Stephanie Jane recenzis April in Paris de Michael Wallner
Very readable
3 steloj
April In Paris is billed as a wartime love story, but it is a novel with surprisingly little romance between the two characters, Michael and Chantal. Wallner instead shows how Michael's belief in his love for Chantal, a woman he barely knows, is actually fuelled by his love of his idea of himself as someone completely different from reality. Michael is a bilingual Wehrmacht Corporal who finds himself working as a translator during SS interrogations. His regular metamorphosis into French student Antoine is his escape from these daily scenes of brutality and I appreciated how Wallner depicts this duality in his personality. As readers we get to see scenes of wartime Paris both from the German and the Parisian perspective which is interesting.
I found April In Paris to be a very readable novel which I happily polished off in a couple of sittings. The narrative isn't particularly unusual and, …
April In Paris is billed as a wartime love story, but it is a novel with surprisingly little romance between the two characters, Michael and Chantal. Wallner instead shows how Michael's belief in his love for Chantal, a woman he barely knows, is actually fuelled by his love of his idea of himself as someone completely different from reality. Michael is a bilingual Wehrmacht Corporal who finds himself working as a translator during SS interrogations. His regular metamorphosis into French student Antoine is his escape from these daily scenes of brutality and I appreciated how Wallner depicts this duality in his personality. As readers we get to see scenes of wartime Paris both from the German and the Parisian perspective which is interesting.
I found April In Paris to be a very readable novel which I happily polished off in a couple of sittings. The narrative isn't particularly unusual and, although it kept my interest throughout, I could usually guess the outline of where the story would go. There are harrowing descriptions of torture, some of which I wish I could unread, so readers of a more squeamish disposition might want to give this one a miss. However, otherwise, April In Paris is a good addition to the WWII genre.