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Le Dernier Frère (2008)

by Nathacha Appanah(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

2757810049 (ISBN13: 9782757810040)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Points

review 1: I would agree with most reviewers on goodreads that this book lacks depth and feels contrived. No matter how imaginative a person can be, and to what degree fiction can be fictitious, I don't think the voice of Raj sounds authentic at all. Sometimes books such as these (and especially the prizes they win) make me wonder to what extent the literary scene is clogged by political motives. A book about the Jews in Mauritius during World War 2; a time so widely publicized by the media; and yet a story with no emotional or intellectual depth with its constant recantation of the varieties of fruits and vegetables and at most a reference to Pavlov's Dogs.
review 2: I reviewed this book for the AJL Review and was thoroughly intrigued by the unlikely setting.Tropical Mau... moreritius, known mainly as a lovely vacation spot today, may seem an unlikely setting for a tale of a young Czech orphan during World War II, but only because readers are unaware of a little-known bit of history. The reader is probably unaware that approximately over 1500 men, women and children were deported from Palestine in 1940 and ended up waiting out the war in a prison camp on the distant island of Mauritius, off the coast of Africa, and 127 of them died there. In this elegiac novel, Raj, an aged Mauritian near death, looks back, through the veil of memory, on a brief period in his life, when his brutal father was a guard at Beau-Bassin Prison, and he found golden-haired, blue-eyed David to fill the void left by the death of his brothers. Raj’s endearing young voice takes the reader into his impoverished life, first in the cane fields, then in the jungle near the prison. The reader is convinced by the narrator that, in this insular island, little is known of the war raging half a world away or of the people known as Jews. The boys brief relationship echoes through out Raj’s life, although the reader is offered only tantalizing glimpses of the life that follow the events of 1945. Although the father is too much of a cardboard villain to be convincing, the sketchiness of other characters fit very well with the style of storytellingThe author is a French-Mauritian of Indian descent who portrays the beauty and suffering on the island. For the actual history of this period read Genevieve Pitot’s The Mauritian Shekel (2000). Highly recommended for fiction collections. less

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