Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel
by Chris Bohjalian
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Book Reviews of Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel
Book Review: Well written
Summary: 4 Stars
I just finished listening to this book on audiobook. I had never read anything by Chris Bohjalian before and I picked this one up because of the many positive reviews.
This was a well written and captivating book, nicely paced, with engaging but not necessarily likable characters, not even Uri. The story is not an endearing one given the time and place. And for all that I liked the book, I found it hard to empathize with the German family in their struggle to survive in a world gone awry. From mighty Germans to survivors trying to escape the Russian army, Anna and her family finally experience some of what the rest of Europe had suffered for years at the hands of the German armies.
Certainly Chris Bohjalian does a masterful job of recreating the atmosphere of these first few months of 1945, of describing the chaos engulfing Germany as the Americans and the Russians approach from both sides and the Germans become desperate enough to enlist old men and boys but never smart enough to concede defeat, while the population flees from East to West. The parallel story of concentration camp survivors and their struggle to survive until deliverance arrives in the form of either Russians or Americans comes in sharp contrast to the "sufferings" of the Emmerich family and their fear of the Russian army. After all, the Emmerich have lived in relative comfort for the entire war. I also contrasted sharply the destruction of Dresden with the burning of London, and even the burning of the medieval city of Louvain, Belgium (during the first World War) with its incomparable library founded in 1426.
After the war many Germans, like the Emmerich, claimed ignorance of what had been happening to the Jews, it was so much easier to believe that they were being "relocated". And if I could forgive their ignorance, I could never forgive that when the Americans forced the German population to watch movies about the Holocaust, most Germans would avert their face rather than watch.
Several times, the atrocities perpetrated by the Russians on the Prussian and German populations are described and each time I thought of what the German armies had done in Russia, in Poland, in Greece, in the whole of Europe. I recalled from my many readings the mass exterminations of the Jews, the burning and raping and slaughtering, the incredible arrogance of the Germans in general. And I failed yet again to muster any sympathy for the refugees.
Out of curiosity I went to Chris Bohjalian's website to shed some light on this novel. I wondered at the chosen topic. It is not often that an American writer will write on the topic of WWII as seen from the German point of view. The Q&A section satisfied my curiosity, I encourage readers to check it out. I would definitely recommend this book but be aware that this is not happy reading.
Book Review: The Great Flight
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought Chris Bohjalian's novel, SKELETONS AT THE FEAST, because it dealt with the massive, bloody flight of Baltic Germans from their ancient homeland of East Prussia in 1945. East Prussia no longer exists nor are there any Prussians at all left in what for 700 years was an important kingdom.
Bohjalian's description of a Prussian family's mad dash through the snow to escape the advancing Red Army brings that to life. He does a good job of reconstructing that chaotic period from the perspective of a Prussian family. I enjoyed his characters, even the more unlikely ones like Uri Singer, a Jew who'd jumped off a train bound for Auschwitz and managed to survive on the Eastern Front by pretending to be a Landser, an ordinary German soldier.
I can see why the author created Uri. This character allows him to explain the military collapse of the Third Reich as well as address the issue of the Holocaust from a German perspective.
One of his characters, a ten year old boy named Theo, gives one of the most insightful comments on this (p.191) when he asks himself if "those prisoners ... [in the concentration camps were] why the whole world seemed so mad at his country?" This question brings him to the realization that "When this war is over, he and his family - all Germans -were going to have to live with the black mark of this (whatever this was) for a long, long time."
And so they do. The Holocaust sits like a dark cloud over Germany and its history even in this enlightened age.
Bohjalian has a clear, unaffected style of writing and has clearly done a lot of research on this subject. The novel even has a study guide appended to it.
If you like historical fiction, adventure stories and just enjoy good writing, you'll enjoy SKELETONS AT THE FEAST.
Book Review: Gripping and Painful
Summary: 5 Stars
It's 1945 and the Russians are coming and this is bad news for the Emmerich family as it is for all Germans who live in East Prussia. After a brutal war on the Eastern Front the Russians are out for blood. Murder, rape, torture, their revenge. The Emmerichs have so far managed to escape the ravages of war. In fact the government has lent them the use of POWs to work their farm. But now they have to flee.
However, Rolf Emmerich and his son Helmut stay behind to fight the oncoming Russians. It's their duty, as it is the duty of Rolf's number one son who is already fighting. So that leaves Rolf's wife Mutti, Helmut's twin sister Anna and his younger brother, ten-tear-old Theo, to trek on alone. Well, not quiet alone, because they have a Scottish POW named Callum with them who is having an affair with Anna.
Not long into their journey their joined by Uri Singer, a Jew who escaped from a train on the way to Auschwitz. He's been impersonating German soldiers so that he can wreak havoc on them behind their lines. Sabotage and murder have been the order of his days.
The Emmerichs are going to have their eyes opened, going to learn the atrocities their government committed makes the Russian raping and pillaging look like child's play. The legacy their generation is going to leave is one of shame and they're going to have to live with it, if they live.
This is a book full of heart and soul, blood and pity and so much pain and suffering. It's hard to imagine that this went on not so long ago. Actually, if you think of Africa and the Middle East, it's still going on, maybe not as organized, but still every bit as shameful, every bit as painful to think about. Mr. Bohjalian makes us think about it in this story where everybody suffers, where everybody knows pain.
Book Review: Terrific story, flawed writing
Summary: 4 Stars
This fine novel, set in 1945 Germany, at the end of WWII, was inspired by a journal kept by a family friend of Bohjalian'. The plot follows a group of survivors attempting to cross the ravaged remains of the Third Reich from Warsaw to the Rhine and the relative safety of the British and American lines.
The main characters: The Emmerich family, aristocratic Prussians. Anna Emmerich, 18 years old and in love with Callum Finella, a 20 year old Scottish prisoner of war, brought from the POW camp to her family farm as forced labor. 26 year old Uri Singer, a German Jew who escaped from an Auschwitz bound train and has been posing as a German soldier since. Uri searches for Rachel, his sister, who he fears died in the camps. He is a stealth fighter, killing as many Nazis along the way as he can. Cecelia, a Jewish woman trying to survive a forced march from one of the stalags.
All the components are here -- interesting, sympathetic and active characters, enormous conflict, even forbidden love. At times heart-breaking, at times inspiring, a gripping read from beginning to end.
I would have given it five stars but for some problems with the actual writing. Now, I read the book on my Kindle, and perhaps that version is not as well-edited as the print version. Is that possible? I don't know. But the book was, in my opinion, poorly edited. Bohjalian has a fixation, it seems, with the word 'that' as well as unnecessary linking words. Example:
"...he could smell the fires that were igniting in the woods." Why not simply, "he smelled the fires igniting in the woods.
That sort of phrasing, once, is one thing, but unfortunately it's on almost every page. It's jarring, and snaps me out of what is, otherwise, a wonderful story.
Book Review: So True that it's Frightening
Summary: 5 Stars
The German Emmerich family had been living and farming in Kaminheim for generations, however after the Great War their farm wound up in Poland, so when Hitler reunited Prussia with Germany they are pleased to say the least. So much so that they have an autographed photo of the Fuhrer on their wall. For most of WW II it appears their faith in their leader is justified, but in the winter of 1945 with the advance Russians on the horizon with the stories of rape and pillage that follow in their wake, the Emmerich's decide it's time to leave and they head out with their horses and a couple wagons, hoping to make it to the Allied lines before the Russians get them.
However, the Patriarch of the family and his son stay behind to fight the oncoming hordes, leaving the mother, her nineteen-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son to soldier on with a Scottish POW who had been assigned by the German government to help with the farm. The POW by the way is having a rather torrid affair with the nineteen year old. And to round out this clan of fugitives we have a young escaped Jewish man who has been impersonating German soldiers so that he can kill German soldiers. So they have to avoid both Russian and German troops on their quest for safety.
But this is so much more than a good people running from bad men suspense kind of story. It's about right and wrong and how time and circumstance can blur them. It's about man's inhumanity to man. It's about love and cruelty, life and death, good and evil, all that stuff. It's about characters who struggle against impossible odds and improbable believes. It's about more than I can say. And this story is so true that it's frightening.