All The Broken Places: The Sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
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All The Broken Places: The Sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
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In 1946, German born Gretel, and her mother escaped Poland for Paris, after a monumental event took place in their personal lives. Physically they may have fled their past, but psychologically, the shame and accompanying fear meant they would never really find peace.
And what is this novel? He sees it as a formulaic university novel of “self-involved students who think they are the first people in the world ever to have sex” and in which the authors, “terrified of offending anyone make sure they hit, in each book, all the right things: gay people, trans people, people of colour”. I don’t doubt there is a valuable novel to be written about Nazi children, but Boyne does not choose this path. He lingers for a while, but then transforms his novel, instead, into what feels like a police procedural: a thriller. All the Broken Places jumps between the past, in which Gretel and her mother escape from Nazi Germany and attempt to rebuild their lives in a world with very good reason to hate them, and the present, in which ninety-one-year-old Gretel finds herself once again a witness to the suffering of innocents. She can't change the past, of course, but can she make a difference now?I have to admit, I wasn’t a fan of the and yet the characters stayed with me after all these years, and while I didn’t love it, I was very eager to read the sequel and see what became of these characters. Almost eighty years after the second world war, Gretel Fernsby (sister to Bruno) lives in an exclusive apartment in Mayfair, London. New neighbours are moving in, and Gretel, as always, worries about anyone discovering her past and the family connection to the horror capital of the world – Auschwitz. Her father was a commandant there, and at the end of the war, she and her mother fled Poland to France and the life of cover-up, disguise, and constant moving in Europe and Australia began. Boyne’s loyal readers will delight in his assured storytelling and the occasional brutal set piece. Some plot twists may strain one’s willingness to suspend disbelief, but the novel is a compelling rollercoaster as Boyne dangles the prospect of a redemption of sorts to keep readers racing to the end. My curtains twitched whenever the estate agent pulled up outside, escorting a client in to inspect the flat, and I made notes about each potential neighbor. There was a very promising husband and wife in their early seventies, softly spoken, who held each other's hands and asked whether pets were permitted in the building-I was listening on the stairwell-and seemed disappointed when told they were not. A homosexual couple in their thirties who, judging by the distressed condition of their clothing and their general unkempt air must have been fabulously wealthy, but who declared that the "space" was probably a little small for them and they couldn't relate to its "narrative." A young woman with plain features who gave no clue as to her intentions, other than to remark that someone named Steven would adore the high ceilings. Naturally, I hoped for the gays-they make good neighbors and there's little chance of them procreating-but they proved to be the least interested. But criticising the book’s intention as a moral fable for taking artistic liberties with Auschwitz, as some have done, is, he says, “like someone studying the Russian revolution criticising Animal Farm because pigs can’t talk”.
When Gretel and Kurt meet in Australia and talk about their lives since the war, Kurt says, “I don’t remember making any conscious decisions about my life. It was all laid out for me so young” (250). What do you think of that statement? When do young people gain a responsibility for their own lives?You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Unlike “Striped Pajamas,” “All the Broken Places” is intended for adults. It’s filled with sex, violence, suicide attempts and bad language — and also some of the details of the Holocaust that were omitted from the first book. It mentions the Sobibor death camp by name, for example, and also takes the time to correct Bruno’s childish assumptions about the death camps being a “farm.” When a neighbour’s child enters her life, 91 year old Greta has an opportunity for absolution. Or the closest thing to it. She confronts her own dark past and finds the strength and courage to defend someone vulnerable, as she had failed to do for any of those Jews camped outside of her home. But Darcy-Witt has discovered the disturbing truth of Gretel’s past, forcing her to choose between self-preservation or protecting Henry; the choice she makes is unbelievable and out of character. Boyne’s Gretel represents entire generations of Germans. Despite far-reaching efforts to come to terms with their terrible past in the post-war decades, Germans’ embrace of self-interested silence remains the rule rather than the exception.
Some 16 years ago, his novel aimed at younger readers, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, helped introduce a new generation to the Nazi machinery of death. This is not literature. As a grown-up sequel to children’s trash, All the Broken Places serves two roles. First, to demonstrate that Boyne definitely did not think that the Germans were innocent, definitely knew they were “complicit” and “guilty” and that history is “complicated”, etc, thanks very much. Second, to serve as a sort of fan fiction for those peculiar adults who long for the comfort of a childhood favourite. Gretel, Bruno’s grieving, guilt-ridden sister, is the narrator. The reader gradually pieces together her story as the narrative switches confidently from present-day Mayfair, where for decades she has been living in a comfortable flat, to her peripatetic past. As she tries to escape the chaos of the end of the second world war, she grapples with her memories of Auschwitz, her parents and her own part in her brother’s death. These are vividly detailed, with a sense of revenge and retribution always lurking around the corner. John Boyne holds up his phone proudly to show the display. It reads: “143 days since escaped hell.”
For all the mistakes in her life, for all her complicity in evil, and for all her regrets, I believe that Gretel’s story is also worth telling,” Boyne writes in an author’s note. “It is up to the reader to decide whether it is worth reading.” For this reader, alas, the answer is no. Whether our sympathies lie with Gretel’s first-person account is moot because the characters are too thinly drawn to evoke emotion either way. Other shortcomings include clunky plot devices, implausible dialogue, an unnecessary twist and a preposterous ending. The problem with All the Broken Places is less whether Gretel’s story is worth telling than how it’s told. Gretel watches the troubling relationship between vulnerable, nine-year-old Henry – the same age as her brother Bruno when he died – and his aggressive father Alex Darcy-Witt. As the father becomes more abusive, Gretel decides that she must act. When Gretel witnesses a violent argument between Henry’s mother and his domineering father, she is faced with a chance to make amends for her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy. But by doing this she would be forced to reveal her true identity to the world and could cost her dearly. Max’s passion for “Striped Pajamas” inspired at least one Holocaust group to change its mind about its educational merits. The Holocaust Educational Trust, a London-based group that advocates British educators on how to teach the Holocaust, had as recently as 2020 declared that “ we advise against using” the book in the classroom. I personally didn’t think the book was historically accurate-and it was my least favorite book by John Boyne…..
Gold, Tanya (2022-09-15). "All the Broken Places by John Boyne review: misjudged thriller sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 2023-01-09. For the first decade of his book’s release, Boyne would frequently receive invites to speak at Jewish community centers and Holocaust museums. He met with survivors who shared their stories with him. That’s why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. The journey of almost seven hundred miles across the continent did little to encourage optimism for the future. The cities we passed through were marked by the destruction of recent years while the faces of the people I saw in the stations and carriages were not cheered by the end of the war but scarred by its effects. There was a sense of exhaustion everywhere, a growing realization that Europe could not return to how it had been in 1938 but needed to be rebuilt entirely, as did the spirits of its inhabitants. She loves her son, but she has all the advantages of a wonderful location plus only a few neighbours.You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.”—John Irving John Boyne does a great job in not connecting the dots. He lets readers contemplate their own conclusions: I respect him for it….. Sequel to the hugely successful The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, All The Broken Places is a moving story about grief, guilt and complicity. Needless to say, that with John Boyne at the helm, we’re treated to a storyline full of insight, from the ugliness of life through to the purity of love. Don’t miss this one! Now a widow in her 90s, Gretel is living in London’s Mayfair, nursing a small fortune and the poisonous secret of her death camp father. German guilt Clear your calendar. Get All the Broken Places and just don’t make any plans, other than to read and read and read.”
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