Tag: 20 Books of Summer

#BookReview The Women of the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

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The Women of the CastleAbout the Book

Bavaria, Germany. June 1945. The Third Reich has crumbled. The Russians are coming.

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.

Marianne assembles a makeshift family from the ruins of her husband’s resistance movement, rescuing her dearest friend’s widow, Benita, from sex slavery to the Russian army, and Ania from a work camp for political prisoners. She is certain their shared past will bind them together.

But as Benita begins a clandestine relationship and Ania struggles to conceal her role in the Nazi regime, Marianne learns that her clear-cut, highly principled world view is infinitely more complicated now, filled with secrets and dark passions that threaten to tear them apart.

All three women must grapple with the realities they now face, and the consequences of decisions each made in the darkest of times…

Format: Hardback (368 pages)     Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 18th May 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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20-books-of-summerMy Review

The Women of the Castle is the third book from my list for the 20 Books of Summer 2022 reading challenge. Yes I know, we’re already over half way through August. Like all the other books on my list, it’s been in my TBR pile for way too long.

Firstly the things I liked about the book. I thought the way the author uses the prologue to contrast the glamorous atmosphere within the castle with events elsewhere in Germany was very powerful. ‘But outside, beyond the walls, terrible things were happening.’ Even more so once we realise the party is taking place on what will come to be known as Kristallnacht. I also liked the fact the book focuses on Germans who were opposed to the Nazi regime, including those such as Marianne’s husband who made the difficult choice to take direct action to oppose Hitler. I found the stories of Ania and Benita especially powerful (even if I never quite worked out how Ania ended up on Marianne’s list of the wives of resisters).

As the book progressed I didn’t mind the changes in point of view from one woman to another but the frequent moving back and forth in time left me frustrated and often confused.  At one point the book jumps back to 1923 and a rather unnecessary (to my mind) final part sees us in 1991. Often there are brief references to quite significant events in the past but it is many chapters before we learn the full details of them.  At times, I felt the book glossed over some events while dealing with others in painstaking detail.

Marianne is the dominant character in the book, or perhaps domineering would be more appropriate. So many of the events in the lives of the other two women are influenced by the decisions Marianne makes. On a number of occasions they are wrong, even fateful decisions. As Benita observes at one point, ‘It was so much like Marianne to act first and then think.’ I had to agree with Ania’s first impression of Marianne as a woman ‘accustomed to giving orders.’ Although I could admire Marianne’s determination to fulfil the promise made to her husband to be ‘the commander of wives and children’ and rescue the families of his co-conspirators, I found her rather contradictory. For example, she is effortlessly multi-lingual but can’t acquite basic cookery skills.

Focussing on the positives once again, I felt the book was particularly successful in demonstrating how difficult it can be to lay to rest the events of the past, to heal the divisions caused by war, and to repair, both physically and mentally, the damage that has been done. Benita exemplifies this well. ‘History was horrible, a long, sloppy tail of grief. It swished destructively behind the present, toppling everyone’s own personal understanding of the past.’

In the Acknowledgments, Jessica Shattuck reveals that it took her seven years to write this book, much of it inspired by her own family history. The depth of historical detail in the book is evidence of her painstaking research. However, although I found much to admire about The Women in the Castle, the back and forth structure of the book didn’t quite work for me.

I received a review copy courtesy of Zaffre.

In three words: Powerful, detailed, expansive

Try something similar: People Like Us by Louise Fein

Jessica ShattuckAbout the Author

Jessica Shattuck is the award-winning author of The Hazards of Good Breeding, a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award, and of Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, Wired, and The Believer, among others. A graduate of Harvard University, she received her MFA from Columbia University. Shattuck now lives with her husband and three children in Brookline, MA.

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#BookReview The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers

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The Cleaner of ChartresAbout the Book

There is something special about the ancient cathedral of Chartres, with its mismatched spires, astonishing stained glass and strange labyrinth. And there is something special too about Agnès Morel, the mysterious woman who is to be found cleaning it each morning.

No one quite knows where she came from – not the diffident Abbé Paul, who discovered her one morning twenty years ago, sleeping in the north porch; nor lonely Professor Jones, whose chaotic existence she helps to organise; nor Philippe Nevers, whose neurotic sister and newborn child she cares for; nor even the irreverent young restorer, Alain Fleury, who works alongside her each day and whose attention she catches with her tawny eyes, her colourful clothes and elusive manner. And yet everyone she encounters would surely agree that she is subtly transforming their lives, even if they couldn’t quite say how.

But with a chance meeting in the cathedral one day, the spectre of Agnès’ past returns, provoking malicious rumours from the prejudiced Madame Beck and her gossipy companion Madame Picot. As the hearsay grows uglier, Agnès is forced to confront her history, and the mystery of her origins finally unfolds.

Format: Paperback (304 pages)    Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 23rd May 2013 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

20-books-of-summerAs if the 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge weren’t difficult enough, I decided to make it even harder for myself by constructing my list from the twenty oldest unread paperbacks on my bookshelves. And vowing to read them in date order. Yes, I know. I also decided to adopt a ruthless approach: if a book isn’t working for me, I’ll set it aside, put it in the pile for the charity shop and pick up the next one. It turns out The Cleaner of Chartres is a keeper and, in what I’m sure is going to become a boringly familiar phrase, I can’t for the life of me think why it’s taken me so long to read it.

Chartres Cathedral LabyrinthThe story of Agnès past, revealed in small sections alongside present day events, is compelling and emotional. It’s a story of loss, cruelty, mental trauma and despair followed by a gradual step-by-step rebuilding of her life once she arrives in Chartres, drawn there by nothing more than the memory of a picture of the interior of the cathedral that hung on a wall.

What really brought the book alive for me was the wonderfully drawn cast of secondary characters, such as Agnès’s dogwalker friend Terry, artist Robert Clement, obsessed with creating a painting of the Madonna, and cathedral restorer Alain Fleury who can’t help sharing his knowledge of the history, architecture and legends associated with the cathedral. ‘Information bubbled out of him like champagne.’ Then there are Madame Beck and Madame Picot, two ‘friends’ who have made acquiring and disseminating town gossip something of a competitive sport.  I also loved Abbé Paul, the priest who discovered Agnès sleeping in the cathedral porch and gave her a job as a cleaner. His affection for her is extremely touching.

My absolute favourite character was Dr Deman who I found a very sympathetic figure. He comes to play a significant part in Agnès life and is one of the few people in her early life to treat her with any kindness, to really listen to her and try to understand why she might have acted as she did. Like a lot of the other people in the book, he’s not a one dimensional character. Whilst devoted to his job, he often questions himself – undersells himself, I would argue. ‘He cared – cared passionately – for the things he cared for but his conviction was liable to waver and be derailed.’

The Cleaner of Chartres is a book that exudes warmth but is by no means overly sentimental. There are also some lovely touches of humour, mostly supplied by Madame Beck and Madame Picot. It’s very cleverly constructed, not only in respect of the revealing of Agnès story, but because of the way in which all the characters undergo some kind of transformation whether that’s coming to terms with events in their past, forging a new path in life or renewing a friendship.

In three words: Engaging, emotional, heartwarming

Salley VickersAbout the Author

Salley Vickers was born in Liverpool, the child of communist parents. She grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, living in Barlastan Hall, where her father was warden of a W.E.A. college that taught adult education to Trades Union workers. She moved to London aged three and lived there for the remainder of her childhood.

She wrote her first novel, The Door Into Time, aged nine, thanks to an enterprising primary school teacher. The novel is lost but she believes it has influenced all her subsequent work and she regards her education at this state primary school as some of the most nourishing she has been lucky enough to receive. It is a source of great regret to her, that the current primary school curriculum is so narrow and so uncreative.

Her greatest love is poetry, which she writes badly, and her three grandchildren, whom she sees as often as they allow. She also likes music, especially opera and 60s/70s rock, walking, gardening and dancing. Her first ambition was to be a ballet dancer. One of her greatest pleasures is being able to take her granddaughter to the ballet.

She has worked as a teacher for children with special needs, for the now defunct ILEA, a tutor for the W.E.A. and for the Oxford Department of Continuing Education, a university lecturer in English, a psychoanalyst and she now writes and lectures fulltime.

She divides her time between London and Wiltshire, with regular retreats to Corfu, where she has made many friends, both with Corfiots and Albanians. (Photo/bio: Author website)

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