"They Both Knew That The Women Who Cried At Night Were The Women Who Died In The Morning. Sadness And Loss Were Drawn In With Each Breath But Never Expelled. You Couldn't Give In. Not For A Second."

By my estimation, I've read just over 1000 pages in about a month. But I just couldn't help it. I totally got sucked into The Nightingale.

I've read quite a few novels based during WWII, but this one was different than ones I've read. It was from the perspective of 2 sisters living in Nazi-occupied France: one sister, Isabelle, is impetuous, stubborn, and enraged by the German occupation of France whereas the other sister, Vianne, is keen to just follow the new (awful) rules set out by the German occupiers in order to protect her daughter. Throughout the course of the war, each finds themselves handling the situation very differently, but ultimately doing what they can to help others. Isabelle helps establish an escape route for downed airmen through the Pyrenees into Spain, guiding hundreds of men to safety on a treacherous route and Vianne saves her Jewish friend's son and forges papers to make him her own and eventually hides many Jewish children in the local convent orphanage.

I appreciated the fact that this novel was about how women made an impact during the war, as part of the resistance or trying to help save others. In fact, there is a statement in the last few pages of the novel asking why one of the characters had never heard anything about how people escaped over the mountains or that there was a concentration camp just for women who resisted the Nazis, and this is the answer:

"'Men tell stories,' I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. 'Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over."

It's good to know that these stories are being shared more widely. Because there is certainly truth to the above statement. And of course the soldiers who fought were certainly heroes, but there were so many other moments of courage and heroism in everyday decisions by women who remained in the war-torn areas. And the novel asks the question for all of us: what would we do in those circumstances? Would we have the courage to fight back? Would we risk our own lives to fight something so evil? So sometimes I need to read novels like this to jolt me back into the understanding that of how awful WWII truly was and how the human spirit can triumph in spite of that, and those who did risk their lives (oftentimes losing their lives as a result) to fight such evil in even the smallest ways were absolute heroes.

So now I go back to the book lists. Up next is The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. I haven't seen the movie, but I probably will make it a point to watch it after I'm done (although I said the same thing a couple years ago about Sophie's Choice, and I still haven't gotten around to watching that either). And for some reason, I seem to think this book is about a mystical golf caddy, but I know I'm just confusing my Matt Damon movies. Wish me luck!

Happy Saturday!

"What Affected Her Was That He Had Once Been Young, And That He Had Grown Old, And Was Now Dead. That Was All. Youth And Vigour Had Come To That. Youth And Vigour Always Came To That. Everything Came To That."

For some strange reason, the version of The Old Wives' Tale that I ordered on Amazon came as a plain orange paperback with the title and author on the front and a very brief statement on the back about how Arnold Bennett was inspired to write the book based on a grotesque old woman that he encountered in a Parisian restaurant. Inside, other than the text of the novel, there is nothing else. No copyright information, no about the author, no introductions or dedications. The text literally starts on the very first piece of paper after the cover and ends on the last piece of paper before the back cover. Bootlegged copy perhaps? Who knows. But the one thing that bugged the ever-living shit out of me while reading this book, was that the page numbers were done in Roman numerals. Given that the book was dlxxxviii pages long (for those of you not well-versed in the ancient Roman counting system, that's 588), it was beyond irritating to have to do letter math when I just wanted to figure out what page I was on vs how many pages were left in the book. In spite of the long and rich story contained within the plain orange paperback cover, unfortunately, I'm most likely to remember this detail most about the book. 

The Old Wives' Tale is the story about 2 sisters in the mid to late 19th century living in the town of Bursley, a small provincial town in England. Constance, is the dutiful, obedient, plain-looking daughter and Sophia is the beautiful, obstinate, willful daughter. They live in the lodgings attached to their father's millenary store, and follow the goings-on of the small town in the square outside their windows. Sophia causes a scandal when she runs off with a travelling salesman who would occasionally come to the shop, while Sophia dutifully marries the man who works in the shop and takes over after her father's death. 

The rest of the story tells of the 2 women's lives: Constance has a son (also a stubborn and self-centered child) and lives quite contentedly in her small town with son and husband until her husband's early death and her son's abandonment of her for schooling in London. Sophia marries her salesman and travels to Paris where they live elaborately for a few years until her husband blows through all of his inheritance and leaves her. Sophia goes on to make a name for herself as a lodging/hotel proprietress. They both live their lives completely independent of each other for ~30 years until a friend of Constance's son identifies Sophia while staying at her hotel. Sophia eventually reconnects with her sister and moves back to small-town Bursley, and the 2 sisters live together into their old age. 

Overall, there wasn't really all that much special about the book. The stories of the 2 sisters was interesting, but the writing was very straightforward, explanatory prose. The story kept my attention, but I wasn't wowed by anything really that happened. 

I did schlep this giant book 22,116 miles across to globe to read on vacation in Cambodia and Thailand. I had lots of quality airplane time and lots of quality beach time in Koh Yao Noi to do nothing but read the tale of the lives of the 2 Baines sisters. And I'm actually quite glad that I did. Because I suspect this book would have taken me MONTHS to get through under normal circumstances. But because there was a lot of forced downtime, I motored my way through it. So while it literally was a pain to have this giant deadweight book with me all the time, it was a pretty good way to get through a hefty novel. 

I also schlepped the equally giant book The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah with me on vacation (yes, I devoted like 7 lbs of luggage weight to books, including my Thailand travel book. And in case you attempt my folly, most Asian airlines have weight limits for your carry-on luggage, so I wouldn't advise  bringing along 1300+ pages of books). So I'm progressing quite quickly through this book as well. Unintentionally, the book is also about 2 sisters, this time during WWII in France. I guess historical fiction is where I'll be hanging out for a while. 

Happy Saturday! 221 more books to go!