The Year Is '42

by Nella Bielski, John Berger (Translator), Lisa Appignanesi (Translator)

Wehrmacht officer Karl Bazinger is living the high life in Occupied Paris. But with his glamorous dinner companions and his open disdain for the Nazis, he begins to attract the attention of the SS. He is drawn into further trouble when he receives a suspicious visit from a friend who may be involved in resistance activities. To lower his profile, Karl requests a transfer to Kiev, where he discovers the extent of the Nazi atrocities. He then begins to suffer from a mysterious ailment, and through the ministrations of a beautiful Russian doctor, he finds his vital reconnection to hope. Urbane, subtle, and elegiac, The Year is ’42 is a moving portrait of ordinary lives lived under the extraordinary circumstances of war.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Russia, Germany

225 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jordan Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It didn't take long to discover with great certainty how disappointing this book is. The stilted descriptions, the crazily unstructured plot, and most of all, the author's writing style (or perhaps it was the translation?).
A glance at the inside cover had intrigued me - it contained some of my favorite plot elements. World War II, spies, Paris, society... The author even dropped Coco Chanel's name.
Within just a few pages, however, I couldn't help but choose another book off my library pile to read. Yes, I have a vow to finish every book... But despite this one being relatively brief, I had to force myself to reach the last page.

Immediately after starting this odd book, I noticed the jolting, painful writing. For some reason, the author does not seem to be aware of quotation marks. They were invented for a reason - why does she think she doesn't need them?
Whatever the reason for her pointedly refusing to include one single quotation mark in the entire book, it does not work.
And since there is a lot of dialogue, it was not only extremely annoying, but also confusing and a large barrier between the characters and the reader.
For instance, this part of the book:
"...places the volume of Goethe on the table in front of her. It can't be true! For a long time my father has dreamt of finding this edition of Werther! She speaks the words slowly..."
The only indication of a difference between dialogue and narrative is the change of tense. An entire novel of this was beyond tedious.

Also, many, many things in the book simply do not seem to go across to the reader. Was I missing something?
For example, when Hans and Karl suddenly say "Look!" (without quotation marks, though), and point to a Jew walking down the street. Why did they do this? Shock? Anger? Fear? It has nothing to do with their conversation, or anything in the story at the moment.
It is a scattered gathering of little things such as this that often made me feel as if I was the third person visiting two lifelong best friends. Things they say, I do not understand or appreciate. And as a reader, this is not a good feeling to have about characters.

The characters themselves were set up to be something grand - a German man residing in Paris who is regarded as a kind of socialite star, his beautiful lover, a spy involved in the French Resistance...
And yet, none of them could hold my interest.
They all remained grounded firmly in the pages of the book, never taking on a life of their own. In fact, quite the opposite.

The plot itself was also pretty much nonexistent. Some authors can pull off this casual wandering through the story, but Bielski cannot. I would find it hard to describe the plotline of this book to anyone who asked, save that it took place in Paris, 1942.

The name dropping on the inside cover? Don't be pulled in... Coco Chanel does not make so much as one appearance in the book, her name is simply mentioned once and that is that.

The only reason that this book is getting 2.5 stars instead of 2, or perhaps 1.5, is because I actually liked the book a bit toward the end.
Did the characters grow more lovable? No.
Actually, they disappeared.
The author switches scenes and pulls out attention to another scene entirely. The reason cannot, like many astounding "creative" things she does, be grasped.
But maybe she should have stuck with these characters the entire time, because I liked them, and their stories, much better.
A sorrowful old man who used to play the violin falls in love with a beautiful young opera singer, and a loving daughter seeks to take care of him amidst the terrors of being a Jew in 1942. When her father's soprano love is killed during a Jewish roundup, she tells him that she is simply off singing in another city, and that the war is over.
It is a bittersweet, heartfelt story that I found much more realistic than the first. I can't exactly call it well-written: the writing is simply too jarring.
And, of course, an author can't just introduce completely new characters in the middle of the book for no reason, good characters or bad.

It turned out that the characters DID have a relation to the story - the daughter treats Karl (the previous main character) for a rash.
I wonder where the author got this plot from... A dream, perhaps? It is certainly scattered and bizarre enough to be a possibility.

All in all, this is quite a bad story. I will not be reading anymore from this author.

NOTE - I know that this book was translated from French. If the bad writing is their fault, just switch the word "author" for "translator" through-out this review... Though it is more likely the fault of both.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a book about everything and nothing, the storyline is not a vast central drama, but rather a difficult year in lives lived as one must in such difficult locations as Paris, Berlin, Moscow and Kiev during 1942. The simplicity of the prose belies its depth. I'm tempted to pick it back up and start over again.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nella Bielski is a writer from the Ukraine, and tells an interesting story about the German occupation of Paris and the Ukraine. The story of Germans in Paris is evidently not difficult for those who are not Jewish and hell on earth for Jews. A few men decide who lives and who dies. Old neighbors and friends are not always who they seem to be. The losses are mind blowing in horror, but some survive and help others live.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written but ultimately frustrating novel. Bielski seems to aim for a dream state in which the focus is not on events that occur so much as the internal monologues of the characters who experience them. For instance, she does not use quotation marks around dialogue, which helps illustrate this emphasis. This story of a German Wehrmacht officer, an career Army man who has to make accommodations to survive Nazi control, who goes from a luxurious stationing in occupied Paris to one in Kiev as the German offensive into the Soviet Union stalls in the midst of a Russian winter sounds more interesting than it turns out to be. Several promising storylines (a Luftwaffe pilot who is part of a plot to overthrow Hitler, a Jewish refugee hiding at that pilot's country home in Germany, a doctor in Kiev and her family) are developed and abandoned just as they become interesting. The hero hero is just not compelling on his own. Worst of all, a love affair that should change characters is relegated to a couple of pages in passing. This book is barely 200 pages and the prose does not drag so it is not a painful read. I cannot help but believe that if Bielski had developed her characters and storylines she would have had a much more compelling work. Three and a half stars.

[Evelyn Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is closer to a 2.5 stars.

This is one of the strangest writing styles I’ve ever seen. There’s no speech marks and it’s like a long monologue almost. However, with its unusual structure it’s hard to know which character we’re following at times.

The concept is interesting as rather than following a central plot this follows a year, the year is 1942 and it focuses on three characters. Therefore, if relays very heavily on it’s character, unfortunately not all of them were up to par. Hans was the most underdeveloped character and had an interesting story that was neglected unfortunately, whilst Karl had a really boring story that was fully developed and that could have been switched easily. I did enjoy Katia’s story and I think her’s flushes our and entertaining, I almost wish there had been more of her.

This book could have been great, however the writing styles stops it from being a satisfying or engrossing read, and the lack of character development in Hand in particular makes the story full short.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry, unsentimental story of life during WW 2. Karl Bazinger, a Wermacht officer is stationed in occupied Paris enjoying the good life as a German officer. His friendship with Hans, his friend from Germany draws attention from the SS. Karl transfers to Kiev in the East.

Life in Kiev is very different from Paris. Katia Zvesdny is a doctor in Kiev who helps and cares for as many patients as she can including her Jewish neighbors. When she finds out about the Nazis' plans for mass murder at Babi Yar she tries to warn her neighbors and other Jews but most of them don't believe her and won't listen.

Katia meets Karl when he comes to her for treatment for a skin disease brought about by a nervous disorder. Since this book was translated it's difficult to say if it really conveyed the essence of the book.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really difficult read as the writing and ideas just didn’t flow - could it be due to the translation from French? The back cover description draws you in but the content is so disjointed and hard to read particularly as there are no speech marks whatsoever throughout the entire book. Could easily have given up on this book but kept going if only to discover the connection between Katia and Karl.

Cannot get my head round the rave reviews on the back cover - must have been reading a different book!

[John Hills · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the final section most of all, with Katia and her experiences. At times the story was hard to follow, but it generally does well in capturing ordinary lives during a far from ordinary time in history. I didn't really like Karl or Hans, I found their stories less interesting than Katia. It put me in mind of the film The Lives of Others; who can you really trust in such awful times? Overall a good read

[Miru]

Biblioteca

[Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nella Bielski's short novel The Year is '42 is ambitious in scope, but ultimately fails to convince. In a scant 200 pages, Bielski tries to relate two stories, that of a German officer and a Soviet doctor, and thereby illuminate the horror of war or something to that effect. Karl Bazinger is a German officer stationed in Paris in 1942, who is unwittingly implicated in his friend Hans Bielenberg's activities as a Soviet spy. Bazinger is supposedly a thoroughly decent man, a veteral of World War I, who is a linguist and well-traveled and a Francophile. The second half of the novel deals with Katia, a young Soviet doctor who lives in Kiev under German occupation. The stories of Karl and Katia eventually meet, but not until the very end of the novel, and I found the circumstances of that meeting deeply unconvincing!

The section about Karl Bazinger reads as though Bielski's research had involved watching some films about World War II in France with a side of Almasy's story from The English Patient. This is reflected in such minor, but telling details, as the fact that Bazinger's home in Saxony is called "Schansengof" throughout, even though it would of course be "Schansenhof" in German (there is no "h" sound in Russian, so "hof" becomes "gof.") It was a little thing, as I said, but it took me right out of the story.

Katia's tale works better, perhaps because Bielski, who was originally from Ukraine, knows her material better in this instance, but it still seems incomplete, and there are far too many characters who appear for a few pages, leave no impression, and subsequently disappear.

I really wanted to like this novel, because the subject matter fascinates me, but ultimately, it was a very disappointing affair. At least it was so short that I didn't invest a lot of time!

[Losososdiane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel requires the reader to pay close attention and leap from location to location without much plot. I like this type of writing as it assumes the reader is capable of understanding. The characters are sensitively portrayed, not the usual black-and-white of war novels. The scenes in the salon in Paris are riveting while the scenes at Karl's home in Germany are tender. His relationship with is son is so real, so caring that you feel a great sense of dread for this family and how they are and will be affected by the manic, arrogant, suspicious and capricious rule of the Nazis. People like Karl, and I am sure there were many, were helpless but they could not be frozen in fear. The tale of his neighbor, Hans, shows him to be both terrified and courageous. What would I do if faced with a government out of control in its mania for world domination and deluded by its self-told tale of home country exceptionalism? Would I buy it? Would I harm others? These are distressing questions and, I fear, very relevant to our time and place. The story of Katia and the Jews of Russia gave me a look at another version of the same thing, perhaps with less brutality (maybe). The ending seems a little abrupt. I wanted just a little more. Still this is a great read but maybe not the perfect one for those looking for yet another WWII plot driven tale.

[Rikke Jacobsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

1942: la barbarie est à l'oeuvre en Europe. l'Allemagne a quasiment défait tout le continent et menace la Russie. Dans Paris occupé, Karl Bazinger, officier de la Wehrmacht, réalise qu'il ne peut plus ignorer ce qu'est cette guerre. Aventurier, voyageur, parfait gentleman, Karl a jusqu'alors toujours privilégié la vie politique mais désormais il s'interroge sur le régime qu'il sert. En Allemagne, son ami de la Luftwaffe, Hans Bielenberg, a trouvé la réponse dont il sait avec certitude qu'elle le conduira à la mort. A Kiev, la doctoresse et guérisseuse Katia Zvesdny prend soin de ce qui reste de sa famille, décimée à la fois par le Goulag et le massacre de Babi Yar.

Dans un style très agrable, l'auteure entremêle les destins de ces différents personnages tous touchés par la guerre...Histoire bouleversante et prenante! se lit d'un trait...

[Moni · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this book. It was apparently translated from french or russian. there's no quotation marks indicating someone speaking. The three parts of the novel, in my opinion, do not flow into a story of interest. I'm not sure of the point of the story other than the suffering of the characters through the German War. It just skipped around too much from one person to another- I won't recommend it.

[Liviu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fast but flat (translation maybe?) book that has its moments but lacks intensity or emotion; the motivations of the main character are never very clear while the war stands in the background for the most part and the soviet repression is barely touched upon

[Laura Edwards · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. Strange, confusing writing style. Characters are not well-developed, hence I did not really care what happened to them. Finally, about 3/4 of the way through, an interesting character is introduced, but by then it's too late for me.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is written in s very conversational format. Good book.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Due fronti della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, due storie flebilmente collegate fra loro. Nulla di speciale, forse pure poco memorabile, ma il libro è ben scritto, scorre via facilmente.

[D Cox · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this. I only finished it because it was short. Bits intrigued me but were never taken further.
I'm sure some people will love it-but not me.

[Karen Fiandaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting look at behind the scenes of WW2 German Officer...fiction, translated from the french.

[Kevin]

A beautiful, heart-wrenching book about interlocked lives during World War II. Readers should be aware that it's a translation from the French, so it follows Continental literary conventions. To some Anglophone readers the characters will some undeveloped, although to me they are utterly credible. I have noticed some reviewers have deplored the absence of "a plot," which says more about their limited idea of what a novel is rather than the book itself.