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There
seems to be a great deal of
fiction and films being produced about the Second World War at the moment, and the
one challenge in such fictions is how to be distinctive. Pearl Harbour,
like some other Hollywood films, seems to make it up as it goes along, and
appears quite inauthentic, no matter how entertaining. The Second World
War is a subject that seems far better handled by literary novelists who have a
vested interest in getting the historical details right, if Charlotte Gray and
Captain Corelli's Mandolin are anything to go by. Indeed, Charlotte Gray
is being made into a film as I write, and will hopefully be just as authentic
in celluloid.
Charlotte Gray is a young Scottish woman who sets
off to do her bit by working in a London surgery. On the train, she
encounters English golfers Cannerley and Morris. Cannerley seems a bit
smitten by Charlotte and decides to chat to her, even giving her his phone
number. Events are set in motion when Charlotte reveals that she's fluent
in French, and it becomes obvious that Cannerley and Morris are involved in
work of a somewhat secretive nature. When Charlotte is out socialising at
a literary party in London, she meets RAF pilot Peter Gregory.
Unbeknownst to each other, they fall in love. For Charlotte, this isn't a
source of great happiness, and Gregory is a little unsure of himself too.
Charlotte just knows that she has an inconsolable yearning for
Gregory. He is assigned to RAF duties in France, and so needs to
brush up on his appalling French. Unfortunately, he does not really
take this opportunity to get even closer to Charlotte. Instead, he takes
to learning French from the books of Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
Faulks is using the benefit of hindsight here, as most readers will know
that Saint-Exupery was a French pilot who later died in a crash. The
literary party at which Charlotte and Gregory meet is likened to an
illustration of Dante's Inferno by Gustav Dore (you know - big demons
with wings kind of thing). The otherwise vacuous Daisy is a bit of a
poetry reader, and compares Charlotte with a "woman wailing" for
her "demon lover" from Coleridge's Kubla Khan. It seems that
Gregory is doomed.
Sure enough, Gregory doesn't make his way back
from France. Charlotte immediately assumes that he's been killed, but his
commanders presume he's missing in action, until they hear otherwise. Too
many late nights and parties ensures that Charlotte loses her job, but anyway,
she has been planning to resign and takes up Cannerley's offer to join the
FANY. From there she's drafted into SOE's Section G (in real life, this
was Section F). Major Selwyn Jepson seems to have been Faulks' model for
the character of Jackson. Charlotte herself is possibly based on Violette
Szabo, the most famous FANY recruit, whose story was turned into the film
"Carve her Name with Pride". I'm thinking here mainly of
Charlotte's romantic motivations to go to France, in a naive bid to try to find
Gregory and bring him back. Szabo was involved in the later liberation of
France, and ran against the norm of the FANY by not being upper class.
Charlotte is sent to France because of her linguistic abilities rather than her
fighting skills, and her personal mission seems as deluded as that of the
detective in Ishiguro's 'When we were Orphans'.
Charlotte learned French when visiting France with
her family, with the wounded father who has so mysteriously injured her.
The world she saw through the words of Proust has inevitably changed. The
occupying German forces have made their mark, most noticeably in a changing of
attitudes. There are some of those in Lavaurette who are for the Vichy
regime, and some of those who are against. Charlotte is attached to a
small resistance cell headed by an architect called Julien in the so-called
Free Zone. To her surprise, Charlotte finds that there is not a great
deal of support for the British, and it's just as well that SOE has gone to
some lengths to disguise her. But there are those who suspect her
secret... Charlotte, when she refuses to return to Blightly, lives in the
household of Julien's father, the artist Levade. Whilst Charlotte and
Julien retrieve parachutes, SOE decides to brutally exploit Charlotte's love
for Gregory. Julien has two little secrets to hide himself as Vichy
collaborates with the Nazis a little too far. Into the village come the
Germans and the Milice, the French SS. Soon there will be departures to
Drancy, last stop before Auschwitz.
Faulks' historical accuracy is conveyed by the
direct quotation of the disgusting Milice oath. He makes his fiction
distinctive by looking at life behind the Vichy regime and in the French concentration
camps, and explores the concept of what it was like to have the French policed
by the French. Meanwhile the Nazis steal everything from the Jews, even
Yiddish proverbs like "As happy as God in France". Faulks
reveals the kinds of truths that France itself has only started admitting in
the nineties (and this is maybe what the subplot with Charlotte's father is all
about). As Faulks writes, Pichon is a fictional character, but there were
Pichons out there. Inevitably in this kind of book though, Charlotte and
Julien become ciphers towards the end as Faulks bids to include all the
horrors, but they work for SOE, so they're used to poetic ciphers. Most
compelling of all is Faulks' use of hindsight - we know what's going to happen
to Andre and Jacob, even if Charlotte proclaims that she does not.
authortrek rating: 8/10
Kevin Patrick Mahoney
Below
is a series
of links revealing the cultural context of the novel:
Ground
Crew - The Backbone of Operations - explains what 'erks' are
autre
temps, autre moeurs - a definition
Alexander Archipenko -
a bio
SOE -
Charlotte works for Section 'G', but there was a real Section F that employed
women from FANY
Between Silk and
Cyanide by Leo Marks - a review of the book. Mentions that FANYs
decoded agents' messages, the sinister Herr Giskes, and the poem ciphers
The
Violette Szabo Museum - probably the most famous FANY agent of them
all. Her life story was turned into a film called "Carve her Name
with Pride". Possibly an inspiration for Charlotte
How did
we start? The history of FANY
Violette
Szabo - more on Violette. This site mentions that most of SOE's
FANY recruits were upper class. You get an idea of Faulks' creative
processes when you see that the model for Jackson in 'Charlotte Gray' would
appear to be Major Selwyn Jepson
Special
Operations Executive - lots of photos of SOE's bases, and mentions
Churchill's instructions to "set Europe ablaze"
Milton proves to be the source of the "They also
serve who only stand and wait" quote
Chiron
and Friends: Nessus - gives us the story behind 'the flaming cloak'
Gustav Dore
Inferno - Charlotte likens the literary party to such a picture
Francois
la Rochefoucauld - a brief bio
Benjamin
Constant - his life
Focke Wulf FW 190 -
more than a match for a Spitfire
Hawker
Typhoon - mentions the trouble this plane originally had and explains
why the canopy had no back view at first. This plane was a match for the
Focke Wulf
The Hawker Typhoon
and Tempest
Bag O'
Nails - explains how this pub name came about
Marcel Proust:
Critique by Roger Shattuck
Antoine
de Saint-Exupery - his life. Peter tries to read French by
reading Le Petit Prince
Warwick
Deeping - his life
Pierre Laval -
his life. Note that the webmaster of this page is very uncomplimentary
concerning this bio of Laval
Pierre
Laval - the World at War's bio
Golfers
Dictionary - explains what a 'niblick' is
The Wreck of
the Deutschland by Gerard Manley Hopkins is a possible source of the
'woman wailing' quote
Kubla
Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the more likely source of the 'woman
wailing' quote. Gregory seems to be the 'demon lover' here, and Faulks
subtly compares him with the fiery death of Heracles and the doomed pilot
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - not good omens!
Orchard in
Bloom, Louveciennes - tells of Pissarro and the Impressionists
The Fence
by Pissarro - includes more about Louveciennes
The Battle
of Verdun 1916 - Petain's more glorious campaign
Henri-Philippe Petain -
a bio that discusses Petain's preference for defence
Marshal
Henri Philippe Omer Petain - more about Petain's defeatism
Panglossian -
a definition
Armstrong
Whitworth Whitley - this is the RAF plane that takes Charlotte to
France. Note the rear gunner and the strange slope of the plane
Proust's
Ruined Mirror - discusses Proust's work in the context of quantum
physics
Marcel
Proust, or the Novel as Writing
Joseph
Caillaux - a bio that includes the shooting of Gaston Calmette
The
Trial of Madame Caillaux - a book review
Goya:
Duke of Wellington – there is an image of the portrait in this
biography of Wellington
The
Popular Front era 1934-1939 - an assessment of Blum's government
Leon
Blum - a bio
Charles
Trenet – a bio
Comments on Death -
features a poem from William Dunbar that uses 'Timor mortis conturbat me' as a
refrain
Mers-El-Kebir -
why the British attacked the French Navy
Rutabaga -
a definition
Alouette -
the lyrics
Eichmann
Trial - explains what happened at Drancy
The
Virtual Jewish History Tour: France
Drancy -
includes a picture of Drancy
Papon
sees Conspiracy in French War Crimes Trial - mentions that Bousquet
was killed by an assassin
The
Trial of Adolf Eichmann - includes his involvement in Drancy
Louis Darquier
de Pellepoix - a bio
God and
Hamoud - apparently "as happy as God in France" is a German
saying
The Mendele Review:
Yiddish Literature and Language - also mentions the German use of
"as happy as God in France", a Yiddish proverb
Paxton
Testimony - mentions Oberg and Bousquet
The
Optimism of Julian of Norwich - the 'English mystic' whom Levade names
his son Julien after
Aron Natanson -
the terrifying journey from Drancy to Auschwitz
Le
Chemin de la Liberte: WWII Escape route to Spain - this link, from Kim
Chevalier's pages, truly gives some perspective of the perilous journeys that
RAF pilots were forced to undertake in their escape from France
|
Visit
our Sebastian
Faulks page for Sebastian Faulks biography, Sebastian Faulks
bibliography, Sebastian Faulks articles and Sebastian Faulks interviews |
