About Damn Good Reasons
Post 1157:
Book review. Just finishing up a few novels. One was The Nightingale. Let me be specific, this is The Nightingale about WW2 France and the trials that two estranged sisters endure to survive.
It’s a very balanced story, and besides the fact like most popular fiction it sets itself in WW2, I liked it a lot. The characters are well developed. They feel real, or just a little better than real. The two main characters are sisters and at times it’s easy to see the world clearly through each of their decidedly disparate views. The writer is talented and though the book is long, it’s not overly descriptive. Maybe I would’ve shaved fifty pages. Personal preference.
Now for spoilers. The end is extremely sad and triumphant. Tragic yet inspiring. If that doesn’t tell you much, I get it. Specifics. The heroine of the story dies in the final pages, right at the moment she’s reconnected with the man she loves. This, after enduring a Nazi camp and all the terrifying degradation and deprivation that goes along with it. Super sad. I was bummed. I wanted something more fairy tale, I suppose, but the largest war in human history wasn’t roses.
The struggle to survive, having to live amongst your occupiers. That’s what the people in this French town have to do. I really liked the tension one of the sisters had to endure, literally living with a “decent” German and then a real full-blown asshole German. Talk about suck. To not even have the privacy to be mad about your captivity. To smile and clean up for your conquerors. That is will.
And ultimately the thing is about will and reasons to go forth. For one sister, it’s the children she has to protect while her husband is away fighting. She’ll endure it all. That gene-deep need to protect the next generation can’t be stripped and it propels her to do the unthinkable and unimaginable. For the younger sister, it’s first her sense of justice and independence. Then it’s the love she carries for a man she met along the way. These are the reasons why so many others are saved by these two women. They had damn good reasons to fight and carry on. I guess the novel serves as a reminder to remind yourself what you’re living for, in case you ever have to die for it.
Cheers and see you after.
