and Etienne join the resistance and begin making clandestine radio transmissions to British and Americans.
As the story develops, it is inevitable that the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure will diverge, and the diamond plays a large part in moving this along. Doerr may not be the most masterful writer one has read, but his ability to spin a tale is indeed masterful. While reading, I was aware that the writer's style and word choices were American rather than those a French or German character might use, but the story was so very good, that I hardly noticed until later when I reflected on the book. I highly recommend this book to all readers who love a good well-written yarn that is impossible to set down. Happy reading.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL by Sheri Fink (non-fic)
I feel sure most of us have etched in our minds those horrific scenes on t.v. during and after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. The intensity of what we were viewing was unrelenting for days and the consequences and aftermath has gone on for years. Sheri Fink, a physician herself, has done extensive research into the disaster at Memorial Hospital and the subsequent charge of murder that was brought against Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses who were on duty at the hospital for the 5 days during and after the hurricane. This book is the result of Fink's research and was chosen in 1913 as one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times.
For 5 days the staff and patients at Memorial Hospital waited for evacuation while the city, state of Louisiana and federal authorities conducted what now looks like an unprepared and incompetent scenario of bickering and poor organized efforts of rescuing the oppressed population of New Orleans. Memorial, meanwhile operating with a skeleton crew and without electricity, was left to fend for itself, as its parent company, Tenet, was dithering without a plan or a helicopter contract. As the hurricane raged and then departed, the temperature in the hospital rose to an unbearable level coupled with heavy moisture which intensified as the days went on and worked on the emotional level of patients, staff and the families and in some cases pets who were sheltering at the hospital. Along with the rising contaminated water, the staff had to contend with roving bands of looters and addicts looking for drugs and food.
Doctors and especially nurses acted with heroism under the stress of sleep deprivation and the deteriorating condition of their patients. This is their story and Fink tells it in admirable detail. The central issue in the wake of the disaster is one of ethics and religious conviction. Overworked doctors and nurses under the direction of Dr. Pou were put in a position to make life and death decisions for a group of patients in palliative care with Do Not Resuscitate orders on their charts. When Dr. Pou made the decision to inject a number of these patients with morphine and a sedative, was she acting with mercy and euthanizing the dying or was it a question of murder? This is what the DA's office in New Orleans investigated. Forty-five corpses were found in the chapel of the hospital and many of these were not given the choice as they faced death.
Fink does a thorough examination of all sides of the moral issues involved as the city began to build its case again Dr. Pou. She writes plainly and without exaggeration as she wades through the conflicting stories and evidence in the case. Who can judge what choices people make under duress in a dreadful natural disaster such as Katrina. As Fink states toward the end of the book:
"Sometimes individual medical choices are less a question of science than they are of values. In a disaster, triage is about deciding what the goals of dividing resources should be for the larger population.......The larger community may emerge with ideas different from those held by small groups of medical professionals."
As a result of Katrina, hospitals all over the country have had to reexamine their response to catastrophic disasters. Five Days at Memorial has played its part in this reexamination. I highly recommend Sheri Fink's book to all readers. It will provoke thoughtful discussion and moral examination of our values.
For 5 days the staff and patients at Memorial Hospital waited for evacuation while the city, state of Louisiana and federal authorities conducted what now looks like an unprepared and incompetent scenario of bickering and poor organized efforts of rescuing the oppressed population of New Orleans. Memorial, meanwhile operating with a skeleton crew and without electricity, was left to fend for itself, as its parent company, Tenet, was dithering without a plan or a helicopter contract. As the hurricane raged and then departed, the temperature in the hospital rose to an unbearable level coupled with heavy moisture which intensified as the days went on and worked on the emotional level of patients, staff and the families and in some cases pets who were sheltering at the hospital. Along with the rising contaminated water, the staff had to contend with roving bands of looters and addicts looking for drugs and food.
Doctors and especially nurses acted with heroism under the stress of sleep deprivation and the deteriorating condition of their patients. This is their story and Fink tells it in admirable detail. The central issue in the wake of the disaster is one of ethics and religious conviction. Overworked doctors and nurses under the direction of Dr. Pou were put in a position to make life and death decisions for a group of patients in palliative care with Do Not Resuscitate orders on their charts. When Dr. Pou made the decision to inject a number of these patients with morphine and a sedative, was she acting with mercy and euthanizing the dying or was it a question of murder? This is what the DA's office in New Orleans investigated. Forty-five corpses were found in the chapel of the hospital and many of these were not given the choice as they faced death.
Fink does a thorough examination of all sides of the moral issues involved as the city began to build its case again Dr. Pou. She writes plainly and without exaggeration as she wades through the conflicting stories and evidence in the case. Who can judge what choices people make under duress in a dreadful natural disaster such as Katrina. As Fink states toward the end of the book:
"Sometimes individual medical choices are less a question of science than they are of values. In a disaster, triage is about deciding what the goals of dividing resources should be for the larger population.......The larger community may emerge with ideas different from those held by small groups of medical professionals."
As a result of Katrina, hospitals all over the country have had to reexamine their response to catastrophic disasters. Five Days at Memorial has played its part in this reexamination. I highly recommend Sheri Fink's book to all readers. It will provoke thoughtful discussion and moral examination of our values.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
LAST FRIENDS by Jane Gardam (fic)
This book is the third of a trilogy of superbly written books by Jane Gardam. I recommend that you begin by reading "Old Filth" followed by "The Man in the Wooden Hat" and finally the above book, which would lose its relevance if read before the previous two.
All three books are tales told from the viewpoint of older characters looking back on their lives and how they mesh with each other's stories. The stories range from the twenties through modern time and mainly involve three people, Edward Feathers Q.C. and his wife Betty and Terry Veneering, a handsome womanizer. The first volume is about Edward Feathers, Old Filth of the title, which is an acronym for "Failed in London, Try Hong Kong." The second book is about Betty who has a fling with Veneering, and finally the current book tells the story of Terry Veneering. The setting of the first two books is Hong Kong and through coincidence, or not, the principals all end up living in the same small village in the west of England.
"Last Friends" opens in Dorset in a village filled with the dotty type of characters that can only be British. One of my favorites is a somewhat confused old dear named Dulcie who rattles around in a large cold house. She along with another eccentric elder called Fiscal-Smith are the last friends of the title.
As the book goes on, the reader discovers the real story of Terry Veneering who up to this point has presented as a sophisticated upper class Oxford graduate. Contrary to his public persona, Veneering comes from a very poor Teeside mining town where his mother, Floorie supports the family by delivering coal and his father turns out to be a damaged Russian acrobat and even perhaps a spy. Veneering is of course, not Terry's real name. His mother is one of the more interesting characters in the novel.
Jane Gardam is an exceptional writer and these novels are funny and satirical, yet she gets to the real crux of her characters' beings. I might have giggled my way through these novels, but I also realized that there were some real truths about people and relationships to be found in these pages. I enjoyed all three books very much, perhaps the first two more than the third.
All three books are tales told from the viewpoint of older characters looking back on their lives and how they mesh with each other's stories. The stories range from the twenties through modern time and mainly involve three people, Edward Feathers Q.C. and his wife Betty and Terry Veneering, a handsome womanizer. The first volume is about Edward Feathers, Old Filth of the title, which is an acronym for "Failed in London, Try Hong Kong." The second book is about Betty who has a fling with Veneering, and finally the current book tells the story of Terry Veneering. The setting of the first two books is Hong Kong and through coincidence, or not, the principals all end up living in the same small village in the west of England.
"Last Friends" opens in Dorset in a village filled with the dotty type of characters that can only be British. One of my favorites is a somewhat confused old dear named Dulcie who rattles around in a large cold house. She along with another eccentric elder called Fiscal-Smith are the last friends of the title.
As the book goes on, the reader discovers the real story of Terry Veneering who up to this point has presented as a sophisticated upper class Oxford graduate. Contrary to his public persona, Veneering comes from a very poor Teeside mining town where his mother, Floorie supports the family by delivering coal and his father turns out to be a damaged Russian acrobat and even perhaps a spy. Veneering is of course, not Terry's real name. His mother is one of the more interesting characters in the novel.
Jane Gardam is an exceptional writer and these novels are funny and satirical, yet she gets to the real crux of her characters' beings. I might have giggled my way through these novels, but I also realized that there were some real truths about people and relationships to be found in these pages. I enjoyed all three books very much, perhaps the first two more than the third.
Monday, December 8, 2014
THE DISAPPEARED by Kim Echlin (fic)
"The Disappeared" is a love story filled with yearning and sadness. It is a beautifully written book, and Echlin writes with a unique and individual style and an economy of words. Her sentences are brief yet filled with description and mood, very much like poetry. This novel was a best seller in Canada.
Anne Greves, a young Canadian girl loves with an obsessiveness that is reminiscent of the narrator in Pamuk's book, "The Museum of Innocence." She meets a Cambodian young man named Serey who has been sent to Canada to further his education in Montreal. Serey is an accomplished jazz musician who pours his longing for his country and family into his music. Anne herself lost her mother when she was a baby, and her father while kind is distant and wrapped up in his work; so there is a hole in both their lives that needs filling which speeds the comfort they find in each other.
The novel is set in the mid 1970s, and as the situation in Cambodia worsens, Serey feels the need to return to his home country to search for his parents who were most likely victims of the Cambodian genocide. Between the years of 1975 and 79, 1.7 million lives were lost in the killing frenzy of Pol Pot. Serey leaves Anne behind and becomes one of the disappeared.
Eleven years go by, Anne goes to University, enters into other relationships and tries unsuccessfully to forget Serey. One day watching a news story about Cambodia, she is convinced she spots him in a crowd. Impulsively, she leaves behind her life in Montreal, flies to Phnom Penh, and makes it her mission to find Serey.
Echlin writes of Cambodia so realistically and sensually that the reader feels she/he has entered another world, a beautiful and exotic one that is filled with the suffering and depravity fashioned by the Khmer Rouge. It is country trying to regain meaning and its footing in the world.
Anne finds and loses Serey three times, refusing to give up the life they have fashioned for themselves. She is helped by some lovely gentle Cambodians and an ex-pat Canadian doing charity work among the wounded. Anne writes this story as a memorial to Serey, just as Echlin has dedicated the book to Vann Nath who entreats her to "Tell Others."
I highly recommend this book for its superior writing, though the story is a painful one of a young woman's determination to find the man she loves and a story which depicts the cruelty and madness of the killing fields.
Anne Greves, a young Canadian girl loves with an obsessiveness that is reminiscent of the narrator in Pamuk's book, "The Museum of Innocence." She meets a Cambodian young man named Serey who has been sent to Canada to further his education in Montreal. Serey is an accomplished jazz musician who pours his longing for his country and family into his music. Anne herself lost her mother when she was a baby, and her father while kind is distant and wrapped up in his work; so there is a hole in both their lives that needs filling which speeds the comfort they find in each other.
The novel is set in the mid 1970s, and as the situation in Cambodia worsens, Serey feels the need to return to his home country to search for his parents who were most likely victims of the Cambodian genocide. Between the years of 1975 and 79, 1.7 million lives were lost in the killing frenzy of Pol Pot. Serey leaves Anne behind and becomes one of the disappeared.
Eleven years go by, Anne goes to University, enters into other relationships and tries unsuccessfully to forget Serey. One day watching a news story about Cambodia, she is convinced she spots him in a crowd. Impulsively, she leaves behind her life in Montreal, flies to Phnom Penh, and makes it her mission to find Serey.
Echlin writes of Cambodia so realistically and sensually that the reader feels she/he has entered another world, a beautiful and exotic one that is filled with the suffering and depravity fashioned by the Khmer Rouge. It is country trying to regain meaning and its footing in the world.
Anne finds and loses Serey three times, refusing to give up the life they have fashioned for themselves. She is helped by some lovely gentle Cambodians and an ex-pat Canadian doing charity work among the wounded. Anne writes this story as a memorial to Serey, just as Echlin has dedicated the book to Vann Nath who entreats her to "Tell Others."
I highly recommend this book for its superior writing, though the story is a painful one of a young woman's determination to find the man she loves and a story which depicts the cruelty and madness of the killing fields.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
THE BLESSING by Nancy Mitford (fic)
Nancy Mitford, the eldest of the famous Mitford sisters, is known for her brilliant books of social satire. Her most famous being "Pursuit of Love," and "Love in a Cold Climate." These books and characters are thinly veiled accounts of growing up in her eccentric and unique English family. In her writing, Mitford carries on the long and penetrating British tradition of poking fun at social mores, perfected by Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, P.G. Wodehouse, et al.
While "The Blessing" is not as widely read as her other books, it has all the flavor of the best of them. I wonder if this book could be written today in our age of political correctness and woman's lib. Rather than seeing it as the social satire it is, Mitford might be lambasted for presenting old-fashioned ideas of woman and national traits. Instead, we are more tuned to expecting similar observations on t.v. from Saturday Night Live and numerous sit-coms.
"The Blessing" was written in the mid 20th century and presents a hilarious picture of the foibles of Americans, English and French socialites and want-to-be's." Grace Allingham, an upper class English rose meets an aristocratic French soldier during World War II. They fall in love, marry, produce a child, the blessing of the title, and are separated by the war for seven years. When they finally reunite, Charles-Edouard de Valhubert spirits Grace, son Sigi, and domineering Nanny off to the French countryside and then to Paris. The plot of the book is moved along by Sigi who has turned into a monstrous child unable to be reigned in by Nanny, a complaining old biddy who is frozen in her Englishness. There are all kinds of odd English, French and American characters floating in and out of the lives of the Valhuberts.
It turns out that Charles-Edouard has a weakness for pretty women, Grace is jealous, Nanny is trying to control the household and Parisian high-society is full of gossips and dinner parties. Sigi has perfected the art of causing just enough trouble to keep him spoiled and in turn doted upon by both parents and those who are trying to impress his parents. Through his meddling, Sigi eventually causes his parents to separate by playing one off the other. Never fear, he does get his comeuppance.
This is not a book to be taken seriously, but as an enjoyable satire, full of typical British humor where pretentiousness is revealed as buffoonery, and all's well that ends well. I laughed my way through it and not for a minute found it dated. Penguin vintage books reissued it in 2011.
While "The Blessing" is not as widely read as her other books, it has all the flavor of the best of them. I wonder if this book could be written today in our age of political correctness and woman's lib. Rather than seeing it as the social satire it is, Mitford might be lambasted for presenting old-fashioned ideas of woman and national traits. Instead, we are more tuned to expecting similar observations on t.v. from Saturday Night Live and numerous sit-coms.
"The Blessing" was written in the mid 20th century and presents a hilarious picture of the foibles of Americans, English and French socialites and want-to-be's." Grace Allingham, an upper class English rose meets an aristocratic French soldier during World War II. They fall in love, marry, produce a child, the blessing of the title, and are separated by the war for seven years. When they finally reunite, Charles-Edouard de Valhubert spirits Grace, son Sigi, and domineering Nanny off to the French countryside and then to Paris. The plot of the book is moved along by Sigi who has turned into a monstrous child unable to be reigned in by Nanny, a complaining old biddy who is frozen in her Englishness. There are all kinds of odd English, French and American characters floating in and out of the lives of the Valhuberts.
It turns out that Charles-Edouard has a weakness for pretty women, Grace is jealous, Nanny is trying to control the household and Parisian high-society is full of gossips and dinner parties. Sigi has perfected the art of causing just enough trouble to keep him spoiled and in turn doted upon by both parents and those who are trying to impress his parents. Through his meddling, Sigi eventually causes his parents to separate by playing one off the other. Never fear, he does get his comeuppance.
This is not a book to be taken seriously, but as an enjoyable satire, full of typical British humor where pretentiousness is revealed as buffoonery, and all's well that ends well. I laughed my way through it and not for a minute found it dated. Penguin vintage books reissued it in 2011.
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