One of the things that struck me immediately was the tidiness of this story. The first chapter opens with Vianne going into the attic of her house and it’s picture perfect with an old travel- stickered steamer trunk, a rocking horse and a few cobwebs. That put me off right away. While I understand the allure that movies and books and television series offer with a big dose of perfect, I prefer the messiness of reality in art. I prefer believable, and that can be mixed in with unbelievable, like in Harry Potter; I was fully on board with the magic because the characters and their feelings were so relatable.
When Vianne’s son takes her to her new assisted living home, they sit down and have some wine, first thing. Meanwhile, it’s been mentioned that she can’t sleep or eat or function without a fistful of drugs, so I’m thinking how is she guzzling wine when she’s on all those meds? I let it go, because I realize she’s French and the wine might be her version of water, but still, you don’t really see anyone moving mom into the nursing home and then corkscrewing the chardonnay open as soon as her clothes are put away. I’ve experienced moving a loved one into a home and the author clearly hasn’t or she has and wants to romanticize it. The next thing that really got me was when she made the decision to fly to Paris for the weekend. She’s dying. Travel can be daunting for the youngest and wellest among us and this senior turns Nike all of sudden and she’s just doing it. That didn’t rattle me as much as her packing process. I’m not even looking at the book and I remember what she packed. A few nice slacks and sweaters, nylons and the pearl earrings that were a 40th anniversary present from her husband. I was like WTF? What about her medicine? What about creams? Did she have the tiny 3 ounce bottles of essential liquids to properly prepare for airport security?
Ultimately, the present day portions of the book were the most interesting. Vianne, as an older woman, who I mistook for Isabelle initially, was slightly more relatable than any of the others. The characters in the book that inhabited the past were like paper dolls. Vianne and Isabelle were the beautiful sisters, one grounded and careful, the other a sassy and sexy loose cannon. I couldn’t relate to anyone in the story. Not the sisters, their father, Gaeton, the folks in the Resistance, including Henry, Anouk and Madame Babineau, the neighbor Rachel, her daughter Sophie, Wolfgang Beck—I wasn’t rooting for any of them. Their suffering felt out of reach to me, no matter how wretched it got.
When Isabelle spends a night in a root cellar with a dead man and emerges covered in his blood and then gets shot and must conveniently recover at some place of respite with Gaeton as her nurse, I almost put the book down. At that point, while young and strong, Isabelle had been in circumstances where she hadn’t eaten, she lost blood, she had been makeshiftly stitched up and then slept for days with some fever caused by her wound. However, waking up in bed with her lover, she’s coherent and fine and more concerned with having deep talks about their relationship than needing water, food, or a bath. Under similar circumstances, I would have been so deathly ill, weak and headachy from not eating or drinking normally for days on top of all of the privation from the war itself. Meanwhile, she’s just like a little kid, snuggling up to Gaeton and promising to sleep if he just answers her questions. WTF. Do you know what she must have smelled like? Her breath alone? Thank goodness they talked about her having a bath before she emerged naked to offer her body to Gaeton. And who gets these delicious opportunities anyway, where they have days of sleeping and sex and no interruptions? What world does that happen in? And when, during one of these delicious days/nights of cuddling up together he says, out of nowhere, “I get it, you know,” and when she asks what he means, he responds, “Everytime we kiss, it’s goodbye.” I truly couldn’t even. Men don’t say that. Ever. Only men in that world where you can have days of sleeping and sex and no interruptions, obviously…
And how, when Isabelle was released from the prison after her father claimed to be the Nightingale, did Vianne manage to show up at just the right moment and see Isabelle before they carted her away to a prison camp? The timing was spot on. Wouldn’t showing up like that have raised suspicion about Isabelle’s identity? It was like the author knew that we wouldn’t forget that Vianne had learned where Isabelle was and had done nothing to try to check on her/save her, unless she somehow showed her face at the prison. She would never have gotten anywhere near the place, in reality. That part felt jammed in and wrong.
Did anyone believe for a moment that Julien was working resignedly for the Germans? I knew immediately when Isabelle went to stay with him in Paris, that he was part of the Resistance. It was obvious. I thought he was translating German messages, not forging documents, but still, I knew he wasn’t writing poetry until the wee hours.
The sexual and emotional tension between Vianne and Wolfgang Beck was way too Lifetime Television for Women for me. And then, of course, the author swings the pendulum all the way west when Sturmbannführer Von Richter, Vianne’s second house guest, turns out to be a monster.
The best parts of the book for me were one-Isabelle’s first trip over the mountains into Spain to deliver her charges and even that could have been better, two-Vianne at the airport, hanging out with the young girl while waiting for her flight, and three-that moment when I realized during the event in Paris that Isabelle had died early on and Vianne was the one who had lived and was speaking on her behalf. I felt like much of the story had been predictable until the end and that helped to make up for some of the book, but not enough.
I also liked when Viane says she will tell her son everything except for one thing, and we all know what that is. That was kinda cool. The book had its moments, but for me, it wasn’t the stand out star that it was reputed to be. It felt like the author was trying to fit all of the misfortune of World War 2 into one story and the characters lacked depth.
The sentence and paragraph structure is very good. There was flow. No clunkiness to stop up the reading process. This ease may have been part of why the book was so popular. The imagery is good. The author provided a kind of comfort by making us believe that Isabelle had outlived her dangerous liaisons during the war and maintained a delicious sense of anticipation by letting us wonder if Vianne would attend the celebratory event in Paris afterall. I liked how the story moved between the present and past. I was more engaged and excited about the present, despite what we know will be the ultimate demise of the older woman character due to cancer.
I would never re-read this book, nor recommend it to anyone, but I do understand why it was appreciated by so many. Cannot wait to hear your comments on this one.
Reader Reviews
I loved Angela
She was the best character.
