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Title: Resistance : A Novel by Anita Shreve ISBN: 0-316-78984-4 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (40 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Readable, moving account of a British flyer & the resistance
Comment: I had previously enjoyed several other books by Anita Shreve, but
somehow had missed RESISTANCE . . . so when I recently found
myself in Florida without a book to read (having finished the one
I brought down on the plane), I was pleased to find this novel at
my folks' home.
It is the readable account of a British flyer shot down over the Belgian
village of Delahaut . . . he somehow manages to survive the
crash . . . when a brave 10-year old finds him, he is hidden first
in the boy's farm and then in the home of a resistance fighter.
An intense love affair ensues until the flyer is caught, as is the
woman hiding him . . . I thought that might happen, so it came
as no real surprise . . . yet that said, the story is almost heartbreaking
in its account of the tragedy of war.
Also, I was impressed by Shreve's research into the topic . . . she
presents a feel for the era that made me feel as if I was actually living
through it.
There were several memorable passages; among them:
Ted listened t the chatter, scanned the skies. The fighting he knew,
could sometimes be a thing of such beauty it took your breath away.
The graceful arc of a fighter that had put its armored back to you, even
as it glided down and away, out of sight, out of range. The flashbulb
pops from silver planes that came at you from the sun. The way a
B-17 seemed slowly to fall to earth with great dignity, as though it
had been inadvertently let go by God. The odd inkblots against the
blue, floating curiosities twenty feet wide and filled with exploding
steel. Long white contrails in formation, road maps for German
fighters. A plane, severed at the waist, that made your heart stop.
Count the chutes. And breaking radio silence, shouting wildly at the
doomed crew to bail out, bail out. It was the worst thing you had ever
witnessed, and when it was over there was no place to put it. No
part of you that could absorb it, and so you learned to transform the
event even as it was happening, a sleight of hand, a trick of magic,
to turn a kill into a triumph.
A stillness in the barn. Henri felt a throbbing in his right temple. They
all knew what Léon meant. In the cities, where the Maquis was
better organized and had more funds, more access to materiel, each
Resistance fighter was given a single tablet of cyanide. To contain
the damage in the event of torture. Few men or women, no matter
how brave, could withstand the prolonged and creative torture
of the Gestapo-he'd heard it all-the electric prods and needles
to the testicles, the gouging of the eyes. Without the cyanide,
every man was a traitor.
And when she was not working or they were not reading or talking
or listening to the radio or performing the tasks necessary for their
survival, they made love. It pleased him how often they made love,
and sometimes it frightened him. It was as though they both knew
that what they had could not last. When he touched her, she never
demurred, never pulled away from him. She seemed to have the
same need as he, a need he did not now think of as physical, or
purely physical. He thought of it rather as the desire to be known--the
desire to know and to be known by the one person. Sometimes
he was truly baffled that the one person should be a Belgian woman
who was married to another man, a man critical to his own
survival-and yet at other times he made himself believe that their
loving was fated, as the fall of the plane itself may have been fated.
Rating: 4
Summary: TRUE HEROES AND HEROINES
Comment: In THE RESISTANCE, Anita Shreve takes a very sad time in world history and writes a poignant story which lets us see that when good people take a stand against injustice, that stand makes an incalculable difference.
This is the World War II story of a small Belgian town and its "underground" network of ordinary citizens who transport condemned anti-Germans to freedom.
THE RESISTANCE gives a visual and distressing picture of World War II, the people and the daily hardships they faced. It shows their hope in what could easily be perceived as a hopeless situation.
The main characters are Ted Brice, a downed American fighter pilot and Claire, a Belgian housewife, two people who are brought together by Ted's need to use the resistance network and Claire's house which is one of the stops along the line. Though neither intends it, a relationship develops between them that produces that "one-in-a-lifetime" bond.
This book was hard to get started with because of the depressing times, but once started, it was harder still to put down.
Rating: 5
Summary: Love and Resistance
Comment: In the foreground of WWII, a young wife named Claire Daussois and her husband, Henri are members of an underground resistance movement in a small Belgian village. There is little romance between the two, indeed Claire takes extreme precautions to prevent conception, fearful of bringing a child into the unpredictable chaos of war. Commited as they are to the resistance, one feels the emptiness of their relationship, and in this environment falls Ted Brice, an American pilot, injured in a crash landing of his plane in their town of Delahaut.
Saved by a spunky ten year old Jean Benoit, he manages to find his way to the Daussois home. There he is placed in protective hiding and must face his future at the hand of strangers.
A tense story line unfolds as the town is caught up in the deception. Who can you trust? Citizen turns against citizen and everything is at stake. One must realize that this kind of activity happened. This is not just fiction, but based on realities of many villages across Europe and the horror of it all is almost unbearable.
There is love in the hole of hell itself. There is forgiveness and strength in moving on. This is a lovely novel of a time many of us have no knowledge of. Therefore, it is very important to contemplate these stories, for in so many other words, most of them did happen. There was just no one left to write the story.
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Title: Eden Close by Anita Shreve ISBN: 0156005891 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Strange Fits of Passion: A Novel by Anita Shreve ISBN: 015600710X Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 11 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Where or When : A Novel by Anita Shreve, Virginia Barber ISBN: 0156006529 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: All He Ever Wanted: A Novel by Anita Shreve ISBN: 0316735736 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Weight of Water : A Novel Tag: Author of Resistance and Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve ISBN: 0316780375 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 07 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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