historical fiction

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44. The End of the Affair

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Graham Greene

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Romance

192 pages, published 1951

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

Set in London during and just after the Second World War, The End of the Affair examines the obsessions and jealousies within the relationships between three central characters:  writer Maurice Bendrix,  Sarah Miles,  and Sarah’s husband, civil servant Henry Miles.  The narrator of the book is Maurice, a rising writer during World War II in London based on Graham Greene, and focuses on his relationship with Sarah based on Greene’s lover at the time, Catherine Walston, to whom the book is dedicated.   While Maurice and Sarah fall in love rapidly, he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began as he cannot contain his all consuming jealousy and frustration that Sarah will not divorce Henry, her kind but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Maurice’s flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed.  After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation.  Maurice is still consumed with jealousy and hires a private detective to discover Sarah’s new lover.  Through her diary, Maurice learns that when Sarah thought Maurice was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Maurice again if God allowed him to live again. After her sudden death from a lung infection, several miraculous events occur, bringing meaningfulness to Sarah’s faith.  By the last page of the book, Maurice may have come to believe in a God as well, though not to love Him.

 

Quotes

“It’s a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”

 

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

 

“I want men to admire me, but that’s a trick you learn at school–a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there’s something to admire.”

 

“My passion for Sarah had killed simple lust forever. Never again would I be able to enjoy a woman without love.”

 

“I measured love by the extent of my jealousy.”

 

“I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn’t settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.”

 

“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”

My Take

The End of the Affair is the first book that I have read by iconic British writer Graham Greene and it did not disappoint.  I especially enjoyed listening to the Audio Book version narrated by Colin Firth (an actor I like quite a bit) who does a great job with the material.  Greene brings to life the misery, insecurity and jealousy that is the ugly underbelly of Maurice’s all consuming, obsessive love for Sarah.  A fascinating, albeit depressing, book that I can unreservedly recommend.

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40. The Queens Fool

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by: 

Author: Phillipa Gregory

Genre: Historical  Fiction

Info: 490 pages, published February 4, 2004

Format:  Book

Summary 

The Queen’s Fool starts in 1553 and follows the story of Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl who is forced to flee the Spanish Inquisition to London with her father.  With her gift of “Sight,” the ability to foresee the future, Hannah is befriended by the charismatic Robert Dudley, son of King Edward’s protector.

Dudley brings Hannah to court as a “holy fool,” first for Queen Mary (daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon), and then for Mary’s half sister Queen Elizabeth.  Hannah is recruited as a spy and endangered by the political upheaval rocking England as Mary, Elizabeth and others vie for power in a country divided between Protestants and Catholics.

 

Quotes

“Because all books are forbidden when a country turns to terror. The scaffolds on the corners, the list of things you may not read. These things always go together.”

“Ideas are more dangerous than an unsheathed sword in this world, half of them are forbidden, the other half would lead a man to question the very place of the earth itself, safe at the center of the universe.”

“One should never offend more men than one can persuade,”

“Daniel, I did not know what I wanted when I was a girl. And then I was a fool in every sense of the word. And now that I am a woman grown, I know that I love you and I want this son of yours, and our children who will come. I have seen a woman break her heart for love: my Queen Mary. I have seen another break her soul to avoid it: my Princess Elizabeth. I don’t want to be Mary or Elizabeth, I want to be me: Hannah Verde Carpenter.”

“might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her.  It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out of herself. A woman might blossom into being a wife, not be trimmed down to fit.”

“And we shall live somewhere that we can follow our beliefs without danger,” he insisted.  “Yes,” I said, “in the England that Elizabeth will make.”

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37. An Officer and a Spy

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Lisa Goldberg

Author: Robert Harris

Genre: Historical Fiction, Spy/Espionage

Info: 429 pages, published January 28, 2014

Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

An Officer and a Spy is the story of the Dreyfus Affair.  In 1895 Paris, Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil’s Island.  Among the witnesses to Dreyfus’ humiliation is Georges Picquart, who had recently been promoted to the head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans.  While Picquart initially believes that Dreyfus is guilty, he comes across information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military.  As evidence mounts that implicates the uppermost levels of government, Picquart begins to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country and himself.

Quotes

“There is something to be said for senility . With her mind gone, she does not lack for company.”

“My four golden principles are more important now than ever: take it one step at a time; approach the matter dispassionately; avoid a rush to judgment; confide in nobody until there is hard evidence.”

“There is no such thing as a secret—not really, not in the modern world, not with photography and telegraphy and railways and newspaper presses.”

“The old days of an inner circle of like-minded souls communicating with parchment and quill pens are gone. Sooner or later most things will be revealed.”

“I feel as if I have walked into a mirrored room and glimpsed myself from an unfamiliar angle for the first time. Is that really what I look like? Is that who I am?”

“There are occasions when losing is a victory, so long as there is a fight.”

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24. The Nightingale

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Summer Youngs  

Author:  Kristin Hannah

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

Info:  440 pages, published February 3, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

The Nightingale tells the tale of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, and their experiences in rural France during World War II.  After her husband Antoine joins the French army at the start of the war, Vianne is left to manage on her own with her daughter Sophie and soon finds herself billeting a German officer with a softer side in her home.  Vianne eventually starts to shelter Jewish children after their parents are deported to a concentration camp and even adopts three-year-old Ari, the son of her best friend Rachel.  Vianne’s younger and bolder sister Isabelle joins the French Resistance and becomes the Nightengale, an integral part of the underground network that leads Allied soldiers through the Pyrenees to safety in Spain.  As the war progresses, the sisters’ relationship and strength are tested.  With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Vianne and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.

 

Quotes

“Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”

“Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.”

“But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”

“I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.”

“Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.”

“She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.”

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

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16.  Redeeming Love

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Adrienne Bulinski

Author:  Francine Rivers

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, Christian, Romance

Info:  465 pages, published May 9, 2005

Format:  Book

Summary 

Redeeming Love a historical romance novel set in the 1850s Gold Rush in California.  The story is inspired by the Book of Hosea from the Bible.  Its central theme is the redeeming love of God towards sinners. Angel, the main character, is abandoned by her father and sold to a house of prostitution after her mother dies.  Angel hardens herself to survive and expects nothing from men but betrayal.  When she meets Michael Hosea, Angel’s life begins to change.   Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.  

 

Quotes

“Love is the way back into Eden. It is the way back to life.”

“If you love me as you claim to, then you love her as well. She’s part of me. Do you understand? She’s part of my flesh and my life. When you say things against her, you say them against me. When you cut her, you cut me. Do you understand?”

“All the way back, she had imagined him gloating and taunting, rubbing her face in her own broken pride. Instead, he knelt before her and washed her dirty, blistered feet. Throat burning, she looked down at his dark head and struggled with the feelings rising in her. She waited for them to die away, but they wouldn’t.”

“He was never angry when she made mistakes. He complimented and encouraged her. He shared his own mishaps with a sense of humor that made her less annoyed with her own incompetence. He gave her hope that she could learn, and pride when she did.”

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1. Life After Life

Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Tina Hirshland

Author: Kate Atkinson

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

Info: 560 pages, published March 14, 2013

Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

Every time Ursula Todd dies, she is born again. Each successive life is an iteration on the last, and we see how Ursula’s choices affect her, those around her, and the fate of the 20th-century world.

 

Quotes

“What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

“He was born a politician.  No, Ursula thought, he was born a baby, like everyone else. And this is what he has chosen to become.”

“No point in thinking, you just have to get on with life. We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try.”

“Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.”

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