🪶 Book: The Nightingale

🪶 Author: Kristan Hannah

🪶 Genre: Historical fiction, World war novel

🪶 Pages: 442

🪶Publication: 2015, Harper Collins

🪶 Book cost: ₹ 450

Blogpost by Dhanu

5/5

After Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, this novel, The Nightingale, wounded me deep for real. Likewise, I had labeled it under the list of favorite reads and marked it as a souvenir for my 2k bookish members on dhanu_reads. It is an another remarkable milestone to hit on the book page after a long gap here!

Let me take the privilege to highlight the magnificence that are needed to get everyone’s notice.

When the war between the countries get outbreak, the men in the front face the enemy and know with whom they are fighting against. But the women and the children at home will never know with whom they have to fight against, where the war becomes least thing to worry about.

The novel opens in the year of 1999, where a senile woman is trying to recollect the horrific events from the past. She was struck with her nostalgia and started to rummage inside a trunk full of belongings with the name tag, “Juliette Gervasie”. And the story date back to the time period of the World War II in the region of France. The author encompasses the setting between Paris and Carriveau, which has been showed as the prominent landscape in this novel.

The major part of the story, that is, the occupancy of Germans in France and the chain of events are narrated in third person point of view. The author has made a tactical effort to picturize the inhuman and gruesome incidents in the place where the militants had been billeted.

When the ignition of the World War II begins, the man of every house had been called to serve for their country. Antonine, a mail man, is one among them. He has been living in his wife’s family property, Le Jardin with his wife, Vianne Mauriac and their eight year old daughter, Sophie.

After Vichy’s Government surrendered its governance, the German troops occupy the entire country and started to taking control on the livelihood of the people.

In Paris, Isabella Rossignol, sister of Vianne returned home after being expelled from French Girl’s School. Her father, Julien Rossignol then sent her to live with her sister when the Nazis started to take control over France. At Carriveau, she becomes the passeur and secretly passes the notes among the locals for the internal revolution.

Isabella and Vianne had a troubled childhood. Their father is a war-hero of first World War. His returns totally collapsed the peace at their home. It affects their mother who died shortly afterwards.

Isabella was only four when her mother left her forever. And the girl’s father sent them to nanny’s house to be taken care of where she took rebellious behavior to get an attention. Instead Vianne left her totally unloved and sought her warmth in love of her life, Antonine. As a toddler, Isabella felt abandoned from her own family and never received the love of anyone she loved. This later leads to the behavioral pattern that she expressed throughout the story and made her independent on her cogitation.

This novel also successfully accomplished to portray the lost love between father and daughter, mother and the adopted-child, and the sisters. You may also cry for the lovers to get united during the heat-rising war scenario.

The writing style is absolutely lucid and easy to go with the flow. However, you may take a pause to take a breath on what Isabella is doing throughout the novel. The characterization makes the reader to imagine the realistic events of the plot. Especially the leading characters like Vianne, Isabella, Gaëtan Dubois, Captain Hauptmann Wolfgang Beck (the German officer who was billeted at Vianne’s residence) has deeply impacted and take the storyline to hit the nerve of each reader.

Before all, the cover of the book really caught my attention. This book is really a reader magnet and gradually attracts them to find it eventually. It is an absolute tribute for each unknown warrior in history. I highly suggest this book for everyone!

Hold yourself carefully, the ending may break you literally. Stone-hearted reader may need to be extra cautious!