Cologne edition by Sarah Pleydell Literature Fiction eBooks
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London, l960 Renate von Hasselmann, a nineteen-year-old German au pair, arrives at Victoria Station prepared to meet her new charges, Caroline and Maggie Whitaker. Yet she is ill-prepared for their parents the mother, Helen, knows more about Nazi Germany than Renate does, and the father, Jack, disarms Renate with his quicksilver charm. In Sarah Pleydell's debut novel Cologne (FUZE Publishing; October, 2012), childhood and history collide, blurring the distinctions between victim and victor, ruin and redemption. With delicate humor, Pleydell presents a portrait of a family on the cusp of great social change, while reminding us that the traumas of war revisit the children of the peace.
Cologne edition by Sarah Pleydell Literature Fiction eBooks
Over written, unrelentingly cruel, very self-pretentious . Writer has a magnificent command of language but a deficient comprehension of the human experience.Product details
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Cologne edition by Sarah Pleydell Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
By Kait Burrier
At The Inkwell
Autobiographically influenced by her own childhood in London, Sarah Pleydell's first novel, Cologne, creates a dense English landscape c. 1960, breaking through the fog with bright language to reveal intricate personal narratives.
Both Post-WWII London and the home of the Whitaker family are rigid from a shift in their own national identity and the tension of foreign cultures, constantly poised to clash.
Enter Renate, a sturdy young German woman attempting to build a future beyond the shadows of her war-ravaged home in Cologne. As the steam of her train fills Victoria Station, Renate sees only a fraction of the shrouded history she shares with Whitaker family as she prepares for the role of their girls' au pair.
Helen Whitaker, the lady of the house and gracious-to-a-fault Teutophile, hires Renate to help tend to her daughters, Maggie, 9, and Caroline, 10, during her pregnancy. The story centers around the girls dealing with their parents' war-torn baggage. Jack Whitaker, a philandering, charismatic father, boasts a badge of lies spanning his college education to his wartime past; meanwhile, Helen is stuck in a pre-war past. Neither operates in a true sense of reality.
And Renate is caught in the middle. Helen's sympathies for the Germans--and obsession with Renate's family history--begin to unravel, knotting themselves with her husband's feelings as he tries to seduce the au pair.
Renate enters the Whitaker household with a puritanical vision of the ideal English family only to find they are far from her ideals. Pleydell tests Renate's moral character and, at other times, victimizes her. I found it hard to fully sympathize with her.
Pleydell writes characters that approach the notion of "foreign" and "foreigner" so strikingly that she elicits both empathy and alienation. Roles and role reversal hold a constant presence in what becomes a tragedy of manners. As an American reader I was, at times, alienated and yet intrigued. In that way--that jarring sense of foreigner vs. English--I related to Renate.
Cologne's most captivating narratives come from the perspectives of the young Whitaker girls, Caroline and Maggie, as the reader witnesses their individual voices emerge, gradually breaking free of the flock they so dutifully parroted.
Pleydell writes the girls stylistically precocious, with moments of innocence and mischief. It was nice to read children, not archetypes. The girls are the most human characters in Cologne.
Maggie and her big sister Caroline are guided by presumed truths instilled by their parents like stepping stones on the path to notions of how to be "good" and "English" and "woman." As more of these stones get knocked askew of the path, the girls turn to each other, scanning for new stones to add as they leap into the foggy path ahead.
By the end of the novel, I kept mulling over notions of identity. It's one of those books that makes you reflect over your own childhood. It was an enjoyable read and a stimulating exploration of identity. Pleydell leads the girls, and the reader, on a tumultuous emotional journey.
Cologne takes place during the early 1960s, and it follows the adventures of the Whitaker family after they invite a German "au pair" to live with them in England. (NOTE An "au pair" is a foreigner who does housework and child-rearing in exchange for a place to live.) The Whitakers are headed by a larger-than-life father and husband, Jack, whose enthusiasm is overbearing and leaps off the page. His wife, Helen, is much more down-to-earth. Their two children, Caroline and Maggie, are in the throes of childhood, the former on the verge of fiery adolescence and the latter just getting out of diapers. Then there is the au pair, Renate (pronounced "re-na-ta"), a nineteen-year-old described in a manner that makes her seem unattractive. Finally there is Mario, the Whitakers' chauffeur, whose behavior sometimes hints at lechery.
So what precisely are the adventures of these six main characters? Why...ordinary living circumstances of course. At least, what would pass for ordinary in a family living an upper-middle class life. They enjoy holidays, take trips to the city, go on vacation to the beach...basically they just do what they can to keep themselves sane. The true meat of the story is in the character interactions and introspections, which are loaded with subtle hints of underlying problems and implications of things happening outside the scope of the narrative. This is where the novel shines brightest...and also where it runs into some trouble.
If you were to examine quotes from reviews for Cologne--at least, those provided on the cover and on the first few pages of the book--you might find it difficult to figure out what exactly the story is about. Some seem to believe it's a story about childhood innocence. Some think it's a story about a family's self-destruction. Some think it's a historical study in life after WWII. One of the quotes even says the story is about sexual abuse. Depending on these different interpretations, you could identify any of the major characters--except for Mario--as the lead, and the meaning of the story changes. Personally, I'm inclined to say it touches on all of these themes, but the point is that two people can read the book and come out of it with a different synopsis of the story's meaning and events. To craft something of this caliber is an impressive juggling act on Pleydell's part. As I read, I constantly had to ask myself what was really going on behind the superficial exterior. Is Jack's enthusiasm hiding an inability to handle setbacks, or does he just believe this is the proper way to live one's life to the fullest? Is Helen a smart woman with legitimate concerns or just a worrywart? Is there something going on between Renate and Jack? What about Mario? Are the two children well kept or neglected? These and dozens of other questions kept popping up, and only a few of them were resolved with any unquestionable detail. And though it can be a little rough on my brain, I'd say I liked the story more for it.
But there is a danger when you write a story in this fashion you run the risk of losing your reader when you don't lay out the breadcrumbs and hints well enough. That's why this strength also becomes the novel's weakness. There are times where I'm not sure Pleydell has done as well at this juggling act as she should have, and I've gotten lost with what's going on. For the most part the major plot points come across well enough, but every once in a while it feels like I've actually missed something in the language, forcing me to either re-read sections of the story looking for context or just stampede on and hope the puzzle pieces fit together at some point. In fact, when I read the aforementioned praise for the book and came to the comment about sexual abuse, I honestly had no idea what the reviewer was talking about. I had to check a few sections of the story again before I hit on the reason for this conclusion. It doesn't help matters that these implications of plot are hidden behind language that--as I stated earlier--is geared towards a literary audience.
But the questions that ultimately must be answered are whether I enjoyed my time with Cologne and whether I'd recommend it to other readers. My answer to both of those questions is yes...with a couple qualifiers. Due to the language barrier and the overall vague design of the story, I have to give this book a B grade. I would like to give it a B+, but as good as I think the style makes the story, it also holds it back. Still, it's a fun little read locked behind a couple of figurative doors for the average commercial audience.
GRADE B
Over written, unrelentingly cruel, very self-pretentious . Writer has a magnificent command of language but a deficient comprehension of the human experience.
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