A Savage Kultur: The Fictional Story of a Painting Seized by the Nazis

A Savage Kultur by Monique Roy is the second book that I am reviewing by this author.  I participated in the blog tour for her novel Across Great Divides on this blog here back in 2015.  I  received a free review copy of A Savage Kultur from Monique Roy and this is my honest review.

                               

The last time a review on this blog dealt with a book on the theme of the Nazi looting of art it was Stolen Beauty by Laura Lico Albanese which I reviewed here.  That novel involved an actual famous legal suit brought by a descendant of the original owner to recover an iconic Gustav Klimt painting. 

The  painting at the center of A Savage Kultur, "The Lovers: The Poet's Garden IV" by Vincent Van Gogh isn't well-known and has an unknown fate. An image of Van Gogh's sketch of the painting is reproduced on the bottom section of the cover shown above. Yet all the characters in A Savage Kultur are fictional creations.  So Monique Roy has given us a speculative narrative about this missing work.

Contemporary protagonist Ava Goldberg experiences what might have been a favorite fantasy come true for an art history student like her when she inherits an art gallery from her grandfather.  Her love of art and her devotion to her family are the most believable aspects of her character.   Her determination to reclaim the Van Gogh that had been owned by her grandmother's family is admirable.  On the other hand,  I didn't find the romantic aspect of her life very credible, and thought that the book could have dispensed with it entirely.

My favorite character in this book was Ava's grandfather, Karl Engel, who was the protagonist of the historical chapters in this dual period novel.  I consider him the most fully realized character and I think that the entire plot really does revolve around him.  His courage in Nazi Germany preserves the life of the woman he loves.  His decisions in the 21st century motivate Ava and give her life a focus.

The issue of art forgery arises in this book through the perspective of a character who engages in forgery.  Mention is made of the sophisticated techniques he uses to fool the experts.

What most sets apart this novel about Nazis and art is that this one doesn't portray Nazism as a defunct ideology.  There are unnerving survivals of Nazi beliefs and attitudes alive among their 21st century descendants in A Savage Kultur.  I was reminded of a William Faulkner quote.  "The past is never dead.  It's not even past."  So the resolution wasn't nearly as triumphant as other books in this sub-genre.  Instead there is a dark undertone that could cause readers to wonder when other manifestations of the Third Reich might surface.  One might also wonder whether the entirely too sheltered descendants of Holocaust survivors like Ava will be capable of stopping them. 
                          

Playing With Fire by Tess Gerritsen

December has been busy, and I haven't been reading fiction with strong female protagonists lately.   I debated with myself over whether a review of Playing With Fire, Tess Gerritsen's recent standalone thriller, belongs on this blog.   This is a dual time period book, and it was the historical female protagonist that caused me to decide in favor of posting about this book on Book Babe.

                                 

Violinist Julia Ansdell, the contemporary central character,  tried to be strong but she was more often a victim who needed to be rescued.  Her life was beyond her control, and her judgment was very badly compromised for reasons that became clear by the end of the book.   Because she didn't understand what was going on, she didn't know who to trust and fought the wrong battles.  I was glad when Julia's situation was finally resolved, but she wasn't our Book Babe heroine.

I found her in the historical narrative which took place in Venice, Italy during the 1930's and 1940's.   Julia had found the manuscript of a mysterious unpublished piece of music called Incendio by L. Tedesco.  He is violinist/composer Lorenzo Tedesco, the viewpoint character of this story line.  The Tedescos were a Jewish family and this was Fascist Italy which became occupied by their ally, Nazi Germany. Lorenzo might have been forgotten despite his brilliance if it were not for a brave young cellist named Laura Balbini.   Laura had been seriously burned in an accident, but it didn't damage her confidence even though it marred her beauty.   When she wanted to enter a musical contest, she dared to rehearse a duet with Lorenzo even though Jews were viewed with extreme prejudice.  She also had the courage to care about him and I believe it was she who motivated her father to try to help the Tedescos.   I know that she persuaded her father to shelter Jews who were strangers under conditions of tremendous danger.   She said to her father, "What if it was Lorenzo?"   At the end of her historical notes, Gerritsen tells us "In the darkest of times, there will always be a Laura to light the way."  Laura's story is linked more directly to Julia's because she also played an important role in the composition of Incendio.

Laura and Lorenzo are fictional characters, but  they had real life parallels.  There were many real Italians who saved Jews at the risk of their lives.  There were also real Jewish musicians like Lorenzo during this period.

Some of you may remember another novel that took place in Fascist Italy dealing with another courageous woman cellist who worked for the Italian Resistance, and utilized a very unusual means of passing on secret messages.  It was The Garden of Letters by Alyson Richman which I reviewed on Book Babe here.  This shows that woman heroes may be uncommon, but not unique.

 2015 was the year that I uncovered the role of Italian woman musicians in opposing the Nazis in novels by Alyson Richman and Tess Gerritsen.  In 2016 I anticipate discovering other great woman heroes in historical fiction, and I will be sure to share these discoveries with you on Book Babe.

Tsura by Heather Anastasiu

I accepted a free copy of Tsura by Heather Anastasiu for review from the author because the central character is a  Romani woman.  Romani are what the gypsies call themselves.  I've read a number of books about  Romani  history and a couple of anthropology studies about Romani in the United States.  I've also read some Romani memoirs, and a great many novels dealing with Romani.  So you might say I'm interested in the subject.

                                    
                                   

                                
I admit to being somewhat disappointed about the extent of Romani cultural content in Tsura.  There was a slight Romani flavor sprinkled throughout Tsura, but ideally I would have liked to see a great deal more.   The plot line justification for there being so little Romani content is that Tsura was exiled from the Romani community for reasons that are huge spoilers.  Based on my reading and what I heard from a part-Romani acquaintance, Tsura probably wouldn't have ever been part of the Romani community because her grandmother was non-Romani.  Romani have a very strong sense of purity and the non-Romani grandmother would have brought about the exile of her grandparents. Her family would have been part of the non-Romani world for three generations.  They would have needed to make a strong effort to preserve their Romani culture in isolation from their community.  They might have forgotten some traditions and this would have impacted Tsura's ability to live like a Romani woman.

When the novel opens Tsura is in hiding with her Jewish lover who was calling himself Andrei.   She believed that she had a future with him and was prepared to convert to Judaism.  If so, she really needed to change her own name.  Tsura is very similar to the Yiddish word for trouble.  The plural form is much more familiar.  It's tsuris.   I can just see Andrei introducing her as Tsura around the Jewish community.  The response would be "Oy vey!  We don't have enough tsuris already?"  Yeah, that would go over really well.

So why were Andrei and Tsura hiding? Tsura  takes place in Romania in World War II.  Some years ago I had read a Holocaust memoir about a Jewish woman from Poland who took refuge with relatives in Romania in World War II, and was therefore safe from the Nazis. Yet I knew that there were Romanian Jews who were sent to concentration camps.  I was confused.  Why were some Romanian Jews safe from the Nazis while others weren't? 

 Tsura finally answered this question.  Northern Transylvania was annexed by Hungary as a result of The Second Vienna Award in 1941.  The Axis Powers essentially gave this land to Hungary.  As a result, its Jews were no longer under the protection of Romanian Marshall Antonescu  who refused to cooperate with the Nazi Final Solution when it came to the Old Kingdom's Jews.  These were the Jews who lived in the original territory of Romania.  He regarded them as Romanians.  Marshall Ion Antonescu was no angel.  He should not be nominated for a humanitarian award.  He was responsible for the deaths of Jews who had joined the Red Army.  This was known as the Odessa Massacre. Antonescu was a Romanian nationalist and extremely anti-communist.  He was executed in 1946 for the Odessa Massacre and other war crimes.  I'd like to thank Heather Anastasiu for helping me to understand Romania's role in World War II a little better.

On the other hand, I had a problem with the way the Jewish Holocaust was portrayed in this book.  Something occurred that could never have happened.  I can't discuss it specifically because that would be a significant spoiler, but it undermined the believability of this book for me.  There is another aspect to this problem that I can't even mention in order to avoid spoilers, but my knowledge of this other area combined with my knowledge of concentration camps caused me to realize that this plot event was an impossibility. I will probably discuss it in the Goodreads version of this review because spoilers can be hidden on Goodreads.

So far I haven't discussed what I thought of the romance factor in Tsura which would be the most important component for those readers who chose to read this book because it's a romance.  Well, it's a delayed HEA situation.  There's a sequel and the relationship issues are presumably resolved over the course of that narrative.  I wouldn't read the sequel for that reason myself, though I did like the romance hero very much.  Tsura's difficulties with understanding him in this first book irritated me, and caused me to be impatient with her throughout the novel.  


                                

 

The Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich

This book is the sequel to The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich which I read and very much liked.  In this novel we find that  the Jewish midwife Hannah Levy and her husband Isaac, who had fled persecution in the Christian world, took refuge in the Islamic world.  This is what many Jews had done in the medieval period.  Jews continued to find sanctuary in the Ottoman Empire in the 16^th century which is when The Harem Midwife took place.   This may seem ironic to contemporary readers, but the current divisions between some Jews and Muslims are politically motivated and aren’t inevitable.  

                                                     

                                                         

                                              

The plot of this sequel was a tumult of events which were suspenseful.    I also thought that Hannah’s difficult experiences during the course of this novel ultimately strengthened her marriage and caused her to grow as a character. 

 On the other hand, I learned little about the Jewish community in Constantinople because Hannah and Isaac were still culturally identified with Venice, and didn't seem very integrated with the local Jewish community. I felt as if this book was missing a dimension that would have anchored the protagonists in their new home.

                                                 

                                                      

Incantation by Alice Hoffman

Every time I sit down and read a book about the Spanish Inquisition, I'm shocked all over again. What pointless and horrid brutality. And though I've read a story with this theme and plot before, it still impacted me.


Terrific writing style and prose, though I have to say the dialogue being all italics instead of in "s is disconcerting.

You have a girl in Spain during these troubled times...she notices little things. Her family crosses themselves differently, doesn't eat pork, has mysterious visitors, etc. She discovers they and her are Jews. The wrong person finds out and you can imagine the rest.

I couldn't help but think the girl was stupid though, because in light of her knowledge, she should have left the boy alone. It's not like she can marry him anyway. She's Jewish and he's not and back then that was not done. So I had an eye rolling moment, but it was a good read.

Though aimed at teen readers, adult will find themselves just as engrossed and on the edge of their seats as jealously tears a family apart.

Four bikes. This book was obtained via a swap program.