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A review by kimmysanders
Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville
4.0
This is a pretty unique book. Two stories intertwine, and you won't see how until the end. One takes place in Vienna in 1899, where the eminent psychologist Dr. Josef Breuer takes in a beautiful young woman with no name claiming to be a machine, and the other is in 1940s Nazi Germany, where a spoiled girl named Krysta moves to a new home in Ravensbruck with her father, a medical doctor.
This is a book about the power of stories. They preserve memories, they function as escape hatches, they make things seem less bleak than they are. It's also a novel about the Holocaust, but from an unusual perspective. The antisemitism here is breathtakingly casual, and almost always in the background. When it emerges, it's in small gestures, but it serves as a slap in the face. How could a society lose its way that badly, to be so nonchalant about denying another's humanity? It's fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and the way Granville does it here, without putting it front and center, is pretty deft writing. It would just beat you down otherwise.
This was a story that stayed with me, unlike a lot of the books I've been reading lately. Some of the narrative doesn't make some sense in hindsight, but it's a pretty minor quibble. I'd recommend this book to people who can take the subject matter. Keep in mind: This is a novel that takes place at least in part in a concentration camp. Spoilers about possible triggers follow:
Grooming and sexual abuse of a female child (not explicit, but clear); medical experimentation on children (glimpsed and implied); antisemitic language and ethnic slurs in several languages throughout
This is a book about the power of stories. They preserve memories, they function as escape hatches, they make things seem less bleak than they are. It's also a novel about the Holocaust, but from an unusual perspective. The antisemitism here is breathtakingly casual, and almost always in the background. When it emerges, it's in small gestures, but it serves as a slap in the face. How could a society lose its way that badly, to be so nonchalant about denying another's humanity? It's fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and the way Granville does it here, without putting it front and center, is pretty deft writing. It would just beat you down otherwise.
This was a story that stayed with me, unlike a lot of the books I've been reading lately. Some of the narrative doesn't make some sense in hindsight, but it's a pretty minor quibble. I'd recommend this book to people who can take the subject matter. Keep in mind: This is a novel that takes place at least in part in a concentration camp. Spoilers about possible triggers follow: