David Golder by Irène Némirovsky

Another wonderful book by Irène Némirovsky. Not beautiful like Suite Française but harsh and bleak. It is a portrait of an old, rich, Jewish man who lives for business. He is thoroughly merciless and almost without love, but for his only daughter. The story takes you to a glittering world of jewels and houses by the sea but doesn't leave you envious as this world is so empty and unsatisfying. While the characters aren't likeable, their story is fascinating right up to the conclusion. A very enjoyable look at capitalism and perceptions of Jewishness in the 1920s.

David Golder is available at the Junee and Cootamundra branches of the Riverina Regional Library.

The pianist

This book is the amazing and moving story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who survived the horrifying events of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi occupation. I read and re-read this book because I found it such an inspiring story of survival, through privations and violence few in western societies today have experienced.
Wladyslaw Szpilman survived ( you will wonder how when you read what he went through) by trusting his instincts and adapting to whatever situation was thrown at him in the unrelenting nightmare of occupied Poland. His family were murdered by the Nazis but he escaped.
It's well written and thus easy to read, but there are some graphic descriptions of violence which some may find disturbing.

Pure Fiction by Julie Highmore

A library related title and cakes on the cover - surely this is a must-read. Pure Fiction is about the members of a book club in Oxford. It is a fast-paced, relationship driven tale about people whose lives are very different but become more and more entwined as they meet each week to discuss books. The characters are realistic, a bit quirky and very modern. A light read, not memorable perhaps, but plenty of fun.

Pure Fiction can be found in the fiction collection at Wagga Wagga City Library.

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Irène Némirovsky's story is tragic. She planned this book to be like a symphony with five movements but she had only written two when she was taken away and killed at Auschwitz. Knowing this, and the fact that the manuscript only surfaced in the nineties made the book all the more moving. It is set in France just as the Germans arrive to occupy during World War II. Everyone flees Paris for the countryside and we follow many characters from different walks of life. Némirovsky paints vivid pictures of Paris and the beautiful countryside - cool houses, lavish apartments and fragrant gardens. I became very involved with the lives of the characters and while the book is complete in itself, the notes and letters in the appendices make me wish she could have written more.

A number of copies of Suite Française are available across the Riverina Regional Library. Other available books by Irène Némirovsky are David Golder and Fire in the Blood which is an RRL Book Club book.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Wow and wow again!

Markus Zusak takes us to places where we would rather not go and which we would rather not see.

He uses words and images in such a way that we are looking at horror and not feeling that sense of despair which usually accompanies such pictures. For the first part of the book at least!

Our narrator, Death, oversees the life of Liesl Meminger when all around her Germany, and the world, is spiralling out of control and into World War II. He assumes a benevolent persona towards Liesl and in her, sees a strength and integrity which somehow fascinates him. From the death of her brother and her delivery by her mother to the foster family, the Hubermanns, right through her adolescence until her death as an old lady on the other side of the world, he follows her and to a certain extent protects her.

We assume that we are hearing Death speaking and telling her story and it is not until at least halfway through the book that we discover that the words are Liesl’s and not his. He is reading her book – her life as written by her each night in the basement of 33 Himmel Street.

Liesl is a survivor and is smart enough to know that she must learn “words” and how to use them if she is to progress and survive in the world. Her parents, who really play a very small part in her life, were devastatingly poor and therefore unable to ensure that she has an education. She does not even know how to speak her native tongue. She is so fortunate in her placement with the Hubermanns. Hans loves her unreservedly and even though Rosa has a foul mouth and an abrasive manner, she, in her own way nurtures the girl. The Hubermanns are simple, honest and very brave as evidenced by their protection of the Jew, Max Vandenburg, for almost two years.

Liesl blossoms with them and takes her place in the local school pretty much on her own terms. She discovers books as the result of a find in the cemetery where her little brother is buried and determines to acquire more, by whatever means possible. Hence the title of the book.

Liesl becomes a thief – mainly of books – and with the implicit connivance of Ilse Hermann, one of her foster mother’s washing clients and also the wife of the Mayor of the town of Molching where they live. Ilse has a library of about a thousand books, and while she is defeated by the death of her son, obviously decides that Liesl is a worthy recipient of her treasures, her books.

We follow Liesl and her friend, Rudy Schneider on their various adventures and their gradual involvement in the progress of the war and how they are inevitably sucked up into the vortex of terror and destruction which is totally beyond their control. It is during one telling chapter that Death seems to despair totally of his mission when he describes how he has to scoop up the souls of the people “taking showers” in what we know were the concentration camps of the Nazis. He tries to alleviate the suffering of some of the inmates in so far as he takes their souls before they hit the bottom of their last leap. He tries to hide his face from it all. Unsuccessfully.

Molching is hit by the “tin can” planes and most of the residents of Himmel Street are killed in one horrible night of bombing. Liesl is the only one to survive and in the course of her grief stricken wandering, her black book, her diary, her story, is lost and finally tossed in amongst the waste from where our narrator rescues it.

“The Book Thief” is written in a way which is so different from any other book I have read that it took a little while to come to terms with the style. Initially I found it disconcerting, then became intrigued and finally, was totally hooked.

This book should be on the bookshelves of each and every home. Not only as a cautionary tale of the horrors of war and man’s inhumanity to man, but because it contains some of the most wonderful word pictures I have ever read. It would be easy to be seduced by the way in which Markus Zusak uses words. There is no need to sit with a dictionary by your side – the words are those which we use each and every day and their use in such a way makes them even more powerful.

Review by Elizabeth Cooke from the Montag Book Club