Code Name Verity

Books and chocolate=Phenomenal duo.

Author: Elizabeth Wein

Category: I saw this book lying around my teenage cousin’s room for weeks. It looked intriguing, so I asked her if I could borrow it (I feel as though I made her become a reader, so it’s fitting that now I’m borrowing books from her).

My thoughts: Oh my goodness. What a great read! This book was marketed to teens, but it’s one of those books that I feel like should be marketed to adults. And it made me cry. And not just a single tear—I actually sobbed (at the time, I was in the safety of my own apartment, and not in public, thankfully). So, dear reader, do not expect a happy experience with this book. But it is well worth picking up.

Code Name Verity begins with a confession. During World War II, in occupied France, a British spy for the Special Operations Executive has been caught by the Gestapo and is imprisoned in a former hotel that they are using as their headquarters. The officer in charge of the “interrogations” (perhaps I should call it what it is—torture) Captain von Linden, gives her paper on which to write her story, including details of the British war effort. And thus we get the story of the strong friendship between our imprisoned spy, nicknamed Queenie, and Maddie Brodatt, a young female pilot. It was Maddie who flew Queenie to France in the first place.

As I said before, this novel involves some torture. And the torture scenes are quite graphic. These moments were difficult to read, but I feel as though they are necessary. You can’t have a book about a World War II prison without the ugly aspects, and such things happened to real people. Like The Book Thief, I love that Code Name Verity highlights the bravery of those who resisted the Nazis. People like Queenie (we eventually get her real name, but why spoil the surprise) and the French Resistance fighters rebelled against Nazi occupation—even though it could, at the very least, cost them their lives. They remind me of the civil rights workers in Coming of Age in Mississippi—other young people who decided to fight against unjust systems (some of whom died in the process). But Code Name Verity also highlights the fact that so many people got caught up in the whole Nazi machine, and this led them to do despicable, horrid things.

There are several references to Peter Pan and Macbeth (Queenie, as she reminds everyone, is a Scot, and woe betide anyone who calls her English). Also, there’s a reference to Admiral Horatio Nelson’s last words (“Kiss me, Hardy”). I have to admit, as an American, I’m only vaguely familiar with Admiral Nelson. Also, the friendship in this book reminds me the one in my first magical reading experience, the book that made me really fall in love with reading—Charlotte’s Web. That book depicted a strong friendship between two characters from different backgrounds. I don’t want to give too much of the plot of Code Name Verity away, because it takes some interesting turns. I kept having to turn back to previous pages and reread passages that were clues I’d missed the first time (I didn’t even know they were clues). Just read the book, and you’ll see what I mean.

Great passage: You know, I envied her. I envied her the simplicity of her work, the spiritual cleanness of it—Fly the plane, Maddie. That was all she had to do. There was no guilt, no moral dilemma, no argument or anguish—danger, yes, but she always knew what she was facing. And I envied that she had chosen her work herself and was doing what she wanted to do. I don’t suppose I had any idea what I “wanted” and so I was chosen, not choosing. There’s glory and honor in being chosen. But not much room for free will.

Up next: Persuasion—because I need to read something slightly cheerful. 

The Book Thief

There's nothing like a good book.

Author: Markus Zusak

Category: Last December, I saw the movie version of this book. I thought it was pretty good, so I decided to read the book—because, as a general rule, the book is always better than the movie.

My thoughts: The book is definitely better than the movie! This was a really good book. In fact, the ending of The Book Thief almost made me cry (the only thing that prevented me from actually crying was the fact that I was in public when I finished reading it). The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, and is narrated by Death. And during the time period during which the book is set, World War II Germany, Death was very busy. The book begins with the journey of Liesel, her mother, and her brother by train. Her mother is forced by circumstances of the time to send her children to be cared for by another family. On the way to meet the family, the Hubermans, Liesel’s brother dies. When they bury him, Liesel commits her first act of book theft—The Gravedigger’s Handbook. There’s a problem, though—Liesel can’t read.

Liesel comes to live with the Hubermans—kind accordion player Hans and stern Rose—in Molching, Germany. With the help of Hans Huberman, Liesel learns to read and comes to love words. But things are changing in Germany. There are book burnings, and Liesel and her friend Rudy Steiner are forced to join the Hilter Youth and its female equivalent (the former for Rudy, the latter for Liesel). Then the Hubermans decide to hide a Jew, fist fighter Max Vandenburg, whose father fought in World War I with Hans, in their basement. This understandably brings some tense moments in the novel. A word, however, about Rudy: he was known in Molching for the “Jesse Owens incident,” in which he darkened his skin with charcoal and pretended to race like the track star, whom he idolized. There are several lovable figures in The Book Thief, but I liked Rudy the best.

The Book Thief demonstrates that not every German citizen followed the Adolf Hitler/Joseph Goebbels propaganda machine blindly. But we, the reader, see what happens when a German citizen tries to help Jews—Hans Huberman is whipped for giving food to an elderly Jewish gentleman who is being marched with other Jews to Dachau concentration camp. I like The Book Thief because it stresses the importance of books, words, and reading. When Liesel first comes to live with the Hubermans, she cannot read. Hans patiently teaches her to read, and a whole new world is opened up to her. This is contrasted with the fact that words are used to manipulate almost an entire country to hate Jews and other non-Aryans. During stays in air-raid shelters, Liesel reads to her neighbors. This has a calming effect on everyone. Reading and words tend to bring the community together in this book. That happens in real life too—and it’s a beautiful thing.

Great passage: They’re strange, those wars.

Full of blood and violence—but also full of stories that are equally difficult to fathom. “It’s true,” people will mutter. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me. It was that fox who saved my life,” or, “They died on either side of me and I was left standing there, the only one without a bullet between my eyes. Why me? Why me and not them?”

Hans Huberman’s story was a little like that. When I found it within the book thief’s words, I realized that we passed each other once in a while during that period, though neither of us scheduled a meeting. Personally, I had a lot of work to do. As for Hans, I think he was doing his best to avoid me.

Up next: Code Name Verity

Atonement, Part 2

My thoughts: Finished it! I think this book is phenomenal, and it’s one of those books that I found myself thinking about a lot when I wasn’t reading it and after I finished. The second part of Atonement finds Robbie fighting for survival in France in 1940 during World War II. Briony’s accusation sends Robbie to prison, but gets to leave prison early on the condition that he join the British army. He was part of the British forces that were trapped by the Germans in Dunkirk at the beginning of the war. We all know who the eventual victors of World War II were, but it must have been terrifying for the British to face this early German victory, not knowing how things would turn out. The events in Dunkirk play a large part in the story, which was intriguing to me because I really don’t remember being taught a lot about it—it was little more than a paragraph in my history books. Granted, most discussions of World War II in my history classes were American-centric, but even in Western Civilization, there wasn’t much discussion of Dunkirk. I guess I’m saying that because it took this book for me to realize the horror of what happened there. In Atonement, the Dunkirk section is almost 100 pages, and lays bare the brutality and horror of the march to Dunkirk. Dead soldiers and civilians line the roads, and the British soldiers are under constant threat of attack. And Robbie Turner experiences this all. And we are reminded that he sees this because a weird little girl told a lie that sent him to prison.

Speaking of Briony, in the last half of the book, she realizes the effects of what she has done. In 1940, an eighteen-year-old Briony is training to be a nurse, having given up a place at Cambridge. After reading about Robbie’s experiences at Dunkirk, I was filled with hatred for Briony. But reading the section about her experiences made me dislike her less, even if it didn’t exactly fill me with sympathy for her. McEwan writes, “Her secret torment and the public upheaval of war had always seemed separate worlds, but now she understood how the war might compound her crime.” She really tries to be helpful and to be of use, especially when the wounded British soldiers arrive from Dunkirk. And she feels guilty about what she’s done. However, I’ll save my sympathy for the man she sent to prison.

Reading Atonement made me thing about thirteen-year-olds and maturity. I was talking to my mother about this a few weeks ago. Some thirteen-year-olds are more mature than others. It’s a fine line, though—you want them to be mature, because they’re growing up, but you don’t want them to act too grown. Briony, maturity-wise, was at about an eight or nine-years old level when she was thirteen. She had a lot of growing up to do. And when we meet the eighteen-year-old Briony, we see that she has grown up. But, on the other hand, plenty of thirteen-year-olds are underdeveloped, but that doesn’t make it OK to falsely accuse someone of rape.

One of the main themes of Atonement is that actions have consequences. Sometimes they are immediate, and sometimes the effects last for years. This book gave me a lot to think about. I like to read it again someday, and I need to rewatch the movie. If there is a tiny flaw in this book, in my opinion, it is that there needed to be more about Cecilia. She seemed like the character that had the most sense.

Great passage (where one gets a very palpable feeling of Briony’s experiences as a nurse): At many beds, nurses were removing dirty dressings. Always a decision, to be gentle and slow, or firm and quick and have it over with in one moment of pain. This ward favored the latter, which accounted for some of the shouts. Everywhere, a soup of smells—the sticky sour odor of fresh blood, and also filthy clothes, sweat, oil, disinfectant, medical alcohol, and drifting above it all, the stink of gangrene.

Up next: Not sure…

Atonement, Part 1

Snuggle up

Author: Ian McEwan

Category: I tried to read this about seven or eight years ago, and couldn’t get into it. Then I saw the movie on which it is based, and decided to give the book another chance.

My thoughts: Ok, I’m going to write about Atonement in two stages. Because I saw the movie (which is really good), I know how this story turns out, but I still think this is a great read. The first part of the story documents a very eventful summer day in the Tallis household in the English countryside in 1935. At the beginning of the story, Briony Tallis, who is thirteen, is preparing for a play that she wrote for her brother Leon, who is visiting the Tallis home with a friend, Paul Marshall. Briony intends for her visiting cousins—fifteen-year-old Lola, and nine-year-old twins Jackson and Pierrot—to be in the play with her. Briony, I should mention, is one of those girls who is always in her head, and too attached to the world of make-believe had happily-ever-after.

During the course of the book's first part, we also learn that there is a simmering attraction between Cecelia, Briony’s 23-year-old sister, and Robbie Turner, who is the son of the Tallis family’s housekeeper. Cecilia and Robbie were both at Cambridge together, but did not mix in the same circles. Briony misinterprets situations that she witnesses between Cecilia and Robbie (children…they just don’t know about grown folks’ business), and at one point believes that Robbie is assaulting her Cecilia. Later, the twins run away, and during the search for them, Lola is assaulted. Briony convinces herself that the assailant was Robbie, and accuses him of the crime. With this act, she seals the fates of Robbie, Cecilia, and herself.

It’s a sad story, Atonement, but it is beautifully written. I am reminded of my experience reading Maud Martha—rereading certain passages, drinking in the language. I am also reminded of The Portrait of a Lady. I think it’s because of the sort of slow but purposeful pace of the two novels. Neither book feels rushed. I have never read anything by Ian McEwan before, and I wonder if his other books are this good. Anyway, back to the plot…I once saw a quote from The Tale of Despereaux that has stuck with me: “Every action, reader, no matter how small, has a consequence.” This is a lesson that some adults forget, and children are often too young to understand. But it is so very true.

Great passage: She would never be able to console herself that she was pressured or bullied. She never was. She trapped herself, she marched into the labyrinth of her own construction, and was too young, too awestruck, too keen to please, to insist on making her own way back. She was not endowed with, or old enough to possess, such independence of spirit. An imposing congregation had massed itself around her first certainties, and now it was waiting and she could not disappoint it at the altar.