After I read
The Women by Kristin Hannah last year, I immediately checked for other books she had written. I picked this one as my next Hannah read mostly because I think WWII is an incredibly interesting war with thousands of moving parts. I mean you could spend years researching it and never truly understand the vastness of the war. Truly, I actually had no idea what the book was going to be about, but I'm so glad to have read it because I have learned so much from these pages.
The Nightingale isn't just your average WWII story about the French Resistance, it's a haunting story of how quickly your neighbor can become your enemy when laws and norms take a change for the worse. It deeply explores a quiet heroism that's been lost to history because for the most part, "men tell stories; women get on with it." Most importantly, it describes how the machinery responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust didn't start with a bang; it started with lists, databases, and people who choose to look away.
The Dichotomy of Two Sisters
The Nightingale depicts two sisters. One, a fiery, obstinate, courageous heroine of the Allies, helping downed airmen cross the Pyrenees into Spain so they can make it back to Allied space and continue their fight. Her name is Isabelle. The other, a quiet, firm, and brave wife and mother who would do anything to protect her family, even if it means lying to the very people who would have her killed. Or worse. Both of these characters fight the war, although they do so in vastly different ways. Hannah was able to do something so incredible in showing us that there are multiple ways to fight a war. While Isabelle saves over one hundred airmen from a fate worse than death by crossing a most dangerous mountain range patrolled by soldiers, Vianne hides and saves nineteen children right under the nose of the Nazis who would have them deported to German work camps such as Auschwitz or Ravensbruck.
The ability to dive into each character's mind and write them so vividly is a talent in itself; it forces the reader to sit with two vastly different emotional conflicts. Through Isabelle, we can feel the adrenaline and righteousness of the act of escaping France and moving from safe house to safe house. However, through Vianne, we feel this suffocating suspension of a home occupied by oppressors, not just in town, but in her own home. In this, Hannah was brilliant in her refusal to rank each character's sacrifices for the cause of freedom and individuality.
The Grey Area of Captain Beck
One of the most intriguing characters, Captain Beck serves as a point of moral friction for our Vianne. Whilst he is a Nazi, he is portrayed as a very polite and helpful individual, even putting up with Isabelle's thinly veiled hatred of him even though he is the arm of the machine and could have easily had Isabelle arrested. However, he is a massive reason Isabelle is able to leave the small village and head to Paris where she starts her Maquis career. The complexity of Captain Beck comes from the fact that he doesn't fit the box of "monster Nazi" we're all used to in popular culture. While he warns Rachel, Vianne's Jewish friend, about the arrests, he's still holding a whip when the citizens are driven into the train cars for deportation. As I was reading, I truly thought things would go differently for him, but alas, Vianne is forced to kill him to keep her sister safe. This, I think, is Hannah kind of stating that even though he was a nice, gentlemanly guy, he was still part of the regime and ultimately still a bad guy.
A Mirror of 2026
Ever since I finished this book a couple weeks ago, I think about it almost every day. It's impossible to read about the deportation of the Jewish people in the 19430s and 40s and not compare it to what's happening in America right now. The databases, the public killings, the demanding of papers, it's all a huge parallel to things humanity has already faced less than 100 years ago. The most jarring thing is that it all happened gradually in the 1900s until suddenly millions of people were in the concentration camps. The fear was so normalized that no one was able to do much of anything. Our two protagonists did find a way to make small differences, and those small differences had massive impacts on individual people and families.
Women in History
The last thing I want to discuss is the erasure of women in history. I don't know about you all, but I had no idea the impact that women had in WWII. Not to mention this is just a story based on a handful of women when there were so many more that had a massive impact on history. I hope we can draw attention to more women throughout history who have been erased or have not had the recognition they deserve. History isn't just made on battlefields, it's also made in the choices women make to hide the children or turn a blind eye to a small but growing resistance. History can be made with protests and fighting against fascism; we should all do well to remember that in these times.
The Quick Stats
Genre: Historical Fiction, WWII, Family Saga
Time to Read: 11 days
Read this if you liked: All The Light We Cannot See, The Book Thief, Beneath a Scarlet Sky.
Reflective Rating: 5/5
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