- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; New edition edition (Oct 30 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0099428342
- ISBN-13: 978-0099428343
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 281 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,791,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Readers of the bestseller Birdsong may hope that Faulks's third novel will furnish another mesmerizing narrative with a piercing love story and the kinds of details that vitalized his descriptions of life in the trenches during WWII. Although this novel does not, sadly, equal its predecessor in terms of seductive readability, its setting in occupied France during WWII and its depiction of the sentiments that motivated many Frenchmen to identify emotionally with the Germans rather than their longtime foe, Britain, grants the story intrinsic interest. But Faulks falters when he asks us to believe that pragmatic young Scotswoman Charlotte Gray is so transformed by her love for RAF airman Peter Gregory that she determines to parachute into France to find him after he disappears on a mission somewhere in the Free Zone. Disguising her motivation, she volunteers for the government's secret G-Section, where her uncanny talent for memorizing documents, her nerves of steel and her equanimity when parachuting into Occupied France after scant training may leave readers incredulous. Even more problematic is Charlotte's sense of transcendent mission, her mystical feeling, stressed again and again, that she has received "a call" to find Peter, and that her work for the Resistance is a "compelling urgency of personal and moral force" that will "change my life.. save my soul... and save [France's] soul as well." In evoking the mood and atmosphere of 1942-1943 France, however, Faulks provides the nuanced detail that invests the novel with authenticity, irony and pathos. Charlotte's dangerous maneuvers as she meets Resistance members and integrates herself into the village of Lavaurette, and the alternating chapters that reveal Peter's predicament, are genuinely absorbing. When Faulks introduces two small Jewish boys who are left behind in the village when their parents are deported, their heartrending situation adds tension. Yet Faulks undermines these effective scenes with a plot device that fizzles: veiled hints about Charlotte's "betrayal and violation" by her father when she was a child. Despite the psychological inconsistencies, however, in the end, it is the convincing settings?the wartime London singles scene, the old boy spy network, and daily life in an ideologically and politically divided France?that shape dramatic immediacy.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Shortly after the death of a surrogate father figure in a French internment camp in occupied France, Charlotte notes "that her emotions could not encompass the complexity of feeling that the circumstances seemed to demand." It is a comment that can be applied to the book itself. As a story about the power of love, it uplifts the spirit. As a story of the dispassionate evil of the Nazis, it brings tears to the eyes. As a story about ordinary people struggling to survive, it arouses admiration, understanding, and revulsion. Charlotte is a young Scotswoman who travels to London and falls for an RAF pilot. When he crashes in France, Charlotte wrangles her way into the British secret service in order to find him. If the scenario seems a bit overwrought, it is. But then new love often is. Faulks (Birdsong, LJ 1/96) has written one of those rare books that is adventurous enough to attract a popular audience while thoughtful enough to sustain the more serious reader. Highly recommended.
-?David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-?David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different perspective to World War II,
This review is from: Charlotte Gray (Paperback)
I finished reading Charlotte Gray last night and I woke this morning trying to understand it. I am not sure I understand, still, the narrative relationship of the story of a young, somewhat naive, Scottish girl to that of a group of French villagers struggling to survive under Vichy France. I have not understood Faulks message here. However, this is nevertheless a marvellous book because it presents an aspect of World War II that I had never really thought about before. I was quite ignorant of the complicity of the French towards their German occupiers. This was quite shocking to me. I wish the whole book was set in Vichy and that we did not have to deal with the storyline of Charlotte and Peter Gregory. The real heart of the novel is the story of the Levades and the story of occupied France. I recommend this book to anyone who would be interested in a different insight to the war.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Heroine of Emotion and Intelligence,
By Jayne MacManus (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Charlotte Gray (Paperback)
Sebastian Faulks gives us a heroine to admire in the title character of Charlotte Gray, a Scottish-English woman drawn into covert intrigue in World War II France. Charlotte, like so many ordinary people, is made remarkable by the war and situations that would be wholly uncommon in peacetime. Her personal resolve to be directly useful to the war effort prompts her to leave her job as a secretary and to become an undercover operative for the British in France. However, it's not the secret identities and undercover maneuverings that most convince the reader of Charlotte's heroism. It's her intense involvement with RAF pilot Peter Gregory who goes missing in action. Without sentimentalizing, she sees her feelings for Gregory as transcendent and is willing to see it through to the end. It's a crazy thing to persist in love in the middle of the war and in the midst of being an undercover operative. Readers well recognize the romantic cliché of women waiting for their lost men. In Charlotte however, our faith is renewed, our jadedness set aside.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Charlotte Gray (a lot of nothing ?),
By Stephen Blakeman (Alsager, Cheshire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Charlotte Gray (Paperback)
I read Birdsong and enjoyed it. I bought Charlotte Grey hoping for more of the same but was dissapointed. After reading it I was left thinking "what was it all about" ? I think the author has a funny style of writing in that he goes into great detail about things that appear unimportant (even irrelvant) but skips by things which are central to the story (like the capture of the children). In the book the death of the old man in the camp is dealt with in less than a page after being a key character throughout. Whilst reading it I was constanly waiting for something (anything) to happen but sadly it naver did and in the end it fizzled out like a damp firework. I intended to buy the third book in the trilogy but after Charlotte Gray I don't think I'll bother. In summary the book was a lot about nothing
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