Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
such a sad tragic book but hard to get through
I will never read this book again and I can barely even stand thinking about it, especially the part when...well, you know. This is the epitome of a one-and-done for me, but it remains one of the best books I've ever read.
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Antisemitism
Moderate: Physical abuse
I have very mixed feelings on this book. Structurally, I think it’s interesting. The temporal swinging back and forth between the abundance of post-WW2 America and Sophie’s life in a concentration camp is effective and the sheer unreliability of so many of the characters makes for a compelling read.
I do find myself uncomfortable with the idea of an American from the south writing a book where the protagonist is a white man from the south (and the protagonist is explicitly the author William Styron himself) relating the story of a Polish and Catholic woman during the Holocaust who is herself our window into the Jewish experience. That many layers of identity between the real history and the author just leaves this seed of doubt in the back of my mind as to how seriously to take the psychology of the characters.
I do find myself uncomfortable with the idea of an American from the south writing a book where the protagonist is a white man from the south (and the protagonist is explicitly the author William Styron himself) relating the story of a Polish and Catholic woman during the Holocaust who is herself our window into the Jewish experience. That many layers of identity between the real history and the author just leaves this seed of doubt in the back of my mind as to how seriously to take the psychology of the characters.
Another male-written book I couldn’t get along with. Such a shame because I wanted to hear Sophie’s story. I didn’t even get to read about Sophie’s choice because I was so done with reading about her through the eyes of a sexually starved man. I wish it was a story simply written from Sophie’s perspective and her story alone.
Let your love flow out on all living things because today is not judgement day but only morning...excellent and fair.
A long and haunting journey. Sophie's choice is captivating, never drags and delivers three distinct and readable characters.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My love/hate relationship with this book is almost as violent as the one between Sophie and Nathan, the on-again-off-again lovers who first make themselves known to narrator Stingo by their noisy marathon love-making sessions in the apartment upstairs, followed by the equally noisy altercation which should have prompted someone--anyone!--to call the police. In my case, I think love for this book has won out, but I'll cease drawing parallels here so as not to ruin the story for you. I think this was the fastest I've ever read a 600 page book!
It seemed that everyone except me had either seen the movie or was aware of the general plot of this novel already, but I went in with only the vaguest notion that this was some sort of holocaust story (it took me ages just to build up the courage to pick it up). And yes, it is a holocaust story, but that's only a small part of it. It seems that within the last 15 years or so holocaust novels have become a sort of genre on their own (I'm thinking Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay and The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy, to name some of the more recent ones I've come across), usually some sort of family saga about good people facing down pure evil. I don't need to tell you that they are all without exception horribly depressing. Sophie's Choice, by contrast, while it IS undeniably tragic, doesn't fit neatly into this genre mold. How easy would it have been for William Styron to have made Sophie an innocent victim coming to terms with her past? But she is far from innocent, and this gives the book a layer of depth that these other novels don't have. Sophie found herself caught in the holocaust's net, but she was not Jewish and might have easily, but for one tiny slip, have ended up on the *other* side--and in fact she tries several times to get back to that other side if just to save herself. Her post-war beau IS Jewish, an intelligent, seemingly wealthy, highly volititle New Yorker with problems of his own, and Sophie's relationship with him is so horribly wrong on all levels it's impossible to look away. Even the infamous death camp Kommandant Rudolph Hoess has a significant cameo in this book--one of the best and most bizarrely humanizing portrayals of the Evil Nazi I've read. He's so satisfyingly subdued and "normal" in person, that if you blink you might miss the subtle clues suggesting it might all be a self-preserving front he puts on.
So, I seemed to love all this...what did I hate? Stingo our humble narrator, mostly, though not right away. In fact, Stingo brings a lot of much-needed humor, especially in the beginning when he is writing snarky reviews of rejected books for a publisher. But gradually he becomes more and more insufferable. His frequent nausea-inducing love affairs (make that would-be, non-existent love affairs), along with his cocky assumptions that I, the captive reader, yearn to hear more of his rambling, self-important asides made me just want him bring back Sophie. Tell me about her, not you, yourself and you. Her story is the important, engaging one, and I found the narrator's need to insert himself into the story (and his attempts to do the same to...err...her) unnecessary and distracting, though I gather that much of Stingo's character, right down to the title and subject matter of the character's novel-in-progress, suggest that author Styron is more or less really writing about himself. No wonder Styron's daughter later remembered fielding phone calls for her father from foreign-sounding women claiming to be the Real Sophie.
Overall, this was a long (too long!) book that I flew through anyway at a furious rate. Styron is an excellent writer. I just wish he didn't think so himself.
It seemed that everyone except me had either seen the movie or was aware of the general plot of this novel already, but I went in with only the vaguest notion that this was some sort of holocaust story (it took me ages just to build up the courage to pick it up). And yes, it is a holocaust story, but that's only a small part of it. It seems that within the last 15 years or so holocaust novels have become a sort of genre on their own (I'm thinking Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay and The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy, to name some of the more recent ones I've come across), usually some sort of family saga about good people facing down pure evil. I don't need to tell you that they are all without exception horribly depressing. Sophie's Choice, by contrast, while it IS undeniably tragic, doesn't fit neatly into this genre mold. How easy would it have been for William Styron to have made Sophie an innocent victim coming to terms with her past? But she is far from innocent, and this gives the book a layer of depth that these other novels don't have. Sophie found herself caught in the holocaust's net, but she was not Jewish and might have easily, but for one tiny slip, have ended up on the *other* side--and in fact she tries several times to get back to that other side if just to save herself. Her post-war beau IS Jewish, an intelligent, seemingly wealthy, highly volititle New Yorker with problems of his own, and Sophie's relationship with him is so horribly wrong on all levels it's impossible to look away. Even the infamous death camp Kommandant Rudolph Hoess has a significant cameo in this book--one of the best and most bizarrely humanizing portrayals of the Evil Nazi I've read. He's so satisfyingly subdued and "normal" in person, that if you blink you might miss the subtle clues suggesting it might all be a self-preserving front he puts on.
So, I seemed to love all this...what did I hate? Stingo our humble narrator, mostly, though not right away. In fact, Stingo brings a lot of much-needed humor, especially in the beginning when he is writing snarky reviews of rejected books for a publisher. But gradually he becomes more and more insufferable. His frequent nausea-inducing love affairs (make that would-be, non-existent love affairs), along with his cocky assumptions that I, the captive reader, yearn to hear more of his rambling, self-important asides made me just want him bring back Sophie. Tell me about her, not you, yourself and you. Her story is the important, engaging one, and I found the narrator's need to insert himself into the story (and his attempts to do the same to...err...her) unnecessary and distracting, though I gather that much of Stingo's character, right down to the title and subject matter of the character's novel-in-progress, suggest that author Styron is more or less really writing about himself. No wonder Styron's daughter later remembered fielding phone calls for her father from foreign-sounding women claiming to be the Real Sophie.
Overall, this was a long (too long!) book that I flew through anyway at a furious rate. Styron is an excellent writer. I just wish he didn't think so himself.