A Thread of Grace

Since my last post was about The Wedding Officer I thought I would talk about this book, which is another look at World War II Italy. This book focuses on the last years of the war when Germany was no longer Italy's ally and Germans and Allied forces were both at the proverbial gate. The features several Jewish families on the run, as well as the people who helped shelter them and an SS doctor who when separated from his unit must come to terms with the blood on his hands for his role in the concentration camps. Reading this book, I learned the Italy had highest Jewish survival rate in Europe, which the author seems to partly attribute to the Italian suspicion of centralized orders and government as well as the greater integration of Jews into the culture as a whole. The book also shows how fascism grew in response the pressure the war put on Italian society.

The Wedding Officer

This is another book club pick. Set in World War II era Italy, the book centers around Captain James Gould a British Officer assigned the duty of making sure that British solders did not marry Italian women of "poor reputation", specifically prostitutes. However wartime shortages and extreme poverty ensure that almost all of them have slept with a solider for cash and he approves almost no marriages. He also attempts to crackdown on the black market with little or no success. Then Livia Pertini, a widow from the Italian countryside becomes the cook for Gould and the other officers. Gradually Gould begins to fall in love with her, the food she cooks, and Italy itself and see the world as more than black and white. The story takes a few turns towards the far fetched, but the book was still a worthwhile read.

Suite Francaise

The story behind this book is nearly as interesting as the book itself. The author, Irene Nemirosky, was a Frenchwoman of Jewish ancestry, who had converted to Catholicism before World War Two began. She had completed the first two books of a five book cycle about the War, when she was sent to Auschwitz, and was killed. Her daughters found her notebooks, but only sixty years later did they realize what the notebooks contained. The first book tells of the flight or attempted flight of various Frenchmen, both Jewish and Gentile, likable and not on the eve of the German invasion. The second book, tells of everyday life in a rural French community under German occupation. Some of the characters overlap and the end of the book contains her notes hinting where the work would have gone had she lived to complete it. A memorable book, both for what it is and and for its unfulfilled promise.

Jarhead

Anthony Swofford is bracingly honest in this memoir of "the first Gulf War", as my copy calls it. He talks about all the emotions he passes through as part of a spotter-sniper unit in the Marine Corp, from fearful to bored to stir-crazy. He also is honest about the behavior of the Marines, which like any group run the gamut. He talks about how many Marines (at least the male marines of his acquaintance) cheat wildly on the women at home whenever given the opportunity, and are obsessed with thoughts of the wives and girlfriends cheating on them (sometimes with reason, sometimes not). He talks about the good and bad sides of life as a Marine (don't call them soldiers, they are Marines) and how his father's service during Vietnam shaped his own life and choices. A well written memoir that is better than the movie.