Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

Originally published 1998; this edition 1999

Publisher: Vintage (first published by Hutchinson)

R18+

(V, S, D, N)

Some violence

Sex scenes (including sexual violence)

Frequent drug use

Nudity

Representations

Gender:

Bechdel technical pass. The lead female protagonist has a conversation with her flatmate / landlady at the beginning. Otherwise, all conversations between women either concern men or are not directly depicted in favour of conversations with men.

Sex:

Gay people are acknowledged to exist, but not spoken of favourably by the characters. I did not notice any being present in the story.

Race & Ethnicity:

Most characters are white English or white French. Some appearances by white German and white USAian characters. Several important characters are Jewish French and Jewish German; the story being set during WWII, anti-Semitism features prominently. The primary character is a white Scottish woman. Regional diversity within France is acknowledged.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

The lead character suffers from depression and experiences a couple of episodes during the story. Another character suffers from PTSD.

Awards

1998: Bad Sex in Fiction Award

1998: Shortlist, James Tait Black Memorial Award, Fiction

This one got to me toward the end, despite my disappointment with the previous book, Birdsong (and the end of the other book by Faulks I read, The Girl at the Lion d'Or). But, it touches on the fringes of the holocaust, and it is difficult not to be moved by that even if you are generally unimpressed with the author's writing. Really, I picked this up because I have been able to read again lately, at a slightly decent pace, and I didn't want to leave the trilogy I'd started reading unfinished despite swearing off his books previously.

Well. I found the romance unconvincing and that was my main complaint to start, although I think romance in general is very difficult to do other than the "and then abruptly he / she became the centre of my world despite our barely having met or interacted" that we get here. The plot itself when it started was decent enough for me not to consider quitting though, and like I said, it is difficult to remain unmoved when characters are being fed unaware to the Nazi death machine.

Had a few botherations with parts of the writing too. Often a segment of the story would be followed by a description of time passing and some "this is how life was for a while" description, only to drift into an account of events that happened hours or a day after the previous scene, rather than weeks or months as the beginning of the passage suggested. It made my editing fingers twitchy. Also found the way children were described disturbingly fetishistic, although that style in general seems a bit endemic in the modern 'literary' fiction I've read (not applied only to children, and hardly a huge sample in my experience, nor unique to it).

Um, anyway, this was okay. I intend not to read anything else of his if I can manage it, although parts were good. The interconnectedness with the other books was nice, and plot was okay. It's a shame there was no hint the Nazis targeted anyone but Jews. The main reason the rating assigned was so high because of a single scene which combined sexual content and violence, I wrestled with the scheme a while to make sure I was applying it strictly, and still ended up 'houseruling' a little to get coherence out of it. Otherwise it would have been a step or two lower, unless perhaps I were also factoring in 'themes' which I don't do because I don't trust myself to assess something so subjective.

Typing stop now.