Rent: Charlotte Gray

Mr. Faulks takes us on a spellbinding trip into the depths of the French underground in a totally beliveable, absobing tale. We follow an ordinary young woman caught up in extraordinary situation and live though it alonside her hour by hour day by day. If you are looking for other stories of common people finding courage watch for Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II by Douglas W Jacobson coming in October 2007.

You can only go so wrong with Sebastian Faulks, as his books are always beautifully written, touching, intense and melancholy.

However, this one was just a little too epic for me i.e. it could have done with being a little bit shorter and a little less convoluted.

Maybe to some extent it was the setting (World War 2, Occupied France) that didn't do it for me, but I didn't really lose myself in, or find it impossible to tear myself away from, this novel as I had with some of Faulks' other work.

If you've read his other work, by all means do read this too, but if you're looking for an introduction to Faulks, I'd go with Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War or On Green Dolphin Street: A Novel first.

I consider Sebastian Faulks' BIRDSONG the best novel I have ever read about World War I, so I had high hopes for this one set in WW2. Alas, they were only partially fulfilled, but I enjoyed the book nonetheless, and know I would have enjoyed it even more if it had not had that earlier masterpiece to live up to.

Once again, the principal setting is wartime France, a country that Faulks knows well. And once again, the central plot device involves two lovers separated by the war. In BIRDSONG, that was mainly a background for the harrowing portrayal of the male character in the trenches; in CHARLOTTE GRAY, it is the female character of the title who occupies most of the attention, and the setting is rural France rather than the front. Dropped into a small village in the Massif Central, Charlotte liaises with the fledgeling local resistance while attempting to search for her lover, Peter Gregory, a pilot lost on a previous mission. The book offers a believable portrait of the early years of Vichy France, before the Resistance gained much momentum. According to Faulks, few saw the Allies as eventual liberators, but rather almost as enemies, disturbing their pragmatic accommodation with the occupying power. This gives an air of seeming normality to the portrayal of village life which may ring true but which slows the narrative by depriving it of sufficent sense of danger.

The Washington Post review quoted inside the book says "What begins as a conventional love story becomes an adventure of the spirit." It is a good description. The love story IS rather conventional and Charlotte at first seems naively romantic. The process by which she is recruited as a courier and sent to France seems altogether too casual, as though introduced as a narrative adjunct to the romance rather than as something that will become the main focus of the book. Various other subplots and characters are added, as for example a Machiavellian attempt by one secret agency to discredit another, but they are not followed through. After some time has passed, the focus of Charlotte's life in France seems to become almost entirely romantic, as she struggles to maintain her feelings for Peter against the complication of her differing relationships with other men whom she meets in the village.

But the "adventure of the spirit" does eventually come through, although rather late in the book. The Germans take over the Free Zone and slowly the true horror gathers momentum. By this time, Charlotte's quest for Peter is no longer the main narrative thread. Faulks increasingly pulls back, showing short episodes from many different points of view. These include a developing subplot involving a French collaborator, some harrowing scenes set in the Jewish transit camp at Drancy, and two father figures warped by traumatic memories of the first War (a recurrent theme with Faulks). But by now the novel has become too loosely structured to work completely, its final chapters seem almost an afterthought, and its endings too easily arrived at.

What I like about this novel is the same sort of thing I like about writers like Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy, David Anthony Durham and Maria Doria Russell. Namely, they're literary writers who aren't afraid to write a novel with a plot. With drama. With love stories and betrayals. With small people caught up in big moments in history. That's absolutely grand. I wish there were more novelists like them. I don't think Sebastian Faulks is quite as good a writer as any of the above, but he does deliver in a great many ways. The opening scene as Peter Gregory crash lands his plane is marvelous, full of danger and action straight away. I commend him for making a female character the focus of what's essentially a war novel, or, at least, a war/resistance novel. So that's the good part.

The book does falter, though, with many of Charlotte's improbable decisions. She's so determined and skilled and focused it's hard to believe. At the same time some of the love scene material is over the top and in general a bit maudlin. You could blame it on the character, but the author seems to want us to believe as Charlotte does.

So, it's not perfect. But it's not a bad read either. If the subject matter interests you do give it a try. It's entertaining, if not a masterpiece.

I found that this novel not only held my attention, but continued to reveal inself more and more as the story evolves. It is certainly not up front about the sybolism and themes, but once given the chance it becomes a story worth examining. Core issues such as WWII, the holocaust, racial and ethnic identification, and personal discovery, are addressed in a well intertwined manner. Through a story about self-discovery the reader gets to see these aspects of history through several peoples eyes. Certainly worth one's time, and the story picks up momentum as one reads! Couldn't put it down, one of the best ive read this year.