Filled with haunting characters one comes to care about

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	• Skeletons at the Feast Chris Bohjalian Shaye Areheart Books, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Filled with haunting characters one comes to care about

To be honest, this is my first Bohjalian book. I was interested in the theme dealing with World War Two and the Holocaust, a special interest of mine. I was pleasantly surprised at Mr Bohjalian's ability to capture the sense of those horrific times and bring something new to the table.

The book basically deals with a mish-mash of people during the last days of World War Two - there is the 18-year-old daughter of a staunch Nazi supporter, her mother, younger brother; a Scottish POW; a German Jew disguised as a Nazi who escapes from a cattle train bound for Auschwitz and myriad others. Bohjalian defines these characters so well that I truly came to care about them.

What was unique to me in reading this novel was the grey area between right and wrong - in times of war, what exactly is right and wrong, moral and immoral? Uri the German Jew kills in order that he may survive, and is that wrong? We have good Germans and utterly deplorable ones, and many other memorable characters that make us truly ponder on the effects of war on the human psyche.

With its moral ambiguities and complex characters, this makes for a troubling yet riveting read and I look forward to getting acquianted with Mr Bohjalian's other works.

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Haunting

I greatly admired Bohjalian's novels Midwives and The Double Bind. He has a very literary style and I find his writing to be very lyrical and beautiful, not to mention that his subject matter is innovative and thought-provoking. When I heard that he had a new novel coming, I knew immediately that I wanted to read it.

Though the two previous Bohjalian novels I had read dealt with quite diverse subject matter, this novel still came as a surprise. For as well as Bohjalian writes contemporary fiction, though, this work of historical fiction is even stronger. It's obvious that he did a great deal of research on the subject and his imagery is extremely vivid and graphic to the point that it is, at times, hard to read. This is not to say that the violence is gratuitous because it isn't. Bohjalian writes these scenes very matter-of-factly, which gives them all the more impact. Though this novel is fictional, what the characters face is based on facts and it is painful to imagine experiencing the things his characters experience.

Set in the waning days of World War II, Bohjalian tells the novel from several points of view. On one hand is the Emmerich family, landed gentry who are caught up in the Nazi regime. Though not entirely comfortable with this regime, the family is largely ignorant of the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by it. Bohjalian does an excellent job of portraying what many typical German citizens of the time probably experienced. It is very powerful to see how, once knowledge dawns, the characters begin to realize that the monumental crimes committed will long be their homeland's legacy.

The novel also introduces us to Callum, a Scottish POW who is sent to work the Emmerich family farm. His relationship with the family is complex. It would have been easy for him to classify them as heartless Nazis but he sees what type of people they are and how they have blindly trusted their leaders. Still, Callum is perhaps the least developed of all the characters.

The characters that resonated the most for me were that of Cecile and Uri. A Jewish woman captured in her homeland of France, Cecile is sent to a forced labor camp. Bohjalian provides many stark details of the deprivations and torture of these women as they labor and then march, their German tormentors leading them away from the invading Russian army. Uri is also a Jew but has spent the last two years changing his identity multiple times. In order to survive, he passes himself off as various German officers and even as a Russian. Uri's incredulity at the depth of the Nazis' hatred for the Jews resonates strongly and it is every bit as baffling for the reader to understand why, when faced with certain defeat, the Nazis continued to expend a lot of time and effort in their quest to exterminate an entire race of people.

Perhaps the strongest point of the novel is that all of Bohjalian's characters suffer. In fact, suffering is presented as a universal human condition and none of his characters are exempt, no matter their nationality or religious affiliation. It is indisputable that some suffer more than others but what is most striking about the novel is what it has to say about the human capacity for brutality against other humans--and the human capacity for love. The novel also contains a theme that could be called karma, for past actions come to haunt each of the characters in very serious ways.

This is a stellar novel from a very gifted writer, a writer who may just be one of the most talented American authors alive today. It is a profound, moving, and troubling novel that shows only too well how history does, in fact, repeat itself. One need only look at news of what is happening in the Sudan for proof.

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I loved It!

I ordered Skeletons at the Feast without any knowledge of the topic. I just knew that anything written bt Chris Bohjalian would be special and this was no exception. His ability to capture the personalities of the characters is astounding,especially the women. I couldn't put it down.
I do not usually read novels about the Holocaust because it is too disturbing but this one approached the time totally differently. I liked hearing the different voices especially those of the Prussian family. Keep the books coming, Chris!

Don't Rely on the Sample

If you are purchasing this for Kindle (as I did) don't let the sample fool you. I got the sample and was terribly disappointed. It was slow moving, verbose and generally written like old English prose. Out of town one weekend with nothing to read, I went ahead and purchased the novel (since it was the easiest link on my Kindle at the time) and ended up reading it all in one sitting. After the first slow, dreary chapters, the story truly picked up pace and speed and I found myself completely engrossed in the story. The trials and tribulations of the fallen aristocratic farm family was sad and as their eyes were opened to the atrocities of war, the story became an absolutely riveting tale. I've never read anything by this author prior but will certainly try to do so in the future.

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great read

Loved the different theme of this book compared to Bohjalian's other books. Great history combined with an amazing love story made it a page turner.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: an attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to reach the British and American lines.

Among the group is eighteen-year-old Anna Emmerich, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats. There is her lover, Callum Finella, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war who was brought from the stalag to her family?s farm as forced labor. And there is a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, who the pair know as Manfred?who is, in reality, Uri Singer, a Jew from Germany who managed to escape a train bound for Auschwitz.

As they work their way west, they encounter a countryside ravaged by war. Their flight will test both Anna?s and Callum?s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred?assuming any of them even survive.

Perhaps not since The English Patient has a novel so deftly captured both the power and poignancy of romance and the terror and tragedy of war. Skillfully portraying the flesh and blood of history, Chris Bohjalian has crafted a rich tapestry that puts a face on one of the twentieth century?s greatest tragedies?while creating, perhaps, a masterpiece that will haunt readers for generations.

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