The Sorrows of Young Werther

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's first novel, written in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther, was the classic novel that Books and Beer Club selected to read this month. We weren't sure if we were going to attempt a Zoom book club meeting or miss another month. Mid-month, one of the members suggested this "short" book so that we could read it and be ready for our normal meeting date.

This is definitely a book that I never would have selected on my own. Written in German and translated into English, some of the language was a bit flowery and "old" for me. The story, however, is timeless. Werther is a young man who is resisting what society - and his mother - would have him to - go into diplomatic service - so he can pursue the arts. He's a passionate young man and believes that everyone should be so passionate. He meets a young woman, Lotte, who is responsible of the care of her younger siblings after the death of her mother. Werther falls in love with the children and falls in love with Lotte. Sadly, as is often the case, Lotte is promised to another. Werther meets her intended, Albert, and the three of them form their own sort of alliance.

The novel plays out in letters that Werther is writing to a dear friend back home with many messages to his mother. Sometimes these letters reference people and things that we're not familiar with as part of the story. At the end of the novel, it is implied that the dear friend becomes the narrator and finishes up the telling of Werther's story.

I'm not sure for whom I'd even recommend a book such as this. It was relatively short and quick to read and was a better read than many of the romance titles that the club has read in the past.

As Bright as Heaven

I wanted to learn a little bit more about life during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and this book was recommended to me. Susan Meissner's historical fiction novel, As Bright as Heaven, was one that was recommended to me.

Other than it being set in Philadelphia, an epicenter of that pandemic, I didn't learn much more than things were more of less like here now. Except that there was a war going on in England. And when people were stuck in their homes, they were stuck in their homes totally isolated. No internet. No TV. Now that I think of it, they never did mention listening to the radio or reading newspapers.

The Bright family of Quakertown, PA is invited to move to Philadelphia so the father, Thomas, can take over his uncle's funeral home. They'd just lost an infant son so the chance to start over somewhere else was appealing. Thomas Bright, his wife and 3 daughters head off to live with Uncle Fred.

The story follows the adaptation to life in the city and then the impact of the flu on the Bright family. Some survive, some don't. But those that are left behind have to live with the lingering effects of their life experiences. The girls deal with career choices and romance choices all influenced by what they experienced during the pandemic and the waning days of World War I.

This is much more a family drama about recovery after loss than it is specifically about a flu pandemic. It was easy to read and a change of pace from what I'd been reading.

Born A Crime

I know Trevor Noah from The Daily Show. I know his humor, I appreciate his humor, I knew he wasn't born here but I couldn't quite figure out what his accent was. I had no idea that he was truly born a crime!

Trevor Noah was born to a black, Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father in South Africa at a time when such a partnership was considered illegal and punishable by imprisonment, with the resulting child placed into an orphanage. He was literally born a crime. His parents never married which brought with it its own set of challenges.

Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood is Noah's coming-of-age memoir. It was a fascinating book, at the same time a personal story as well as about a category of people, colored people, that I never was aware of at all. There were black people, there were white people. And colored people were basically the mixed race. Noah falls into that category.

Even though his mother was black, the two of them seemed to go amongst the different races pretty comfortably. During apartheid, Trevor, his mother and his father all kind of lived in the shadows. But after apartheid, they lived openly. His mother really was quite bold. As a result of all this, though, young Trevor always felt like an outsider. He didn't fit in with the whites, he didn't fit in with the blacks - although he identified as a black, and he didn't fit in as colored since the colored kids he came in contact with were the children of parents who themselves were mixed. It was legal for a mixed race person to mate with another mixed race person and give birth to colored children. Mind boggling!

Many of the stories are horrifying while others are heartwarming. But Noah's signature sense of humor is apparent throughout the book. It's probably what allowed him to survive. The only thing I felt was missing from the book was an epilogue. Now I'm curious as to how he got from where he was in South Africa to touring as a comedian throughout Europe to The Daily Show. This memoir does paint a picture of what life was like for a child coming of age in South Africa after the end of apartheid.

I want to end with my reflections on a quote from the book:

In Germany, no child finished high school without learning about the Holocaust. Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it - what it means. As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic. British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent. Their children are taught the history of the Empire with a kind of disclaimer having over the whole thing. "Well, that was shameful, now wasn't it?"

In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We weren't taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it's taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: "There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it's done." It was the same for us. "Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let's move on." Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension. It was as if the teachers, many of whom were white, had been given a mandate. "Whatever you do, don't make the kids angry." 

This made me think about the way I taught about social justice - and injustice - while teaching fifth grade in New Jersey. I wanted the kids to feel the injustice. To know that it wasn't over. That it wasn't time to move on. Getting the kids angry was a way to get the kids to think.

I'd recommend this book.

 

The Silent Patient

Alex Michaelides' debut novel, The Silent Patient, is certainly a page turner. It's a thriller mystery along the lines of Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. I stayed up all night to finish it. So rather than working my brain hard to figure out how to best summarize this, I'll give you the publisher's summary.

"Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him... "

I gave this novel 4 stars on goodreads, but that's because I felt compelled to keep reading. In ordinary times, I think I probably would have only given this 3 stars. But as they say, timing is everything. After two of my last three books were Holocaust books and the other was a long, historical family saga, I needed something a bit lighter. Or more of an escape. Or something like that. The Silent Patient perfectly fit that bill. Hence the 4 stars.

The Paris Architect

I'm thinking that reading a second Holocaust novel so soon after the last was probably not the best idea. While I thought The Tattooist of Auschwitz, based on a true story, was an uplifting novel that gave me hope, The Paris Architect  by Charles Belfoure was incredibly disturbing. It's about a young architect. Lucien, in Paris who tries to mind his own business, always trying to slide by with everything except his architectural designs. He has not yet achieved much success but he's very excited about designing and seeing his work in its final form.

A former client of Lucien connects him with a wealthy man who promises him design work for the Germans in France if he helps him design hiding spots for Jews inside of homes. Lucien is excited of the possibilities of seeing his designs for factories in France turned into reality. He rationalizes that once Germany loses the war, France will need the factories. He agrees to design the first hiding spot because the idea of pulling one over the Germans through his detailed design work gives him satisfaction.

After finishing the book, I looked to see if this story was based on truth. It was, but it wasn't. Nothing like this is known to occur during the Holocaust, but during the reign of Elizabeth I, when Catholicism was banned, "priest holes" were created to hide priests who were observing their religion in secret. Belfoure is trained in architecture and that's clearly evident in the novel.

This is one of my community book club titles for this year. Who knows when we'll get to discuss it, but this novel has many more talking points than The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

America's First Daughter

America's First Daughter reminded me of the family sagas that I used to enjoy reading. But this wasn't just some fictional family saga. Authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie did years of research to write the factually based family history of the Jefferson family. The Thomas Jefferson family.

But unlike most factual stories about our third President, Thomas Jefferson, this story was told from the perspective of his oldest daughter, "Patsy" Jefferson.

Both Patsy and her father made deathbed promises to Patsy's mother. Jefferson promised to never find another wife and Patsy promised to take care of her father and ... to be happy.

This fairly hefty novel is full of American history, tales of the French revolution, family drama, politics and other alliances. Ever since I first heard the story of Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's slave mistress, I was intrigued. On that point, this story did not disappoint.

What I did struggle with was the language the authors used. It was written in what I guess they approximated to be the language of the times. So some of it was tedious and it definitely made for a much slower read. Did it ring more true written in this style? Perhaps. But I think I might have preferred that the authors stuck to this type of language only when writing dialogue - which they said often came straight from a collection of Jefferson's letters - and used more everyday language for the narrative.

I was reminded again about how little I understand about the French revolution but reinforced all I've learned (more recently) about the close relationship between our democracy here in the United States and the democracy in France.

Now I'd like to get back to Monticello, a place I only visited as a small child. Maybe if we're ever able to take our planned drive up to New York, we can stop there on the way up or on the way home.

If you're a fan of historical fiction and you like big fat books, you might like this one.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

This is a very difficult book review to write. Not because The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is a Holocaust book. Rather, this is probably one of the most hopeful Holocaust books that I've ever read. I just don't want to give too much of it away.

The title character, Lale, is a Slovakian Jew who volunteered to leave his family, thinking it might save them, and get taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Because he spoke many languages, he was selected to become a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), permanently marking his fellow prisoners.

Lale always considered himself a flirter. He learned how to treat women from his mother and his sister. He used those skills, as well as kindness and compassion, to face the worst of humanity. His acts improved the lives of many of the prisoners he came in contact with.

This Holocaust novel is a love story and humanity in the midst of a death camp. What's especially lovely is that it's based on a true story.