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Un Repas En Hiver (2012)

by Hubert Mingarelli(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

2234071720 (ISBN13: 9782234071728)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Stock

review 1: I bought this book at the Airport. Coming short of 200 pages, it fitted my mood on a late evening flight.This book, by a french author, is a story set during a Winter day in wwii. It starts off like any other historical fiction narratives, but ends up being so much more.This book is about human feelings, memories, dreams and hopes. Of morale, and ultimately of how everyone just wanted to get through another day - each with her own troubles and heavy heart.
review 2: Quick Review: This slight novel (really, novella) packs a powerful punch. In the quiet stillness (and the tension which charges this stillness), Mingarelli's novel reminds me of something vaguely similar to the aesthetics of an Aharon Appelfeld novel, though on a far simpler level. There, however, t... morehe similarities end. Mingarelli's novel is narrated by an unnamed German solider. Though the plot is quite straightforward, it is deceptively simple. The screw tightens and the tension mounts during an improvised dinner in an abandoned home. German soldiers, ferociously Anti-Semitic Polish hunter, and Jewish prisoner are gathered around the same table as the soldiers are forced to confront the psychological tolls and personal ethics vs. a "just following orders" mentality. While the soldiers were presented in enough of a human light to create interest, the character of the Polish hunter remains but a specter. While the nebulousness of this figure can be read as a personification of the fierce Anti-Semitism at this time, the ultimate effect is more of a stock character. More could have been done here, though (as is) Mingarelli provides for an astute study of how fear interacts with and fuels the fires of hatred. less

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