Review: Suite Francaise

Ever since picking up my first work by Nemirovsky last year, I've admired her talent for observing the human condition. There's something about her observation of people and their actions that suggests a balance between optimistic humanism and world weariness. In Suite Francaise, she trains her fine eye on the way that people react, and then adjust, to war, specifically Germany's invasion of France in WWII.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section begins as the news spreads through France that the army has been unable to stop the Germans. With the Blitz heading towards Paris, panic spreads, and people begin to flee to the countryside. Nemirovsky quickly introduces several people, including one family, and the preparations they make to leave. At first, the sheer number of characters made it a bit confusing, but as the story progressed, I got to know the characters better and became able to distinguish them.

As the Parisians flee, they often find themselves in pretty harrowing circumstances. The invasion has thrown things into disorder, and people who've led lives of privilege and prestige suddenly find the charmed existence that they enjoyed has suddenly disappeared. At first the Germans appear only as news on the radio, but then there are bombings and aerial strafing, followed by pitched battles. The story reflects the horror and confusion of war. As the first section ends, the government has fallen, the fighting has ended and people are in the process of putting their lives back together.

The second section begins in the countryside, specifically in one of the villages to which one of the Parisians had fled. The Germans have gone from being an invading army to an occupying one, and in the process have gone from being an amorphous threat to having a very human face. In fact, the presence of all the young men in a village which has seen its own boys killed or taken prisoner gives rise to a strange dynamic of affection and resentment. This section felt even stronger, as Nemirovsky probes all the fault lines, allowing for a much slower boil of conflicting emotions and allegiances.

Because Nemirovsky was sent to the death camps, she never finished the novel, so the second section of the novel ends somewhat abruptly. Though not part of the novel, I couldn't help but contrast Nemirovsky's eye for day-to-day humanity with the sheer inhuman evil of the Holocaust. I also couldn't help wondering how this chronicle of the war, with all its fine detail and observations, would have continued had she lived.

Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes is like a little segment of nightmare, a dream-like tale of innocence threatened by a malignant evil. When a carnival comes to town too late at night and out of season, it is the kind of curious omen that cannot help but draw in two boys on the edge of adolescence, such as Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Carnival shows up mysteriously, appears to go up just as mysteriously, and promises secret delights somehow just a little more extravagant than those of the average carnival. So, it can hardly come as a surprise when it turns out that the Hall of Mirrors or the Carousel conceal darker secrets.

Jim and Will are first drawn to the marvelous carnival but soon find themselves the only ones aware of its intentions. As they take action to stop its plans, they make enemies of the strange characters who populate it, especially the sinister Illustrated Man, Mr. Dark. To resist the sinister forces moving against them, they will require some outside help, but who will possibly believe them?

Bradbury has crafted a fine little work of fantasy. Though it's not particularly scary, it succeeds at creating a rather childlike sense of dark enchantment. There's an almost mythic quality to his portrayal of not quite innocent childhood confronted with the wider world. His prose is mostly perfect for the sort of nightmare adventure described, although it did have moments where he seemed to so commit to inflating an already overinflated sentence or metaphor that you lost all sense of what he was actually talking about. But overall, it's the sort of book that makes you wish yourself could visit Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Carnival, even if just once, no matter the consequences.

Review: The Deceivers

One night, Captain William Savage of the East India Company witnesses a murder. In seeking out the murderers, he finds his efforts frsutrated, and soon comes to realize that a criminal conspiracy has been operating right under his nose. To stop the killings, he will have to infiltrate the group that goes by The Deceivers.

That story is loosely based on the Thuggee (meaning deceivers) of India, who strangled and robbed travellers on the roads. Savage is something of an unlikely hero. He doesn't figure himself particularly brave or commanding, but when he discovers the crimes, he sees no choice but to make himself pass as an Indian and join a Thuggee band.

The Deceivers is a fairly straightforward suspense/adventure tale, where our heroic protagonist finds the hero inside as he faces a terrible evil. The setting is well realized, and the foe portrayed in an interesting manner.

I must admit I didn't find Capt. Savage entirely compelling as a hero, in part because the threat wasn't always well defined. The physical threat, yes, but Deceivers puts equal weight on the spiritual/psychological threat Savage is under while pretending to be a Thug, without really making it plausible that he would have any reason for becoming a Thug. Instead it opts for some weak supernaturalism, and a somewhat vague struggle between Eastern and Western gods.

(One might also accuse Masters of some colonial revisionism, but I'd just urge any reader not to treat the novel as a serious portrayal of 19th Century India.)

Overall, with its interesting locale and heroic protagonist, The Deceivers makes for a pretty entertaining adventure story.