"Here
it is, his prose insists, right here on the page: a world made of words, a
world we make up in our heads as we read, using all the light we cannot
see."
20 Bookers
met at the home of Jean Alexander to discuss this graceful masterpiece set in
Hitler’s Germany, Paris, and the walled seaside town of Saint-Malo in Brittany during
World War II. We meet an orphaned German boy, a visionary blessed with intellectual
curiosity, and a blind French girl able to see light only through her imagination.
Congratulations to Barbara Creach for guiding us through a decade of story zigzagging
back and forth between timelines and settings and offering the author’s voice
detailing the underpinning and motivation for writing this historical novel,
ten years in the making.
To honor this novel, the store manager of
Books, Inc., the West’s oldest independent bookseller in Alameda, California
developed a Sea of Flames cocktail. Mix 1.5 ozs. Hendrick’s Gin; 1 oz.Byrrh (red
wine based aperitif born in France prior to WWII); ½ oz. St. Germain; 2 tsps. lemon
juice; 2 dashes of Germany’s The Bitter Truth bitters with ice, strain and pour
into chilled glasses. The saga of the stone centered on the largest raw diamond
ever seen. It was a brilliant blue and at the center a “touch of red like
flames inside a drop of water” and came equipped with a curse – the keeper of the
stone would live forever, but those he loved would suffer misfortunes. If
thrown back into the sea, the curse would be lifted, but the last “keeper”
ordered it locked inside a deep vault for two hundred years. Cheers…hopefully
the cocktail doesn’t possess anything other than a slight headache.
The author wanted to tell a story in a
time in history when hearing the voice of a loved one in your home, in your
ear, was a magical thing. The focus landed on the role of the radio “when a war
was fought in static waves instead of trenches” waging through the air
invisibly and the front lines are anywhere.” Thus, the stories of Marie-Laure
LeBlanc in France and Werner Pfennig in Germany paralleled the other until
their paths collided in occupied France as they both tried to survive the
devastation of World War II. She lives with her father in Paris near the Museum
of Natural history, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. At six,
she goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood
so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. At twelve, the Nazis
occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s
reclusive great uncle lives. They carry with them what might be the museum’s
most valuable and dangerous jewel, The Sea of Flames. Werner lives in a mining
town with his sister, his expertise in building and fixing communication
instruments landing him a place in a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then on
to a special assignment to track the resistance traveling through the heart of
the war and reaching Saint-Malo. Through it all, their story, against all odds,
shows how people try to be good to one another and how “light and grace inextricably
bubble up in the midst of banality, deprivation, imbalance, and even downright
evil.”
The majority of our group loved the book
and the writing, but acknowledged it was at times difficult to keep up with a
timeline. It opens a month after the Allied invasion of Normandy and the two
main characters are young adults…then we go back to 1934 when they were
children…forward to 1940, forward again to 1944, back to 1941 and ahead to 1944,
and so on. The author wrote it in this sequence to gather narrative momentum
and suspense trying to “interweave all the pieces the way a puzzle comes
together.” We talked about the life lessons throughout the novel and wondered
about the symbolism associated with the frog and owl. FYI, some cultures see
the frog as a communicator, the voice of the people, a survivor who exists in
two worlds, of land and water, while the owl is linked with wisdom and
foresight, the ruler of the night, the seer of souls. After all the emotion of
the story, the ending seemed rushed and to some unsatisfactory, but the author
explained by showing an elder Marie-Laure interacting with her grandson, he
hoped to emphasize this war was more than a video game to those who lived it.
“The cult of personality built into Germany” at the time could happen again…all
“it takes is a very powerful propaganda tool, like the radio, and a populace
that’s maybe struggling for lots of different reasons.”
With every physical detail, every word of
every sentence, and every metaphor Doerr treated us to an illumination of
narrative precisely paced with a language as silken as angora wool. We could
see “each needle of a cypress tree, a polygon of light”…could hear a young man
talking in “feathery accented French”…could question how the brain “locked in
darkness, floating in a clear liquid inside the skull could create a world in
the mind full of light”…could hear the sentimentality of ‘Claire de Lune’ “like
a lonesome light wandering through the woods…of souls singing in a minor key,
of victorious love and the opportune life…they do not seem to believe in their
happiness and their song mingles with the moonlight.”
On the
business side
The
Miniaturist by Jessie Burton is a historical fiction
novel set in 1686 in Amsterdam centering on an eighteen-year old who marries an
older wealthy merchant. His wedding gift to her is a cabinet-sized replica of
their home. It starts slowly, the Dutch language is difficult to decipher, but
about page one hundred, the plot lines twist and turn providing the intrigue.
It’s a good book and in my opinion, would be color-coded RED, and included on our recommended
reading list.
Donna Walter highly recommended another historical
novel, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin that tells the story of
Ann Morrow, Charles Lindberg’s wife. Many top ratings by reviewers.
We voted on Cassie Dandridge Selleck’s The
Pecan Man, for our March selection. It’s available on Kindle, audio,
and paperback through Amazon and has over 1,000 reviews, 4.5 stars. This short
novel is a work of Southern fiction, set in 1976 narrated by a recently
widowed, childless woman who hires a homeless, old, black man to mow her lawn.
It’s been described as To Kill a Mockingbird meets The
Help.
The Girl on
the Train by Paula Hawkins is climbing the bestseller
list. It’s a dark, haunting, depressing, psychological thriller that would
appeal to fans of Gone Girl, unreliable narrator and all.
It seems that after fifty-five years,
88 year-old author Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame is set to
release her second novel, Go Set a Watchman July 2015. The
drama continues in the media as to the circumstances surrounding the new
discovery, etc…stay tuned. It’s set during the civil rights movement and told
through the voice of an adult Scout who returns to her Alabama home from New
York.
The third annual Books in Bloom fundraiser
benefitting the Henderson County Clint W. Murchison Memorial Library in Athens
is slated for April 17th at the Cain Center. Bookers has supported
this event for the past two years and we would like to continue our
participation. Tables of 8 are sold at $30.00 per person for the luncheon only
or $40.00 per person for the champagne author reception and luncheon.
Participants bring their own china plates, water glasses, cloth napkins,
silverware, and a small centerpiece for their table. Tablecloths are provided.
MN and I will not be able to attend this year but we hope at least eight of will
represent the Pinnacle Women’s Club and Bookers. Both Melanie and Patty Evans
have expressed an interest in helping with the décor and we just need six more
volunteers and someone to coordinate the funds, etc…It’s a cultural event right
in our backyard! Please support this if you can.
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY
CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
March 3rd
: Note change of date
The
Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck
WHITE
Home
of Joanna Linder
Reviewer:
Pat Faherty
April 14th: Orphan Train by Christina
Baker Kline
PINK +
Home
of Kay Robinson
Reviewer:
Jean Alexander
May 19th: Note
change of date
The Husband’s
Secret
by Liane Moriarty
PINK
Home
of Beverly Dossett
Reviewer:
Beverly Dossett
Summer Break: June, July & August
Summer
read:
The Boys in the
Boat, Nine Americans
and Their Epic Quest for Gold
at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James
Brown
September 8th: Bookers 12th year
Let your fears and privation “be rinsed away by wind,
and color, and light.”
Happy Reading,
JoDee
