Muhammad Jahangir Sheikh Jahangir Sheikh itibaren Loutrá Killínis 270 50, Yunanistan itibaren Loutrá Killínis 270 50, Yunanistan

this book was reccommended to me by my dear friend and avid reader, kimi. For literary mastery I would have given this book four stars, but given the history and circumstances for which this book endured to be written -and published 50 years later, well...its phenomenal! Irene Nemirovsky had intended the book to be five mini-books within one binding. She didn't live to write the final three and ironically titled the final two with (question marks at the end) battle? peace?. She wrote this extraordinary novel during fall of France and Nazi occupation. The depth of detail, humanity of characters, and depiction of cruelty/evil and compassion/justice places the reader in the midst of French humiliation. As the citizens of France struggle to reconcile their current defeat, German soldiers invade their town and lives. Nemirovsky does not villify the Nazi regime, but rather shows them as they were, young men, soldiers, some cruel, others kind. In reading it, I have to wonder if she would have changed her characters had she known the bredth of Nazi atrocities/cruelty/inhumanity. Or if she had lived to see the Americans liberate France and had the ability to reflect on the time period considering all of the horror of Nazi cruelty. There is very little mentioned about the Jews, only fleeting references of characters that worry/wonder about the fate of the Jewish French. In a twist of irony this acclaimed Catholic author was later arrested and eventually died in Auchwitz in 1942. Her Jewish ancestry ultimately led to her arrest and in her husbands desperate attempts to free her, he condemmed himself by showing he too had Jewish ancestry but was a devote Catholic. He believed her arrest was mostly due to a misunderstanding about her Russian heritage. How could he have known they would murder her for a bloodline she didn't even claim? Or that he too would be sent to the same camp and gassed for having a similar ancestry? When Irene was writing this amazing novel, she could not have known of the camps, the millions who would die, the horror of a madman's vision. Who, other then those who lived it and those who were in Germany and later Poland, could have known what evil was capable of? She wrote this novel as a current events. She never lived to see the depth of French struggle, the thousands hunted and killed, the battles between the Allies and Germany, the liberation of France, PEACE. She would never know of Hitlers genocide, the rise of communism, or the rebuilding of Europe. She would never get the chance to polish up her novel. But this work, in its purity is so well illustrated, so beautiful. It is a novel, through the eyes of one who was LIVING it. **a side note her daughters, hid in cellars during the end of the war bc they were being hunted by the French police (commissioned by the SS), saved her notebook containing this novel. Neither had the heart to read it- thinking it notes and journal, until a few years ago. when she discovered it was a novel, she had is published immediately.

It has been a long time since I read anything with a mystery story line. This kept me guessing until the end. I can't wait to actually read the questions so they can enlighten me on the underlying message because I am sure there is something that I missed. Some parts were a little juvenile but that was expected. Hoping everyone else enjoys it:)