Love Is The Beginning & The End
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah is such a powerful book about women during World War II. Everything about it is fabulous, which makes it a hard book to review – what to include? What to leave out?
This is a book about women at war and the love that binds them together.
In war, it is men’s stories that we hear. The Nightingale addresses this balance. “It’s a fact that women are useless in war. Your job is to wait for our return” says a male character! It is women who are the glue that hold everything together. “Maman had been the glue that held them together.”
We follow two sisters. The younger one works for the resistance. The older one has her own battles at home where she lives with her young daughter, who has to grow up very quickly during war. The setting is France and both are very much on the frontline.
The younger sister has spent her whole life searching for love. “She was tired of begging people to love her.” The truth is that she has always been loved. It proves to be a love that makes the ultimate sacrifice, which will end up breaking her.
We witness the bravery needed to help allied airmen to safety, evading capture – but the more successful trips, the bigger the target on a sister’s back.
Life inside concentration camps was brutal. Luck and a strong willpower to survive were needed. Bodies were broken but minds remained free. “In the camp, she fought back the only way she knew – by caring for her fellow prisoners, and helping them stay strong.” The women had to be their own support system to hopefully, survive. There are some very hard to read scenes of Nazi brutality.
The war fought at home brought a different set of challenges for a young mother and her daughter after Nazi officers were billeted at their home. “As afraid as she was of risking Sophie’s life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil.” The young mother helps to save Jewish children despite the risk of the cost to herself and her daughter.
War takes its’ toll on emotions. The Nazi officer is far from home. The young mother’s husband is in a P.O.W camp. Lines blur relationships, especially as her does have a kind heart (unlike the second officer billeted with her.). “She knew she shouldn’t be so open with this man [Captain Beck] – the enemy – but just now she was too tired and scared to be strong.”
As the war is clearly in decline, Captain Beck opens his heart: “I trained to be a soldier, to fight for my country and make my family proud. It was an honourable choice. What will be thought of us upon our return?” Even he recognises the Nazi atrocities were not what he signed up for.
Not many Nazis have hearts. Many are pure evil, delighting in torture and forcing themselves upon French women.
Seeing soldiers occupying the town in the early war years, a character notices: “not monsters; just boys.” (Of the Nazi soldiers) – but even boys can be cruel.
Kristin Hannah has written a powerful grief scene, emphasising the futility of war, and the innocent victims. “All Vianne could think about was the sound of this child’s laughter and how empty the world would be without it… grief ripped you apart and left you broken forever.” This really spoke to my heart. I cannot imagine having your young child ripped from you in such a way.
The novel is mainly set in France during World War II, but also in America in 1995 as the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war approaches. We hear an old lady declare: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine… In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” For fifty years she has kept her secrets, now it is time to talk.
The Nightingale is a powerful book showing the futility and brutality of war. It also shows that love has to lead hearts or what hope is there? “Love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”
I will leave you with a powerful quote:
“Love. It was the beginning and the end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.”
JULIA WILSON