Books 62-63: Half-Blood Blues and Painter of Silence
Book 62: Half Blood Blues.
Author: Esi Edugyan, 2011.
Genre: Period Fiction. 1930s-40s Germany & France. Racism. War. Music.
Other Details: Paperback. 343 pages.
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, was arrested in a café and never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black.
Fifty years later, Sid, Hiero’s bandmate and the only witness that day, is going back to Berlin. Persuaded by his old friend Chip, Sid discovers there’s more to the journey than he thought when Chip shares a mysterious letter, bringing to the surface secrets buried since Hiero’s fate was settled. - synopsis from Orange Prize website.
Almost from the opening page I felt very drawn into this novel, which came as a pleasant surprise as the subject matter had seemed quite dense and I'm not really a fan of jazz. That really didn't matter because while jazz was important to the plot it represented the power of music to bring people together across national identities, race and class and that felt very relevant despite personal tastes.
I felt Edugyan did an excellent job of capturing the dual settings of Berlin and Paris during this turbulent period. Her account of the Fall of Paris certainly was as powerful as Irène Némirovsky's Storm in June. The Jazz Age slang was a little strange at first but soon become familiar. Edugyan provides a short bibliography of non-fiction works on the Jazz Age and the experience of being black in Nazi Germany
Overall a highly engaging novel that was thought-provoking on many levels. Certainly I could see how it has both won a number of literary awards and been nominated for others.
Book 63: Painter of Silence.
Author: Georgina Harding, 2012.
Genre: Period Fiction. 1930s-50s Romania.
Other Details: Hardback. 314 pages.
Iasi, Romania in the early 1950s. A man is found on the steps of hospital, frail as a fallen bird. He carries no identification and utters no words, and it is days before anyone discovers that he is deaf and mute. And then a young nurse called Safta brings paper and pencils with which he can draw. Slowly, painstakingly, memories appear on the page ... The memories are Safta’s also. For the man is Augustin, son of the cook at the manor at Poiana that was her family home. Born six months apart, they grew up with a connection that bypassed words. ... Safta left before the war, Augustin stayed.... There are many things that he must tell Safta that may be more than simple drawings can convey. - shortened from the synopsis on Orange Prize website.
While I felt the writing throughout this novel was exquisite I found myself feeling left outside of the story observing the characters rather than feeling engaged with them. The descriptions were very vivid and Harding certainly painted pictures with words as well as conveying the experience of someone unable to communicate with words. The story did start to come together for me during the final third though this felt rather too late. It might be one of those novels better appreciated a second time around.
It proved a favourite for many of our Orange Prize Shadow Group and was voted as our winner even if not the official 2012 winner. I expect that it was just one of those novels that I could admire for its writing but at the end of the day was just not my cup of tea.
