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Two Lives
A heartrending new book -- the story of a marriage and the story of two lives -- from the author of the international bestselling novel A Suitable Boy
Shanti Behari Seth was born on the eighth day of the eighth month in the eighth year of the twentieth century; he died two years before its close. He was brought up in India in the apparently vigorous but dying Raj and was sent by his family in the 1930s to Berlin -- though he could not speak a word of German -- to study medicine and dentistry. It was here, before he migrated to Britain, that Shanti's path first crossed that of his future wife.
Helga Gerda Caro, known to everyone as "Henny" was also born in 1908, in Berlin, to a Jewish family -- cultured, patriotic, and intensely German. When the family decided to take Shanti as a lodger, Henny's first reaction was, "Don't take the black man!" But a friendship flowered, and when Henny fled Hitler's Germany for England just one month before war broke out, she was met at Victoria Station by the only person in the country she knew: Shanti.
Vikram Seth has woven together their astonishing story, which recounts the arrival into this childless couple's lives of their great-nephew from India -- the teenage student Vikram Seth. The result is an extraordinary tapestry of India, the Third Reich and the Second World War, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, postwar Germany and 1970s Britain.
Two Lives is both a history of a violent century seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate portrait of their friendship, marriage, and abiding yet complex love. Part biography, part memoir, part meditation on our times, this is the true tale of two remarkable lives -- a masterful telling from one of our greatest living writers.
Shanti Behari Seth was born on the eighth day of the eighth month in the eighth year of the twentieth century; he died two years before its close. He was brought up in India in the apparently vigorous but dying Raj and was sent by his family in the 1930s to Berlin -- though he could not speak a word of German -- to study medicine and dentistry. It was here, before he migrated to Britain, that Shanti's path first crossed that of his future wife.
Helga Gerda Caro, known to everyone as "Henny" was also born in 1908, in Berlin, to a Jewish family -- cultured, patriotic, and intensely German. When the family decided to take Shanti as a lodger, Henny's first reaction was, "Don't take the black man!" But a friendship flowered, and when Henny fled Hitler's Germany for England just one month before war broke out, she was met at Victoria Station by the only person in the country she knew: Shanti.
Vikram Seth has woven together their astonishing story, which recounts the arrival into this childless couple's lives of their great-nephew from India -- the teenage student Vikram Seth. The result is an extraordinary tapestry of India, the Third Reich and the Second World War, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, postwar Germany and 1970s Britain.
Two Lives is both a history of a violent century seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate portrait of their friendship, marriage, and abiding yet complex love. Part biography, part memoir, part meditation on our times, this is the true tale of two remarkable lives -- a masterful telling from one of our greatest living writers.
544 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2005
172 people are currently reading
4206 people want to read
About the author
Vikram Seth
60 books1,700 followersVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.
During the course of his doctorate studies at Stanford, he did his field work in China and translated Hindi and Chinese poetry into English. He returned to Delhi via Xinjiang and Tibet which led to a travel narrative From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983) which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986) was his first novel describing the experiences of a group of friends who live in California. A Suitable Boy (1993), an epic of Indian life set in the 1950s, got him the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
His poetry includes The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) and All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990). His Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) is children's book consisting of ten stories in verse about animals.
In 2005, he published Two Lives, a family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, which focuses on the lives of his great-uncle (Shanti Behari Seth) and German-Jewish great aunt (Henny Caro) who met in Berlin in the early 1930s while Shanti was a student there and with whom Seth stayed extensively on going to England at age 17 for school. As with From Heaven Lake, Two Lives contains much autobiography.
An unusually forthcoming writer whose published material is replete with un- or thinly-disguised details as to the personal lives of himself and his intimates related in a highly engaging narrative voice, Seth has said that he is somewhat perplexed that his readers often in consequence presume to an unwelcome degree of personal familiarity with him.
During the course of his doctorate studies at Stanford, he did his field work in China and translated Hindi and Chinese poetry into English. He returned to Delhi via Xinjiang and Tibet which led to a travel narrative From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983) which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986) was his first novel describing the experiences of a group of friends who live in California. A Suitable Boy (1993), an epic of Indian life set in the 1950s, got him the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
His poetry includes The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) and All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990). His Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) is children's book consisting of ten stories in verse about animals.
In 2005, he published Two Lives, a family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, which focuses on the lives of his great-uncle (Shanti Behari Seth) and German-Jewish great aunt (Henny Caro) who met in Berlin in the early 1930s while Shanti was a student there and with whom Seth stayed extensively on going to England at age 17 for school. As with From Heaven Lake, Two Lives contains much autobiography.
An unusually forthcoming writer whose published material is replete with un- or thinly-disguised details as to the personal lives of himself and his intimates related in a highly engaging narrative voice, Seth has said that he is somewhat perplexed that his readers often in consequence presume to an unwelcome degree of personal familiarity with him.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 281 reviews
March 11, 2019
Sent from India to England, Vicky as they called him, lived with his Uncle Shanti and Hennie. Shanti being from India, Henie who got out of Germany before war broke out, were a very unusual match. As Vickie started college, not sure what he wanted to do, he studied so many things, he literally made my head spin. Throughout his Uncle, and especially Hennie would send him encouraging letters, and remained his stalwart supporters.
He decided to write their stories, they both had such a rich and varied history. How they met, Shantis time in the war where he suffered a loss that would prove challenging in his career. His background in India and the huge changes in that country. It would be Hennies background that proved to be the most horrendous, immeasurable losses in the Holocaust.
I listened to this, my first dramatization, and it felt like I was listening to an old radio program. Vikram read his own parts, but it was Hennies voice that I loved. It was a very unusual love story, a story that covered a great deal of history, and I did enjoy. I do wish some of Vikram political musings could have been replaced by more of Shantis and Hennies marriage, but other than that I thought this was well done.
He decided to write their stories, they both had such a rich and varied history. How they met, Shantis time in the war where he suffered a loss that would prove challenging in his career. His background in India and the huge changes in that country. It would be Hennies background that proved to be the most horrendous, immeasurable losses in the Holocaust.
I listened to this, my first dramatization, and it felt like I was listening to an old radio program. Vikram read his own parts, but it was Hennies voice that I loved. It was a very unusual love story, a story that covered a great deal of history, and I did enjoy. I do wish some of Vikram political musings could have been replaced by more of Shantis and Hennies marriage, but other than that I thought this was well done.
March 10, 2018
'Two Lives' is an amazing book. It takes you into different worlds and lives. It is a story of author' Uncle Shanti who came to Germany from India to study dentistry, not knowing that he would live his entire life abroad. His whole journey was extraordinary. However, the author was least aware of the significant aspects of his uncle's history till his parents showed him letters that uncle Shanti wrote to his German wife, Henny. Even as a young boy, the author knew his uncle and aunt, and in fact had stayed with them in his teens. Consequently, the rest of his life he remained close to them, he was particularly fond of his aunt, Henny. Since the couple did not have a child of their own, they also grew attached to Vikram. While Vikram knew them as his uncle and aunt, he did not know about their past and what they went through in their early lives. The first time his parent showed him uncle Shanti's letters after his death, the writer in Vikram found enough material for a book. There was much in these letters that made him write about these two extraordinary lives.
I liked descriptions of Berlin of the intervening period between the two world wars from the point of view of a young Indian student who, at the time, was studying to be a dentist in Berlin. Later he learned much to his chagrin that he had to pass Latin exam in order to be fully recognized as a dentist in Germany. Although he was a good student, such requirement was a hard nut to crack. Later on, he found work as a dentist but soon he was asked to leave due to the abrupt rise of the Nazis.
However, before the Nazi raised their ugly heads and he moved to England, we got a glimpse of Shanti's life in Berlin such as what sorts of things interested him, how he coped with his life in that period, who were his friends and how he lived. Somehow we tend to believe that it is only in the present times that people have become more open-minded than they have ever been in the past. In the novel, we see that human nature does not change with a change unleashed by man-made ideologies. He had many friends in Berlin and in fact, he lived in a nice neighborhood in Berlin and later went on to marry his landlord's daughter, Henny. However, this unusual couple goes through many tribulations before they finally settle down and establish themselves as a successful couple in England.
What intrigued me most about Shanti that he never talked about the aggressive bigotry and rise of Nazism while he was in Germany. This impressed me as well as annoyed me. Impressed me because this mass maddening hysteria did not make him a bitter man, he continued with his life and work; it annoyed me because I wondered how could he remain so silent when everything around him was rotting. I also thought of the author that he did not probe deeper into Shanti's thoughts about what had happened in Germany and had it affected him. He alluded to them but not in any direct manner.
Toward the end, through, we read some of the letters between Henny's German friend and the German authorities. After her whole family was killed by the Nazis, a couple of years later, Henny wanted some of her mother's belongings back. One of her German friends corresponds with the authorities in Berlin. It is one of the most atrocious and insensitive correspondence; one sees an absolute apathetic bureaucracy. Through these exchanges, the writer subtly but powerfully depicts what happened to Jews– before, during and even years after the holocaust– without indulging in the gory details of the cruelties inflicted on them.
The language is evocative; the subject matter fascinating. One should read this book to remember what has happened and what can happen again; it is also a book that tells how one should tackle the world, there is no point in fighting the bullies, in responding to negativity; the best way is to ignore them and keep creating one's own world– day by day. Like Shanti and Henny, for instance.
I liked descriptions of Berlin of the intervening period between the two world wars from the point of view of a young Indian student who, at the time, was studying to be a dentist in Berlin. Later he learned much to his chagrin that he had to pass Latin exam in order to be fully recognized as a dentist in Germany. Although he was a good student, such requirement was a hard nut to crack. Later on, he found work as a dentist but soon he was asked to leave due to the abrupt rise of the Nazis.
However, before the Nazi raised their ugly heads and he moved to England, we got a glimpse of Shanti's life in Berlin such as what sorts of things interested him, how he coped with his life in that period, who were his friends and how he lived. Somehow we tend to believe that it is only in the present times that people have become more open-minded than they have ever been in the past. In the novel, we see that human nature does not change with a change unleashed by man-made ideologies. He had many friends in Berlin and in fact, he lived in a nice neighborhood in Berlin and later went on to marry his landlord's daughter, Henny. However, this unusual couple goes through many tribulations before they finally settle down and establish themselves as a successful couple in England.
What intrigued me most about Shanti that he never talked about the aggressive bigotry and rise of Nazism while he was in Germany. This impressed me as well as annoyed me. Impressed me because this mass maddening hysteria did not make him a bitter man, he continued with his life and work; it annoyed me because I wondered how could he remain so silent when everything around him was rotting. I also thought of the author that he did not probe deeper into Shanti's thoughts about what had happened in Germany and had it affected him. He alluded to them but not in any direct manner.
Toward the end, through, we read some of the letters between Henny's German friend and the German authorities. After her whole family was killed by the Nazis, a couple of years later, Henny wanted some of her mother's belongings back. One of her German friends corresponds with the authorities in Berlin. It is one of the most atrocious and insensitive correspondence; one sees an absolute apathetic bureaucracy. Through these exchanges, the writer subtly but powerfully depicts what happened to Jews– before, during and even years after the holocaust– without indulging in the gory details of the cruelties inflicted on them.
The language is evocative; the subject matter fascinating. One should read this book to remember what has happened and what can happen again; it is also a book that tells how one should tackle the world, there is no point in fighting the bullies, in responding to negativity; the best way is to ignore them and keep creating one's own world– day by day. Like Shanti and Henny, for instance.
September 20, 2022
Part memoir, part dual biography, part history and social commentary, this is a book to cherish. The author excavates the lives and loves of an uncle and his wife, puts them in the context of the times and events in which they existed, and reflects on the meaning of country, family, marriage, genocide, colonialism, education, friendship, and work. A glorious work full of compassion and empathy. Who knew that a boy from Calcutta could write so poignantly about a Jewish girl from Berlin that lost her family in the Holocaust that married a one-armed Indian dentist who hung out a shingle in London? What a tapestry.
April 27, 2020
A sweeping overview of this enormous project taken up by the author can be succinctly provided through his own words:
It is true that centuries are arbitrary units - determined, among other things, by the miscalculated date of birth of the founder of a religion and the number of fingers on our hands - but because we invest these units with spurious significance, they take on true significance. Shanti and Henny's lives were almost coeval with that arbitrary unit, the twentieth. Both were born in 1908; Henny died in 1989, Shanti in 1998. Many of the great currents and movements of the century are reflected through the events of their lives and those of their friends and family: the Raj, the Indian freedom movement, post-Independence India; the Third Reich; the Second World War; postwar Germany, including the division of Berlin and the blockade and airlift; the emigration of Jews from Germany in the 1930s (with some of Henny's friends going as far afield as Shanghai, South Africa and California); the Holocaust; Israel and Palestine; British politics, economics and society. Many powerful 'isms' - imperialism, Nazism, anti-Semitism, racism, conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism - worked through (and sometimes battered) their lives or those of their family and friends. I felt a picture of these individual lives would be complemented by glimpses of their century, even if these glimpses were mediated by the opinion, perhaps opinionatedness, of the author. Indeed, the lens has also turned around upon its wielder, for this book is memoir as well as biography.
Some of the humdrum and banal details seem to be redundant and tedious, but the reader has to remember that it is not a work of fiction, rather an intensely personal account. It is a well researched and carefully edited prosopography of the eponymous 'Two Lives'.
It is true that centuries are arbitrary units - determined, among other things, by the miscalculated date of birth of the founder of a religion and the number of fingers on our hands - but because we invest these units with spurious significance, they take on true significance. Shanti and Henny's lives were almost coeval with that arbitrary unit, the twentieth. Both were born in 1908; Henny died in 1989, Shanti in 1998. Many of the great currents and movements of the century are reflected through the events of their lives and those of their friends and family: the Raj, the Indian freedom movement, post-Independence India; the Third Reich; the Second World War; postwar Germany, including the division of Berlin and the blockade and airlift; the emigration of Jews from Germany in the 1930s (with some of Henny's friends going as far afield as Shanghai, South Africa and California); the Holocaust; Israel and Palestine; British politics, economics and society. Many powerful 'isms' - imperialism, Nazism, anti-Semitism, racism, conservatism, liberalism, socialism, communism, totalitarianism - worked through (and sometimes battered) their lives or those of their family and friends. I felt a picture of these individual lives would be complemented by glimpses of their century, even if these glimpses were mediated by the opinion, perhaps opinionatedness, of the author. Indeed, the lens has also turned around upon its wielder, for this book is memoir as well as biography.
Some of the humdrum and banal details seem to be redundant and tedious, but the reader has to remember that it is not a work of fiction, rather an intensely personal account. It is a well researched and carefully edited prosopography of the eponymous 'Two Lives'.
December 13, 2009
I think Vikram Seth is my favorite Indian author. I read his huge (over 700 pages)novel A Suitable Boy while in Fiji because many of my Indian friends recommended it. It is the wonderful story of several Indian families, often humorous and always beautifully written, that covers the panorama of Indian history from Partition to the present. But I think his best book is Two Lives, the story of the aunt and uncle he lived with while going to university in London. These two very different people coming from very different worlds (India and Germany) are caught up in the events of WWII and make a new life in England. What comes through most is the sense of family and the influence the lives of these two people had on the young man who was to beome one of India's most famous novelists. I think I read it almost in one sitting, I was so enthralled by the story.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : Two Lives - Nevisande : Vikram Seth - ISBN : 60599677 - ISBN13 : 9780060599676 - Dar 544 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2005
January 22, 2009
While Two Lives is, on the surface, a double biography, perhaps it is more an intensely personal journey for Vikram Seth-an opportunity to explore the many sides of his uncle, Shanti, and his aunt, Henny, two people who loved and cared for him and were fixed points in his own firmament for most of his life. In doing that for himself, he delivers a subtle, yet affecting gift to his readers.
There have been so many moving accounts written of those who perished or survived during the painful years of World War Two. I was skeptical that another, even if it was written by an author I admire greatly, would add significantly to that oeuvre. That question wasn't answered clearly for me because it was the wrong one to ask. This book doesn't reveal shocking new truths about the Holocaust, although it describes how many of Henny's friends and family were deported to concentration camps, or managed to emigrate, as did she, with great difficulty. This book doesn't rival the best writing about the pluck of young men sent to war, some to die, some to return ravaged or inalterably changed, although it describes how, as a medical officer in Monte Cassino, Shanti has an arm blown off. It does not shock; indeed, it doesn't even touch deep emotional chords in the reader very often, which may be its biggest flaw. What it does do is bring the reader to a place of quiet recognition.
We live in a global society in which people from all cultures are thrown together. We can choose to trust each other, appreciate each other, even love each other, or we can seek the differences between us and use them as wedges. Two Lives is about two people who found common ground. At first, unconsciously, as Seth points out, they defaulted to the surprising similarities between the values of the Indian Hindu and German Jewish cultures, and later added to them a proper dollop of middle class English quotidian. Seth's Shanti Uncle and Aunty Henny built a Wahlverwandten (German for "chosen family") around them, and as it is for most families, it was far-flung, confounded by secrets, replete with fond memories, rife with misunderstandings, and as rich in what wasn't done and said as in what was.
For all of the particularity of Henny and Shanti's lives, they were extraordinarily ordinary, and that is perhaps what makes this book reverberate on such a deep level for all of us. In Two Lives we see in sharp relief how two people never compromised their true temperaments, whatever the circumstances, and as a result built a positive, connected life. If that meant accommodation, generosity, unexpressed anguish, devotion, hard work, so be it. This is certainly not Seth's most lyrical effort; he knows it cannot be if he's to integrate the vast detail of geography, culture, language, and time shifts that span nearly 80 years in a straightforward way. Seth's own raw pain at his uncle's anomalous behavior in his confused old age is just one more example of the book's humanity, of the complicated, unexpected twists that characterize every fully-lived life.
Neither Henny nor Shanti ever forgot their pasts, but move forward they did, and they did it together. What more could we readers ask of ourselves?
There have been so many moving accounts written of those who perished or survived during the painful years of World War Two. I was skeptical that another, even if it was written by an author I admire greatly, would add significantly to that oeuvre. That question wasn't answered clearly for me because it was the wrong one to ask. This book doesn't reveal shocking new truths about the Holocaust, although it describes how many of Henny's friends and family were deported to concentration camps, or managed to emigrate, as did she, with great difficulty. This book doesn't rival the best writing about the pluck of young men sent to war, some to die, some to return ravaged or inalterably changed, although it describes how, as a medical officer in Monte Cassino, Shanti has an arm blown off. It does not shock; indeed, it doesn't even touch deep emotional chords in the reader very often, which may be its biggest flaw. What it does do is bring the reader to a place of quiet recognition.
We live in a global society in which people from all cultures are thrown together. We can choose to trust each other, appreciate each other, even love each other, or we can seek the differences between us and use them as wedges. Two Lives is about two people who found common ground. At first, unconsciously, as Seth points out, they defaulted to the surprising similarities between the values of the Indian Hindu and German Jewish cultures, and later added to them a proper dollop of middle class English quotidian. Seth's Shanti Uncle and Aunty Henny built a Wahlverwandten (German for "chosen family") around them, and as it is for most families, it was far-flung, confounded by secrets, replete with fond memories, rife with misunderstandings, and as rich in what wasn't done and said as in what was.
For all of the particularity of Henny and Shanti's lives, they were extraordinarily ordinary, and that is perhaps what makes this book reverberate on such a deep level for all of us. In Two Lives we see in sharp relief how two people never compromised their true temperaments, whatever the circumstances, and as a result built a positive, connected life. If that meant accommodation, generosity, unexpressed anguish, devotion, hard work, so be it. This is certainly not Seth's most lyrical effort; he knows it cannot be if he's to integrate the vast detail of geography, culture, language, and time shifts that span nearly 80 years in a straightforward way. Seth's own raw pain at his uncle's anomalous behavior in his confused old age is just one more example of the book's humanity, of the complicated, unexpected twists that characterize every fully-lived life.
Neither Henny nor Shanti ever forgot their pasts, but move forward they did, and they did it together. What more could we readers ask of ourselves?
July 25, 2021
4.5⭐️ For this telling of Vikram Seth’s great uncle and great aunt’s stories and their marriage. A real insight into their lives and families, told in part through letters sent and received by the couple. Wonderful 🥰
February 9, 2017
From the author of A Suitable Boy, one of my all-time favorite books, comes the story of his great-uncle and -aunt, two ordinary people living in extraordinary times. Shanti, his uncle, left India as a young man to study dentistry in Germany in the early 30's, and it was there that he met the Jewish woman who would eventually become his wife.
Neither Shanti Uncle nor Aunt Henny became famous - they lived fairly quiet lives after the war - but it's a testament to Seth's talent as an author that I was completely absorbed in stories about dentistry and bridge parties. There is, of course, the heartbreaking story of Henny's family in Berlin, as well as the struggles of her friends after the war ended. Even though I've read my history books, it was still a little shocking to read in her friends' letters just how hard life was (no matter what one's religion was) after the war.
I like that shades of A Suitable Boy peek through almost as if by accident - if I hadn't read that book, some of his family members wouldn't have felt familiar at all.
My only real criticism is that occasionally the book drifts off into tangents that I didn't feel were really necessary to the book. We didn't need a chapter about how Germany influenced world history throughout the centuries. I also don't know how I feel about the section about the will - I understand why it was there, but for me it also throws the book a little off-balance rather than bringing it around full circle.
All in all, though, it's all the more poignant for its very ordinariness, and I'm glad I picked it up.
Neither Shanti Uncle nor Aunt Henny became famous - they lived fairly quiet lives after the war - but it's a testament to Seth's talent as an author that I was completely absorbed in stories about dentistry and bridge parties. There is, of course, the heartbreaking story of Henny's family in Berlin, as well as the struggles of her friends after the war ended. Even though I've read my history books, it was still a little shocking to read in her friends' letters just how hard life was (no matter what one's religion was) after the war.
I like that shades of A Suitable Boy peek through almost as if by accident - if I hadn't read that book, some of his family members wouldn't have felt familiar at all.
My only real criticism is that occasionally the book drifts off into tangents that I didn't feel were really necessary to the book. We didn't need a chapter about how Germany influenced world history throughout the centuries. I also don't know how I feel about the section about the will - I understand why it was there, but for me it also throws the book a little off-balance rather than bringing it around full circle.
All in all, though, it's all the more poignant for its very ordinariness, and I'm glad I picked it up.
October 3, 2007
Two Lives is a homage to two people(Shanti and Henny) and to a whole generation which despite being separated from us by mere decades, now seems to exist in a different world. The author combines a memoir of his own years with a biography of his aunt and uncle, who helped raise him in London as a teenager.I was very much impressed by the great care Seth takes in exploring even minor aspects of their character and story.
But i felt that the second half of the book which deals with aunty henny and shanti uncle's life in the later years far less interesting or intriguing because I know the character's so well by this point that I knew beforehand how they are going to react to situations and it was a struggle to read just to get a sense of ending.
Reading Two Lives was not simple and it wasnt straightforward. The story of Henny has too many characters, and these come in and go rather quickly. Perhaps the idea was to emphasize the events rather than personalities. And in a long middle section, Seth presents lengthy letters with little commentary. Much of this material adds little to the picture he is presenting and it was challenging to keep track of the different people related with these letters.
Still, Seth's clear prose and deft understanding of human lives set against the backdrop of history is fascinating and one can have a glimpse into the minds of Germans after the war. Seth doesn't make Shanti or Henny into just heroic survivors of various tragedies but he provides snapshots of their successes and failings, of their habits, of the complexity of relationship and marriage, and of their painful approach to death.
But i felt that the second half of the book which deals with aunty henny and shanti uncle's life in the later years far less interesting or intriguing because I know the character's so well by this point that I knew beforehand how they are going to react to situations and it was a struggle to read just to get a sense of ending.
Reading Two Lives was not simple and it wasnt straightforward. The story of Henny has too many characters, and these come in and go rather quickly. Perhaps the idea was to emphasize the events rather than personalities. And in a long middle section, Seth presents lengthy letters with little commentary. Much of this material adds little to the picture he is presenting and it was challenging to keep track of the different people related with these letters.
Still, Seth's clear prose and deft understanding of human lives set against the backdrop of history is fascinating and one can have a glimpse into the minds of Germans after the war. Seth doesn't make Shanti or Henny into just heroic survivors of various tragedies but he provides snapshots of their successes and failings, of their habits, of the complexity of relationship and marriage, and of their painful approach to death.
February 2, 2015
This was a completely fascinating read because it told the story of a German Jewish woman, whose mother and sister were killed by the Nazis, but any resemblance to the 'usual' story ends there. She escapes to London, marries an Indian, but what is most interesting is that she maintains her relationships with her German Christian friends, whose circle she had been entrenched. The story is told to a certain extent through her correspondence with them, as well as from her Indian nephews perspective. What bothered me about the book, and why I only gave it three stars is the emotionlessness of the entire story. Its told without pathos, without feeling and its hard to really understand how this woman continued to maintain her friendships and her ties in light of the murder of her people, who she doesn't really seem to identify with. That bothered me on the most basic level. However, I still recommend it as a fascinating look at what the Germans felt immediately after the war and how they relate to this Jewish woman.
April 17, 2018
I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook read by Vikram himself. The exchange of letters between Jewish survivors and their German Christian friends after the war was particularly interesting.
May 19, 2008
I was expecting a love story. But this book is better described as a story of two people making the best of their lives following the upheaval of the WWII and the holocaust. The author first explains why the couple Shanti and Henny, his great uncle and aunt, were important people in his life. Then he proceeds to tell their stories. His great-uncle Shanti, a native of India, attended school in Berlin in the early 30s and became part of a circle of friends centered around the family apartment where he boarded. The group included both Jewish and non-Jewish friends. Henny was the daughter of the Jewish family also living in the apartment. Then Hitler came to power, and we all know what happened after that. Both Shanti and Henny were able to leave Germany before the war at different times and by different routes. Shanti lost an arm during the war while serving as a surgeon with the British Army.
The most heart-wrenching part of the book for me was the part containing Henny's correspondance with her German friends after the war trying to learn what had happened to her Mother and sister. It is an up-close and personal look at the sorrow and suffering repeated millions to times over during the holocaust. And, in addition to the anguish of learning about the fate of her family, Henny had to deal with her ambivalent feelings toward her non-Jewish friends. She even received a letter from her former German boyfriend, who had played the part of a good Nazi during the war, hinting at an interest in a continuing relationship. She also learns that her brother was able to flee to South American prior to the war but had squandered money that could have been used to get her mother and sister out of Germany. She was particularly disturbed to learn that the husband of one of her closest friends may have been a member of the Nazi SA.
In England the only person Henny knew who shared any memories of her family and former life was Shanti. Shanti's life on the other hand was dramatically changed by the loss of his arm. So they found comfort in each other’s company. They eventually got married, but the slow deliberate pace of their courtship indicates little romantic passion.
The author spends considerable time talking about world politics and the modern history of Germany and Israel. He also shares some details of settling Shanti's estate after his death. I question whether these parts of the book were needed.
The most heart-wrenching part of the book for me was the part containing Henny's correspondance with her German friends after the war trying to learn what had happened to her Mother and sister. It is an up-close and personal look at the sorrow and suffering repeated millions to times over during the holocaust. And, in addition to the anguish of learning about the fate of her family, Henny had to deal with her ambivalent feelings toward her non-Jewish friends. She even received a letter from her former German boyfriend, who had played the part of a good Nazi during the war, hinting at an interest in a continuing relationship. She also learns that her brother was able to flee to South American prior to the war but had squandered money that could have been used to get her mother and sister out of Germany. She was particularly disturbed to learn that the husband of one of her closest friends may have been a member of the Nazi SA.
In England the only person Henny knew who shared any memories of her family and former life was Shanti. Shanti's life on the other hand was dramatically changed by the loss of his arm. So they found comfort in each other’s company. They eventually got married, but the slow deliberate pace of their courtship indicates little romantic passion.
The author spends considerable time talking about world politics and the modern history of Germany and Israel. He also shares some details of settling Shanti's estate after his death. I question whether these parts of the book were needed.
February 12, 2021
Two Lives is a biographical work of Seth spanning the lives of a couple-- Shanti and Henny. Shanti is Vikram's uncle, and Henny is a Jew hailing from Berlin. This book manages to cover the mundane and articulately touches upon the last centuries excesses on normal people. Seth captures the essence of characters very well while giving us insights into their social circle pre and post-war era through their intimate letters. The letters sometimes drag while reading, but after getting through it, one feels fulfilled. The book is exceedingly detailed, which is quintessential Seth. While it does bog down the reader, but it manages not to be boring. This book also led me to paths unexplored about Judaism, Holocaust, the role of religion, genocides; particularly interviews of genocide survivors.
Language: The author had studied German, because of that he was able to do justice with the subject. This leaves one thinking how will we capture other tumultuous times without the bridge of language. That of Rwanda, Cambodia, Xinjiang...
Notes on writing style: I was very much interested in how Seth structures this particular book, and it left me in awe due to his prose and clarity of thought. Seth writes beautifully, and that is an understatement.
Language: The author had studied German, because of that he was able to do justice with the subject. This leaves one thinking how will we capture other tumultuous times without the bridge of language. That of Rwanda, Cambodia, Xinjiang...
Notes on writing style: I was very much interested in how Seth structures this particular book, and it left me in awe due to his prose and clarity of thought. Seth writes beautifully, and that is an understatement.
December 14, 2016
I always had looked at "A Suitable Boy" with a lot of interest and curiosity but found it too thick to pick it up which finally made me pick up Mr Seth's Two Lives! Guess more out of guilt than interest!
This book is part memoir, part biography and tells the story of Seth’s uncle Shanti, a World War II veteran who settled in London, and Shanti’s German wife, Henny and Seth's relationship with them.
The book is way too detailed for my liking with many letters and characters in it which ended up confusing me many times! At times, I found myself wishing that the book was a little more focused. It seemed like structured the book around trying to present every bit of information that he had about every thing related to their lives, rather than build a cohesive narrative. Although it is entirely possible that the agenda of the book itself was the same and i just missed the idea before picking and then reading the book :-)
This book is part memoir, part biography and tells the story of Seth’s uncle Shanti, a World War II veteran who settled in London, and Shanti’s German wife, Henny and Seth's relationship with them.
The book is way too detailed for my liking with many letters and characters in it which ended up confusing me many times! At times, I found myself wishing that the book was a little more focused. It seemed like structured the book around trying to present every bit of information that he had about every thing related to their lives, rather than build a cohesive narrative. Although it is entirely possible that the agenda of the book itself was the same and i just missed the idea before picking and then reading the book :-)
June 7, 2020
Now I really want to read A Suitable Boy! This book is so many things: a portrait of a marriage; biography of two very different but equally interesting characters; a study of relationships across age and gender; an exploration of the impact of WW2 from a German and Indian perspective; autobiography. Brilliant!
November 25, 2012
“Two Lives“, by Vikram Seth…what an incredible accomplishment, what an inspiring book!
This beautifully written memoir is one that you will remember, long after you have finished the last word, on the last page. The book is infused with prose that is poetic, sensitive, insightful, and pure. It is one of those memoirs that stay in your heart, in your mind, for a long time to come.
“When I was seventeen I went to live with my great-uncle and great-aunt in England. He was an Indian by origin, she German. They were both sixty. I hardly knew them at the time.”
And, with these opening lines begins the journey through the lives of Shanti Behari Seth, Helga Gerda Karo, and, the author, Vikram Seth, which culminates in an emotional ending. Vikram Seth chronicles the lives of his great-uncle and great-aunt, with exacting details, which some might find over-reacting, or over-zealous in his endeavors.
But, we must remember, this is a memoir, a factual story of lives, and all the details need to be relayed and interwoven into the family fabric, the family quilt of their lifespans. This is not a novel, or fictionalized account, but, rather an actual documentation of their lives.
We watch the friendship and love grow between Shanti, who was born in India, and studied dentistry and medicine in Berlin; and Helga, a German Jew. Two very different cultures, and two lives, lives which receded and ebbed within The Holocaust, Auschwitz and Israel, in an ocean of torment, hate, persecution, and, love. From 1908 India, to 1908 Germany, and the years that follow in a Germany ruled by Hitler, we follow the journey of Shanti and Helga, to England, and also the journey of the author, Vikram Seth, into the lives of this childless couple.
These two lives couldn’t have been more different, yet more alike, than either of them could have imagined…overcoming racial and ethnic hatred, and genocide, their lives become fulfilled and realized, with the inclusion of Vikram Seth into their family. This is a memoir weaved straight from cultural threads, threads of understanding and love, woven into a quilt of unconditional love, compassion and the overcoming of adversity.
Vikram Seth is brilliant with his use of word visuals and descriptives.”>Two Lives” is a must read for everyone who is interested in World War II, The Holocaust, India, England, multi-cultural relationships, and a love that crosses all the cultural boundaries. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down.
I applaud Vikram Seth for bringing such an inspirational and poignant story to the forefront.
~~~~~~
This beautifully written memoir is one that you will remember, long after you have finished the last word, on the last page. The book is infused with prose that is poetic, sensitive, insightful, and pure. It is one of those memoirs that stay in your heart, in your mind, for a long time to come.
“When I was seventeen I went to live with my great-uncle and great-aunt in England. He was an Indian by origin, she German. They were both sixty. I hardly knew them at the time.”
And, with these opening lines begins the journey through the lives of Shanti Behari Seth, Helga Gerda Karo, and, the author, Vikram Seth, which culminates in an emotional ending. Vikram Seth chronicles the lives of his great-uncle and great-aunt, with exacting details, which some might find over-reacting, or over-zealous in his endeavors.
But, we must remember, this is a memoir, a factual story of lives, and all the details need to be relayed and interwoven into the family fabric, the family quilt of their lifespans. This is not a novel, or fictionalized account, but, rather an actual documentation of their lives.
We watch the friendship and love grow between Shanti, who was born in India, and studied dentistry and medicine in Berlin; and Helga, a German Jew. Two very different cultures, and two lives, lives which receded and ebbed within The Holocaust, Auschwitz and Israel, in an ocean of torment, hate, persecution, and, love. From 1908 India, to 1908 Germany, and the years that follow in a Germany ruled by Hitler, we follow the journey of Shanti and Helga, to England, and also the journey of the author, Vikram Seth, into the lives of this childless couple.
These two lives couldn’t have been more different, yet more alike, than either of them could have imagined…overcoming racial and ethnic hatred, and genocide, their lives become fulfilled and realized, with the inclusion of Vikram Seth into their family. This is a memoir weaved straight from cultural threads, threads of understanding and love, woven into a quilt of unconditional love, compassion and the overcoming of adversity.
Vikram Seth is brilliant with his use of word visuals and descriptives.”>Two Lives” is a must read for everyone who is interested in World War II, The Holocaust, India, England, multi-cultural relationships, and a love that crosses all the cultural boundaries. Once I started reading it, I could not put it down.
I applaud Vikram Seth for bringing such an inspirational and poignant story to the forefront.
~~~~~~
October 28, 2014
Vikram Seth’s book Two Lives - a chronological documentary on the lives of his maternal grand uncle & aunt. It is based on his interaction with them, some interviews with his uncle & other relatives, and some letters and old documents which belonged to his aunt. But throughout the book I couldn’t figure out why he still wrote it. Could it be because:
1.He admired these two people and very close to them. So when they died he wanted to write a tribute to them
2.He spent a lot of time with them and found some letters and content on their lives so though of documenting them
3.His aunt & her family were impacted by Holocaust which is one of the most intriguing literary subject
But this book does not appear even a scratch on his first book ‘The Suitable Boy’. The earlier book had a valid subject, interesting characters and an intriguing plot. In fact his poetry and quips added to whole book making it a most charming and beautiful read. But where the length of Suitable Boy was matched with great writing skills and an engaging plot. This book falters at various instances – first like I said the length of the book 500 pages which could have been better with 200. Rather than quoting all letters and every word ever written by the protagonists – it could have stuck to the story. Second it appeared more like an essay rather than a story. Like a teacher told him why don’t you write 500 pages on the time spent with your uncle and aunt in London, along with their character sketch and describe their relationships with other people. So Vikram like a good student does a lot of homework, talks to people, discovers study & reference materials on them and writes a very well written essay. I am sure the teacher must be really proud of him for his honest and true attempt, but why publish it as a book. Because it is a biography of a couple - an Indian who fought in WWII and a German Jew who suffered the holocaust.
But despite this the book is very chronological and verbose, honest but boring, well written but bland. All true stories are very hard hitting but this one was not. Sorry Vikram I love you as an author and I look forward to reading all your books, but I found this one pretty average. Its one of those books which you say – its nicely written, you can see the author has put a lot of efforts but only read it if you like him and have a lot of useless time on you. Some average quotes.. if you have not already heard them.
Put your back bone, where your wish bone is.
Never Trouble the trouble.. until the trouble troubles you.
1.He admired these two people and very close to them. So when they died he wanted to write a tribute to them
2.He spent a lot of time with them and found some letters and content on their lives so though of documenting them
3.His aunt & her family were impacted by Holocaust which is one of the most intriguing literary subject
But this book does not appear even a scratch on his first book ‘The Suitable Boy’. The earlier book had a valid subject, interesting characters and an intriguing plot. In fact his poetry and quips added to whole book making it a most charming and beautiful read. But where the length of Suitable Boy was matched with great writing skills and an engaging plot. This book falters at various instances – first like I said the length of the book 500 pages which could have been better with 200. Rather than quoting all letters and every word ever written by the protagonists – it could have stuck to the story. Second it appeared more like an essay rather than a story. Like a teacher told him why don’t you write 500 pages on the time spent with your uncle and aunt in London, along with their character sketch and describe their relationships with other people. So Vikram like a good student does a lot of homework, talks to people, discovers study & reference materials on them and writes a very well written essay. I am sure the teacher must be really proud of him for his honest and true attempt, but why publish it as a book. Because it is a biography of a couple - an Indian who fought in WWII and a German Jew who suffered the holocaust.
But despite this the book is very chronological and verbose, honest but boring, well written but bland. All true stories are very hard hitting but this one was not. Sorry Vikram I love you as an author and I look forward to reading all your books, but I found this one pretty average. Its one of those books which you say – its nicely written, you can see the author has put a lot of efforts but only read it if you like him and have a lot of useless time on you. Some average quotes.. if you have not already heard them.
Put your back bone, where your wish bone is.
Never Trouble the trouble.. until the trouble troubles you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2012
Two Lives: A Memoir by Vikram Seth
The Two Lives are those of the author's great uncle Shanti and great aunt Henny, who lived in Hendon when he knew them, but had met in Berlin before the Second World War. She was a Jewish native of Berlin. He was an Indian student of dentistry with connections in Britain.
Seth describes his dealings with the couple as he became friends with them as their lodger when he was studying in England. But the book is principally an account of their own relationship, which Seth learns about through a series of interviews with his uncle and through the fortuitous discovery, late in the process of writing the book, of a suitcase of his aunt's correspondence with her circle of friends in Berlin during and after the war.
While Seth concludes, meditatively, that great drama can be found behind the quiet facades of any suburban house, in fact, his aunt and uncle's lives were both, in different ways, dramatic and unusual.
Her sister and mother died in concentration camps during the war. Seth's piecing together of that story is moving and powerful, as he is able to quote from the understated letters in which his aunt received heart-breaking fragments of news about her family's last days.
His uncle served as a dentist in the British army, where he lost an arm in Italy. His struggle and eventual success in resuming his profession with only one arm is as heroic as any military exploit.
I haven't read the book: instead I listened to the six CDs of the audio version, read by Seth himself, with a small cast of excellent actors playing the parts of his relations. Seth's own voice gives a unique depth to his story. Its melodies combine with his precise and restrained language to build a picture that is utterly engrossing.
The book is open about its own creation: how Seth was persuaded to write it; how he felt about his relations at all stages of his life and their's; how his judgements were revised in the light of comments from his earliest readers; and how his admiration of his uncle was challenged by a decision he made about his will in the last months of his life.
For me, the most fascinating part of the book was the detailed account of how his aunt picked up relations with her circle of German friends after the war. For each of them, a judgement had to be made: had they properly and full-heartedly opposed the Nazi regime, or had they simply made 'exceptions' of their Jewish friends? Sorting through what had happened and coming to a conclusion about who was a true friend and who would have to be dropped because of what had happened in the intervening years was a complex and difficult process.
Seth gives a masterful summary of German culture and Germany's contribution to history - both positive and negative -, but admits that his study of the horrors of Nazism for the book poisoned his appreciation of the German language for years afterwards.
Two Lives is more of a project than a book, though it is expertly written up. Its story is both personal and universal. I have listened to it twice because I found so much to admire, enjoy and learn. Nobody could hear it without being moved. I almost feel that I have acquired, in Seth, a much-loved family member.
The Two Lives are those of the author's great uncle Shanti and great aunt Henny, who lived in Hendon when he knew them, but had met in Berlin before the Second World War. She was a Jewish native of Berlin. He was an Indian student of dentistry with connections in Britain.
Seth describes his dealings with the couple as he became friends with them as their lodger when he was studying in England. But the book is principally an account of their own relationship, which Seth learns about through a series of interviews with his uncle and through the fortuitous discovery, late in the process of writing the book, of a suitcase of his aunt's correspondence with her circle of friends in Berlin during and after the war.
While Seth concludes, meditatively, that great drama can be found behind the quiet facades of any suburban house, in fact, his aunt and uncle's lives were both, in different ways, dramatic and unusual.
Her sister and mother died in concentration camps during the war. Seth's piecing together of that story is moving and powerful, as he is able to quote from the understated letters in which his aunt received heart-breaking fragments of news about her family's last days.
His uncle served as a dentist in the British army, where he lost an arm in Italy. His struggle and eventual success in resuming his profession with only one arm is as heroic as any military exploit.
I haven't read the book: instead I listened to the six CDs of the audio version, read by Seth himself, with a small cast of excellent actors playing the parts of his relations. Seth's own voice gives a unique depth to his story. Its melodies combine with his precise and restrained language to build a picture that is utterly engrossing.
The book is open about its own creation: how Seth was persuaded to write it; how he felt about his relations at all stages of his life and their's; how his judgements were revised in the light of comments from his earliest readers; and how his admiration of his uncle was challenged by a decision he made about his will in the last months of his life.
For me, the most fascinating part of the book was the detailed account of how his aunt picked up relations with her circle of German friends after the war. For each of them, a judgement had to be made: had they properly and full-heartedly opposed the Nazi regime, or had they simply made 'exceptions' of their Jewish friends? Sorting through what had happened and coming to a conclusion about who was a true friend and who would have to be dropped because of what had happened in the intervening years was a complex and difficult process.
Seth gives a masterful summary of German culture and Germany's contribution to history - both positive and negative -, but admits that his study of the horrors of Nazism for the book poisoned his appreciation of the German language for years afterwards.
Two Lives is more of a project than a book, though it is expertly written up. Its story is both personal and universal. I have listened to it twice because I found so much to admire, enjoy and learn. Nobody could hear it without being moved. I almost feel that I have acquired, in Seth, a much-loved family member.
August 14, 2014
This is an intimate book as it concerns the author himself and people related and well-known to him. It is also a process of discovery during which we accompany the author from his first encounters with the couple whose lives are described here and his gradually deepening understanding of their lives and the examples they provide of how major events of the twentieth century affected individual "ordinary" people. Or maybe they were not so ordinary as both were expatriates living in a foreign land which became their own. After the introductory section, more concerned with the author than his protagonists, the stories of the main characters alternate. While dictated by the availability of source material, this process has shortcomings in so far as the strength of the relationship between the two is not clearly demonstrated. While, from his letters when serving overseas, Shanti appears desperately enamoured of Henny, her response and even availability - given the shadowy presence of Hans Mahnert - is clouded in ambiguity. The reasons for the delay in their engagement and marriage are also not satisfactorily explained by Shanti's need to establish himself professionally and buy a property. Yet there was obviously a very strong attachment as demonstrated by Henny's suffering on her deathbed and Shanti's desperation afterwards.
Recounting the two lives gives the author the opportunity to illustrate and reflect on the devastation wrought by the second world war, both, in Shanti's case, through the personal calvary of an Indian fighting for the colonial motherland and being maimed in the process and, in Henny's, through the deportation of her closest relatives and the suffering of those surviving in Berlin after the war. Apart from the author's own interaction with Henny, which gives some indication of her character, the rest of her life is not so clear. One wonders what it was really like being a German Jewish woman in London married to an Indian? There is no discussion of any prejudice towards Henny and Shanti, possibly the result of the paucity of information about the lives of "ordinary" people. As the author actually interviews Shanti for the book and also because he lives longer, his story is more comprehensive, but even here, the struggles are more about overcoming the difficulties of being a dentist with only one arm rather than any other existential problems. This contrasts with the author's mention of the racism suffered by his brother Shantum in Leicester. But one could also interpret this as being true to the times in which the protagonists of the book lived, for them the overwhelming event which affected their lives was the second world war.
The intimacy of the book is reinforced by the latter chapters where the author relates the decline into old age and even a touch of senility of Shanti. The issue of the will underlines the family history aspect of the story, reminding us that this is really a story of two lives and not just an exposé of the twentieth century.
Recounting the two lives gives the author the opportunity to illustrate and reflect on the devastation wrought by the second world war, both, in Shanti's case, through the personal calvary of an Indian fighting for the colonial motherland and being maimed in the process and, in Henny's, through the deportation of her closest relatives and the suffering of those surviving in Berlin after the war. Apart from the author's own interaction with Henny, which gives some indication of her character, the rest of her life is not so clear. One wonders what it was really like being a German Jewish woman in London married to an Indian? There is no discussion of any prejudice towards Henny and Shanti, possibly the result of the paucity of information about the lives of "ordinary" people. As the author actually interviews Shanti for the book and also because he lives longer, his story is more comprehensive, but even here, the struggles are more about overcoming the difficulties of being a dentist with only one arm rather than any other existential problems. This contrasts with the author's mention of the racism suffered by his brother Shantum in Leicester. But one could also interpret this as being true to the times in which the protagonists of the book lived, for them the overwhelming event which affected their lives was the second world war.
The intimacy of the book is reinforced by the latter chapters where the author relates the decline into old age and even a touch of senility of Shanti. The issue of the will underlines the family history aspect of the story, reminding us that this is really a story of two lives and not just an exposé of the twentieth century.
December 3, 2018
I enjoyed this unique story - unique because of the kind of people it focuses on and because of the way Seth researches and explores his family history. The story is about Seth's uncle and his wife, a German Jewish woman whom he meets when he goes to Germany to study in the days just before World War II. Seth paints a fascinating scene of integration among Jews and Christians that I haven't encountered before in stories from this period - fiction or nonfiction. And these ties of his aunt's - who escapes to England, though her relatives all perish in concentration camps - are resumed after the war. By sharing her correspondence with some of these Christian German friends one gets quite an unusual sense of the relationships that the war didn't entirely sever. Equally interesting is the way in which Seth's aunt and uncle unfolds during and after the war.
Seth's voice is strong in the narrative, which at times is reflective and interesting. At other times it provides context - including an important context of the colonisation of Palestine by European Jews and what that did to displace Palestinian people. But at other times his narration becomes a bit to meta as he looks at his relationship to his aunt and uncle, especially in that final chapter when it devolves into a discussion over his uncle's estate. I wish that meta voice would have been used to provide further context not only of the colonisation of Palestine - especially in relation to his own trips there that he mentions in these sections of the memoir - and also the relationship between Britain and India, especially given his uncle's role as a soldier in the British army during World War II. It would have been nice to hear that voice offering a much more critical perspective about the devastation that colonisation unleashed, whether on the Indian people or the Palestinian people.
Seth's voice is strong in the narrative, which at times is reflective and interesting. At other times it provides context - including an important context of the colonisation of Palestine by European Jews and what that did to displace Palestinian people. But at other times his narration becomes a bit to meta as he looks at his relationship to his aunt and uncle, especially in that final chapter when it devolves into a discussion over his uncle's estate. I wish that meta voice would have been used to provide further context not only of the colonisation of Palestine - especially in relation to his own trips there that he mentions in these sections of the memoir - and also the relationship between Britain and India, especially given his uncle's role as a soldier in the British army during World War II. It would have been nice to hear that voice offering a much more critical perspective about the devastation that colonisation unleashed, whether on the Indian people or the Palestinian people.
July 8, 2013
Highly recommended for everybody who enjoyed A Suitable Boy. Vikram Seth writes wonderfully; you can almost imagine he is in the room, telling you the story himself.
January 23, 2017
As much as I tried to get into this book it seemed too unwieldy for me. The author is a stickler for details and that contributed to the unwieldiness. I just couldn't move much past the first 100/500 pages. Maybe I'll pick it up again, in the future. Maybe.
March 7, 2017
Good book, a little wandering at times, as he was often writing about himself as much as his subjects. Pretty dispiriting but I guess needful to remind ourselves of the toll the Nazis took in so many ways.
April 7, 2021
זאת סקירה שנכתבת בגלל התאריך. למעשה היה זה התאריך שדחק בי לגשת לספר ולהביא את הקריאה שלו לידי סיום. כל כך דחק בי שלא שמתי לב שסימון הדפים שלי התבלבל וכך קראתי כמה וכמה עשרות עמודים עד שהבנתי שכבר קראתי את זה כבר. אבל בסוף סיימתי, בדיוק בזמן ובהתאמה ליום הזיכרון לשואה.
הספר הזה הוא ביוגרפיה, אבל כפי שמעיד השם שלו, הוא ביוגרפיה של שני אנשים גם יחד. אני לא יודעת אם יש סוגה כזאת בכלל. ואם יש עוד מישהו שבחר נושא לכתיבה בצורה כזאת. האחד הוא הודי. שמו שאנטי בהארי סת. השניה היא ייקית - יהודיה ילידת גרמניה ושמה הני. השניים הכירו בברלין, בזמן שבו שאנטי למד רפואת שיניים. אלו היו שנות השלושים של המאה הקודמת. רדיפות גזעיות מנעו מסת לעבוד כרופא שיניים בגרמניה, ואחר כך התברר לו שגם שערים מקצועיים אחרים נסגרו בעדו, והוא עבר לאנגליה, שירת כרופא שיניים בצבא הבריטי בחזית המלחמה, וידו נקטעה בהפצצות אויב. גם האני נמלטה לאנגליה. ובסוף, אחרי שנים רבות מאוד הם גם התחתנו. זה אינו הסיפור הרומנטי הקלישאתי על האהבה שחוצה גבולות ומתגברת על כל הפערים הדתיים והגזעיים. הסופר, ויקראם סת, שחי בהיותו סטודנט בביתם של שאנטי והני, דואג לכל אורך הספר להבהיר את רמת המורכבות הקשה שהרכיבה את החיים של בני הזוג הזה. ואולי זה מה שעושה את הסיפור הזה מעניין כל כך.
החלק המרתק ביותר בספר, לדעתי, הוא הפרקים העוסקים במלחמת העולם השניה, ובפרט במה שעבר על משפחתה וידידה של הני בימי השואה. אני מורגלת בספרות של התקופה, והיא תמיד נמנית על אחד משני סוגים. יש הכותבים על האספקטים הטכניים המלחמתיים - תנועות צבא, תכנוני אסטרטגיה, תכנון "הפתרון הסופי" ועוד. כתיבה כזו היא מטבעה קרה ואובייקטיבית. יש הכותבים סיפורים אישיים על אלה שניצלו ועל אלה שלא. זו היא כתיבה אחרת, רווית אמוציות, כאב ודמע. הרמן ווק חיבר בין השניים באפוס רב ההיקף שלו "מלחמה וזיכרון", אבל הוא לא כתב סיפור אישי, אלא רקם בידיון שהוא במובן מסויים אב טיפוס מכליל של סיפורים אישיים רבים. גם ויקראם סת משלב בין הדברים, אבל הסיבות שלו שונות.
זה משהו שהיה לי קצת קשה להבין. אני גדלתי בארץ, עם לימודי שואה מגיל הגן, עם צפירה בכל שנה, עם "עמוד האש", וסרטים אחרים, עם ספרי שואה לרוב. עם פרק על השואה בבגרות בכיתה י"א, וקורס חובה על השואה בלימודי ההוראה, ובן זוג שהוא דור שני. ויקראם סת לא. והוא מניח שגם קהל הקוראים שלו לא. ולכן הוא צריך להזכיר. אני מתחלחלת למראה המילה התמימה אכטונג במדריך הפעלה רב לשוני, למונח "קליפות תפוחי אדמה" יש אצלי אסוציאציה אחת, בכל שנה בשלג אני חושבת על יהודים בפיג'מות פסים וכפכפי עץ, ומדי פעם יש לי חלומות שנאצים במדים שחורים רודפים אחרי. לכן קשה לי לחשוב שיש אנשים שהמילים גטו, גסטפו, אקציה, טרנספורט, סלקציה, אושוויץ-בירקנאו, זונדר קומנדו, אינן מילים מוכרות להם, ודורשות הסבר. ויקראם סת יודע, והוא מסביר. לכן הפרקים בנושא הזה הולכים כל הזמן מן הפרט (הני, משפחתה, חבריה) אל הכלל, כולל הרקע ההיסטורי המתאים. והאמת? גם לי זה לא היה מיותר. לקרוא הסבר כזה, שמורגשת בו הראשוניות הזו, מוסיף הרבה מאוד טעם וכאב, לדברים שאצלי אולי קצת נשחקו.
יש גם משהו נוסף, במרחק של הכותב ממושא הכתיבה. ויקראם סת הוא בנה של האחיינית של בעלה של הני. כן, זה ארוך. ורחוק. אין לו את הכאב העמוק שנמצא בהכרח בכל פעם שמי מהקרובים של קרבנות השואה כותב על הנושא. אין לו בראש את "ומה אם אני הייתי שם". נכון שגם דודו סבל מאפליה גזעית (לא רק בגרמניה, אגב. גם באנגליה) אבל זה לא אותו הדבר. והריחוק כאן לא פוגם בכתיבה. אולי אפילו להיפך.
בעקבות מאגר של חליפות מכתבים שמצא הכותב לאחר מותה של הני בארגז גנוז, מתעכב סת גם על סוגיות שלא מגיעות תמיד אל ספרות השואה. הני נשארה בחיים. אחותה ואמא שלה מצאו את מותן בצורה טרגית. אבל היא נפגעה גם בצורות רבות אחרות, בבגידות רבות אחרות. כל קשרי הידידות הישנים שלה, עם חבריה הותיקים מגרמניה, נבחנים שוב ושוב. הארוס שבחר לו אישה "מתאימה" יותר, החברה שהתחתנה עם איש אס-אס, כל החברים שלה נבחנים על פי מידת שיתוף הפעולה שלהם עם המשטר הנאצי. רובם יוצאים חייבים. סת מתעכב על פרטי הפרטים של המכתבים הללו, וקשרי החברות הללו. אולי קצת יותר מדי. אבל התמונה שעולה מהם הינה בעלת חשיבות.
מה עוד אני רוצה להגיד על הספר? אני לא בטוחה שהוא ספר טוב. למעשה ויקראם סת הוא בעיני סופר שאיכות כתיבתו אינה אחידה. הרומן שלו "מוזיקה שקולה" נמשך אלף ושש מאות עמודים. חלקם הברקות, וחלקם סתם ארוך. גם כאן הוא נוטה לפטפטנות ולטרחנות. הפטפטנות מתבטאת בתיאורים אישיים שלו, כולל ביקוריו ביד ושם, חוויותיו מהשפה הגרמנית שהפסיק לאהוב בעקבות מה שגילה שהנאצים עשו להני ומשפחתה, כולל הגיגים ופילוסופיים בדבר מקומה של גרמניה בעולם ועוד. הטרחנות מתבטאת בכניסה הדקדקנית למאות פרטים קטנים, שחלקם מלאים ומסתירים את התמונה הכללית. הסיפור של הדוד, ד"ר סת, מעניין בפני עצמו, בעיקר חוויות הצבא שלו ונסיבות הפציעה, אבל גם כאן חוזרת הנטיה הפטפטנית והטרחנית.
נראה לי בסופו של דבר שהספר מומלץ, אם כי אפשר וכדאי להפעיל בו קריאה סלקטיבית.
הספר הזה הוא ביוגרפיה, אבל כפי שמעיד השם שלו, הוא ביוגרפיה של שני אנשים גם יחד. אני לא יודעת אם יש סוגה כזאת בכלל. ואם יש עוד מישהו שבחר נושא לכתיבה בצורה כזאת. האחד הוא הודי. שמו שאנטי בהארי סת. השניה היא ייקית - יהודיה ילידת גרמניה ושמה הני. השניים הכירו בברלין, בזמן שבו שאנטי למד רפואת שיניים. אלו היו שנות השלושים של המאה הקודמת. רדיפות גזעיות מנעו מסת לעבוד כרופא שיניים בגרמניה, ואחר כך התברר לו שגם שערים מקצועיים אחרים נסגרו בעדו, והוא עבר לאנגליה, שירת כרופא שיניים בצבא הבריטי בחזית המלחמה, וידו נקטעה בהפצצות אויב. גם האני נמלטה לאנגליה. ובסוף, אחרי שנים רבות מאוד הם גם התחתנו. זה אינו הסיפור הרומנטי הקלישאתי על האהבה שחוצה גבולות ומתגברת על כל הפערים הדתיים והגזעיים. הסופר, ויקראם סת, שחי בהיותו סטודנט בביתם של שאנטי והני, דואג לכל אורך הספר להבהיר את רמת המורכבות הקשה שהרכיבה את החיים של בני הזוג הזה. ואולי זה מה שעושה את הסיפור הזה מעניין כל כך.
החלק המרתק ביותר בספר, לדעתי, הוא הפרקים העוסקים במלחמת העולם השניה, ובפרט במה שעבר על משפחתה וידידה של הני בימי השואה. אני מורגלת בספרות של התקופה, והיא תמיד נמנית על אחד משני סוגים. יש הכותבים על האספקטים הטכניים המלחמתיים - תנועות צבא, תכנוני אסטרטגיה, תכנון "הפתרון הסופי" ועוד. כתיבה כזו היא מטבעה קרה ואובייקטיבית. יש הכותבים סיפורים אישיים על אלה שניצלו ועל אלה שלא. זו היא כתיבה אחרת, רווית אמוציות, כאב ודמע. הרמן ווק חיבר בין השניים באפוס רב ההיקף שלו "מלחמה וזיכרון", אבל הוא לא כתב סיפור אישי, אלא רקם בידיון שהוא במובן מסויים אב טיפוס מכליל של סיפורים אישיים רבים. גם ויקראם סת משלב בין הדברים, אבל הסיבות שלו שונות.
זה משהו שהיה לי קצת קשה להבין. אני גדלתי בארץ, עם לימודי שואה מגיל הגן, עם צפירה בכל שנה, עם "עמוד האש", וסרטים אחרים, עם ספרי שואה לרוב. עם פרק על השואה בבגרות בכיתה י"א, וקורס חובה על השואה בלימודי ההוראה, ובן זוג שהוא דור שני. ויקראם סת לא. והוא מניח שגם קהל הקוראים שלו לא. ולכן הוא צריך להזכיר. אני מתחלחלת למראה המילה התמימה אכטונג במדריך הפעלה רב לשוני, למונח "קליפות תפוחי אדמה" יש אצלי אסוציאציה אחת, בכל שנה בשלג אני חושבת על יהודים בפיג'מות פסים וכפכפי עץ, ומדי פעם יש לי חלומות שנאצים במדים שחורים רודפים אחרי. לכן קשה לי לחשוב שיש אנשים שהמילים גטו, גסטפו, אקציה, טרנספורט, סלקציה, אושוויץ-בירקנאו, זונדר קומנדו, אינן מילים מוכרות להם, ודורשות הסבר. ויקראם סת יודע, והוא מסביר. לכן הפרקים בנושא הזה הולכים כל הזמן מן הפרט (הני, משפחתה, חבריה) אל הכלל, כולל הרקע ההיסטורי המתאים. והאמת? גם לי זה לא היה מיותר. לקרוא הסבר כזה, שמורגשת בו הראשוניות הזו, מוסיף הרבה מאוד טעם וכאב, לדברים שאצלי אולי קצת נשחקו.
יש גם משהו נוסף, במרחק של הכותב ממושא הכתיבה. ויקראם סת הוא בנה של האחיינית של בעלה של הני. כן, זה ארוך. ורחוק. אין לו את הכאב העמוק שנמצא בהכרח בכל פעם שמי מהקרובים של קרבנות השואה כותב על הנושא. אין לו בראש את "ומה אם אני הייתי שם". נכון שגם דודו סבל מאפליה גזעית (לא רק בגרמניה, אגב. גם באנגליה) אבל זה לא אותו הדבר. והריחוק כאן לא פוגם בכתיבה. אולי אפילו להיפך.
בעקבות מאגר של חליפות מכתבים שמצא הכותב לאחר מותה של הני בארגז גנוז, מתעכב סת גם על סוגיות שלא מגיעות תמיד אל ספרות השואה. הני נשארה בחיים. אחותה ואמא שלה מצאו את מותן בצורה טרגית. אבל היא נפגעה גם בצורות רבות אחרות, בבגידות רבות אחרות. כל קשרי הידידות הישנים שלה, עם חבריה הותיקים מגרמניה, נבחנים שוב ושוב. הארוס שבחר לו אישה "מתאימה" יותר, החברה שהתחתנה עם איש אס-אס, כל החברים שלה נבחנים על פי מידת שיתוף הפעולה שלהם עם המשטר הנאצי. רובם יוצאים חייבים. סת מתעכב על פרטי הפרטים של המכתבים הללו, וקשרי החברות הללו. אולי קצת יותר מדי. אבל התמונה שעולה מהם הינה בעלת חשיבות.
מה עוד אני רוצה להגיד על הספר? אני לא בטוחה שהוא ספר טוב. למעשה ויקראם סת הוא בעיני סופר שאיכות כתיבתו אינה אחידה. הרומן שלו "מוזיקה שקולה" נמשך אלף ושש מאות עמודים. חלקם הברקות, וחלקם סתם ארוך. גם כאן הוא נוטה לפטפטנות ולטרחנות. הפטפטנות מתבטאת בתיאורים אישיים שלו, כולל ביקוריו ביד ושם, חוויותיו מהשפה הגרמנית שהפסיק לאהוב בעקבות מה שגילה שהנאצים עשו להני ומשפחתה, כולל הגיגים ופילוסופיים בדבר מקומה של גרמניה בעולם ועוד. הטרחנות מתבטאת בכניסה הדקדקנית למאות פרטים קטנים, שחלקם מלאים ומסתירים את התמונה הכללית. הסיפור של הדוד, ד"ר סת, מעניין בפני עצמו, בעיקר חוויות הצבא שלו ונסיבות הפציעה, אבל גם כאן חוזרת הנטיה הפטפטנית והטרחנית.
נראה לי בסופו של דבר שהספר מומלץ, אם כי אפשר וכדאי להפעיל בו קריאה סלקטיבית.
July 17, 2024
This unusual book is a layered feast of two biographies, a meditation on family, society and 20th century history and a critical self analysis of emotions. Vikram Seth shared some of the formative parts of his life with his great uncle Shanti and his remarkable wife, Henny. When he was seventeen years old, Vikram Seth was sent from his home in India to attend school in England. For five or six years, he lived, off and on, at Shanti and Henny’s home in London while going to secondary school and then Oxford University. He became like the son the couple had never had, a result of a tumultuous and horrific period of history and a late marriage. Much later in life, as his own life intertwined at various points with Shanti and Henny, Vikram Seth, now a widely acclaimed author, decided to write the biographies of these two people so important to him as both a tribute and as a way of illuminating historical and social themes. The result is a plunge into a world, strange but somehow familiar, filled with love, wonder, horror and discovery.
Vikram Seth’s journey was an echo, in many ways, of the path “Shanti Uncle” had walked before him. Shanti’s own uncle had sent Shanti from India to Germany when he was seventeen to study to become a dentist. Knowing no German, Shanti ended up living with the Caros, a Europeanised Jewish family in Berlin. A mother with two daughters in their late teens, the Caros needed income after the early death of the father and so they rented out a room in their apartment. When Shanti was interviewed as a prospective border along with a couple of other applicants, the younger daughter, Henny, told her mother “Don’t take the black one”. But the mother ignored her daughter and Shanti and Henny became close friends. Initially, Shanti did not enjoy the study of dentistry but eventually passed the rigorous schedule of exams and earned his qualifications.
This was at the time of the Nazification of Germany in the first half if the 1930s. The book delves deeply into the ascension to power of Hitler, the nefarious enactment of laws through his control of the levers of government and the events that led directly to the holocaust and the second world war. Tying these events directly to individual people whose lives we care about is one of the most powerful aspects of this book. Vikram Seth is a dogged and thoughtful chronicler of how the systems set in place by the Nazis affected Jews and Germans and led to what surely is one of the most horrific chapters in all of human history, a history which has many terrible chapters.
In these reviews I don’t like to present a recap of the story in a “then what happened” fashion, not so much to avoid spoilers but more so to try to focus on the ways I reacted to the substance of the story. One element of this book that I liked is the central love story that rides the storm of war and injustice. It’s an unlikely love story but seems true in so many ways. A believable portrayal of the emotional truth of other people and other relationships is proof of a writer’s powers. Seth proves to have a critically discerning eye for the nuance that lives in the space between married people. He makes every effort to understand Shanti and Henny but is modest enough to let us know that some spaces in the human heart are impenetrable. Similarly, the history of a relationship may make some sense retrospectively but often the role of chance or luck is not sufficiently acknowledged. As events unfold, and chance intervenes, the crucial part of a great story is not that awful or fortunate things happened but how the people affected responded to those events. This is a story that fully illustrates that Stoic idea.
Much of the detail of the story is drawn from letters, many of those left in a trove of material that Henny saved, unbeknownst to Shanti who destroyed most of the photos and letters in his possession saying he couldn’t bear the sadness of viewing them. The letters are a revelation: alternately loving, mundane, emotionally open, tender, hectoring, wise, sad and beautifully written. I don’t think people write letters like this anymore; an artform has been lost and it’s a great pity. A 1947 letter to Henny from an old friend who ended up in Russian occupied East Berlin begins “On the pitiful heaps of rubble that are all that’s left of our beloved old Berlin, white snowflakes fall ceaselessly down from the sky and announce that it is once again winter and somewhere in our unconscious we also become aware that Christmas is at the door.” The book is sprinkled with excepts from letters, telegrams and passages from transcripts of interviews the author conducted. One was a letter from Shanti, who served in the medical / dental unit on the front lines during the Italian campaign in 1944. At the time or writing, he was recuperating in hospital after having his right arm blown off by an artillery shell at Cassino. “This happened on the afternoon of the 16th instant. Some others in my unit were killed, but from my unit I was the only one injured. Is it not irony of fate, that the very day I was hurt, the posting orders for a base hospital had come for me”.
Shanti’s and Henny’s lives were both remarkable in their own ways and illuminate important aspects of human nature and historic events. Shanti was a courageous, intelligent and resilient man, able to rise above adversity. Henny was also courageous, intelligent and resilient, with much more adversity to rise above. Her dearest family members were murdered by the Nazis at Birkenau and Auschwitz, as were many of her friends. She escaped to England in the nick of time where she rebuilt a life, quickly rising to become general manager of a small pharmaceutical company. As husband and wife, Shanti and Henny may have been an unlikely couple, but they seemed utterly devoted to each other while successfully managing the difficult polarities of marriage: autonomy and intimacy, dependence and inter-dependence.
There are many little meditations and some beautiful passages in this complex book. During long and diligent research for the book, Vikram Seth came across many artifacts in the London house that served as a home and dental office for Shanti and Henny. One was a Jewish Bible and one a Jewish prayer-book. Henny was not religious, so Seth guessed that these were books sent to her by her more religious sister who was trapped in Berlin as the Nazi threat insidiously grew. At the end of the prayer book is a summary of the fundamentals of Jewish morality. “Judaism teaches: 1. The unity of mankind. It commands us therefore 2. to love our neighbour, 3. to protect our neighbour and his rights, 4. to be aware of his honour, 5. to honour his beliefs, 6. and to assuage his sorrows. Judaism calls upon us, 7. through work, 8. through the love of truth, 9. through modesty, 10. through amicability, 11. through moral rectitude, 12. and through obedience to authority, 13. to further the well being of our neighbours, 14. to seek the good of our fatherland, 15. and to bring about the loving fellowship of all mankind.” A simple summation of the wisdom of civilizations in all places and times, but rarely well observed by any society in all places and times.
Vikram Seth leaves us with a lovely description of biography. “Behind every door on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village on this middling planet of a trivial star, such riches are to be found. The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that cleave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave: so personal as to be almost incommunicable, so fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable”.
This is a book that left its mark on me; that is a gift that a great book can give. I am happy Vikram Seth wanted Shanti and Henny to be remembered and that he passed on his love and his insights to me.
Vikram Seth’s journey was an echo, in many ways, of the path “Shanti Uncle” had walked before him. Shanti’s own uncle had sent Shanti from India to Germany when he was seventeen to study to become a dentist. Knowing no German, Shanti ended up living with the Caros, a Europeanised Jewish family in Berlin. A mother with two daughters in their late teens, the Caros needed income after the early death of the father and so they rented out a room in their apartment. When Shanti was interviewed as a prospective border along with a couple of other applicants, the younger daughter, Henny, told her mother “Don’t take the black one”. But the mother ignored her daughter and Shanti and Henny became close friends. Initially, Shanti did not enjoy the study of dentistry but eventually passed the rigorous schedule of exams and earned his qualifications.
This was at the time of the Nazification of Germany in the first half if the 1930s. The book delves deeply into the ascension to power of Hitler, the nefarious enactment of laws through his control of the levers of government and the events that led directly to the holocaust and the second world war. Tying these events directly to individual people whose lives we care about is one of the most powerful aspects of this book. Vikram Seth is a dogged and thoughtful chronicler of how the systems set in place by the Nazis affected Jews and Germans and led to what surely is one of the most horrific chapters in all of human history, a history which has many terrible chapters.
In these reviews I don’t like to present a recap of the story in a “then what happened” fashion, not so much to avoid spoilers but more so to try to focus on the ways I reacted to the substance of the story. One element of this book that I liked is the central love story that rides the storm of war and injustice. It’s an unlikely love story but seems true in so many ways. A believable portrayal of the emotional truth of other people and other relationships is proof of a writer’s powers. Seth proves to have a critically discerning eye for the nuance that lives in the space between married people. He makes every effort to understand Shanti and Henny but is modest enough to let us know that some spaces in the human heart are impenetrable. Similarly, the history of a relationship may make some sense retrospectively but often the role of chance or luck is not sufficiently acknowledged. As events unfold, and chance intervenes, the crucial part of a great story is not that awful or fortunate things happened but how the people affected responded to those events. This is a story that fully illustrates that Stoic idea.
Much of the detail of the story is drawn from letters, many of those left in a trove of material that Henny saved, unbeknownst to Shanti who destroyed most of the photos and letters in his possession saying he couldn’t bear the sadness of viewing them. The letters are a revelation: alternately loving, mundane, emotionally open, tender, hectoring, wise, sad and beautifully written. I don’t think people write letters like this anymore; an artform has been lost and it’s a great pity. A 1947 letter to Henny from an old friend who ended up in Russian occupied East Berlin begins “On the pitiful heaps of rubble that are all that’s left of our beloved old Berlin, white snowflakes fall ceaselessly down from the sky and announce that it is once again winter and somewhere in our unconscious we also become aware that Christmas is at the door.” The book is sprinkled with excepts from letters, telegrams and passages from transcripts of interviews the author conducted. One was a letter from Shanti, who served in the medical / dental unit on the front lines during the Italian campaign in 1944. At the time or writing, he was recuperating in hospital after having his right arm blown off by an artillery shell at Cassino. “This happened on the afternoon of the 16th instant. Some others in my unit were killed, but from my unit I was the only one injured. Is it not irony of fate, that the very day I was hurt, the posting orders for a base hospital had come for me”.
Shanti’s and Henny’s lives were both remarkable in their own ways and illuminate important aspects of human nature and historic events. Shanti was a courageous, intelligent and resilient man, able to rise above adversity. Henny was also courageous, intelligent and resilient, with much more adversity to rise above. Her dearest family members were murdered by the Nazis at Birkenau and Auschwitz, as were many of her friends. She escaped to England in the nick of time where she rebuilt a life, quickly rising to become general manager of a small pharmaceutical company. As husband and wife, Shanti and Henny may have been an unlikely couple, but they seemed utterly devoted to each other while successfully managing the difficult polarities of marriage: autonomy and intimacy, dependence and inter-dependence.
There are many little meditations and some beautiful passages in this complex book. During long and diligent research for the book, Vikram Seth came across many artifacts in the London house that served as a home and dental office for Shanti and Henny. One was a Jewish Bible and one a Jewish prayer-book. Henny was not religious, so Seth guessed that these were books sent to her by her more religious sister who was trapped in Berlin as the Nazi threat insidiously grew. At the end of the prayer book is a summary of the fundamentals of Jewish morality. “Judaism teaches: 1. The unity of mankind. It commands us therefore 2. to love our neighbour, 3. to protect our neighbour and his rights, 4. to be aware of his honour, 5. to honour his beliefs, 6. and to assuage his sorrows. Judaism calls upon us, 7. through work, 8. through the love of truth, 9. through modesty, 10. through amicability, 11. through moral rectitude, 12. and through obedience to authority, 13. to further the well being of our neighbours, 14. to seek the good of our fatherland, 15. and to bring about the loving fellowship of all mankind.” A simple summation of the wisdom of civilizations in all places and times, but rarely well observed by any society in all places and times.
Vikram Seth leaves us with a lovely description of biography. “Behind every door on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village on this middling planet of a trivial star, such riches are to be found. The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that cleave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave: so personal as to be almost incommunicable, so fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable”.
This is a book that left its mark on me; that is a gift that a great book can give. I am happy Vikram Seth wanted Shanti and Henny to be remembered and that he passed on his love and his insights to me.
January 21, 2023
"Two Lives" by Vikram Seth is a non-fiction memoir that explores the themes of family, identity, and the human condition. The book is a personal account of the author's family history, specifically the story of his great-uncle and great-aunt, Shanti and Shanti Behari Seth, who were both born in pre-partition India and lived through the tumultuous times of the British Raj and the partition of India and Pakistan!
The book is a rich and evocative account of the author's family history, and it provides an in-depth understanding of the culture, lifestyle, and people of pre-partition India. The book is filled with vivid and evocative descriptions of the country and the people that inhabited it, and it provides a fascinating insight into the history of the region.
One of the most striking aspect of the book is the way Seth captures the essence of his great-uncle and great-aunt's lives and the emotions they experienced. The book is a powerful exploration of the human condition and the many different forms of love and relationships that exist in the world. The book also explores the theme of identity, and how it is shaped by the relationships we have with others.
The book is written in a simple and direct language, but it is also rich in symbolism. The imagery of the two lives, Shanti and Shanti Behari Seth, serves as a powerful symbol of the book's themes of family, identity, and the human condition.
Overall, "Two Lives" is a powerful and thought-provoking memoir that explores the complexities of family, identity, and the human condition. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary literature, as well as anyone looking for an exploration of the human experience. The book not only entertains but also makes the reader reflect on the complexities of family, identity, and the human condition!
The book is a rich and evocative account of the author's family history, and it provides an in-depth understanding of the culture, lifestyle, and people of pre-partition India. The book is filled with vivid and evocative descriptions of the country and the people that inhabited it, and it provides a fascinating insight into the history of the region.
One of the most striking aspect of the book is the way Seth captures the essence of his great-uncle and great-aunt's lives and the emotions they experienced. The book is a powerful exploration of the human condition and the many different forms of love and relationships that exist in the world. The book also explores the theme of identity, and how it is shaped by the relationships we have with others.
The book is written in a simple and direct language, but it is also rich in symbolism. The imagery of the two lives, Shanti and Shanti Behari Seth, serves as a powerful symbol of the book's themes of family, identity, and the human condition.
Overall, "Two Lives" is a powerful and thought-provoking memoir that explores the complexities of family, identity, and the human condition. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary literature, as well as anyone looking for an exploration of the human experience. The book not only entertains but also makes the reader reflect on the complexities of family, identity, and the human condition!
April 22, 2025
I enjoyed parts of this book but other parts dragged on a bit.
I thought it was really interesting to read about the correspondence between Henny and her German friends trying to work out who supported her mother and sister during the war. Overall, though, I felt that the author didn't really know the 2 protagonists particularly well (even though he spent a lot of time with them) and so a lot of the information is limited i.e. in Jenny's correspondence or what Shanti told him in interviews. Not the best biography but worth reading.
I thought it was really interesting to read about the correspondence between Henny and her German friends trying to work out who supported her mother and sister during the war. Overall, though, I felt that the author didn't really know the 2 protagonists particularly well (even though he spent a lot of time with them) and so a lot of the information is limited i.e. in Jenny's correspondence or what Shanti told him in interviews. Not the best biography but worth reading.
December 8, 2020
Some great bits but lacked overall thread.
April 19, 2020
I started this book in the times of corona quarantine of 2020. I had read Mr. Seth's Golden Gate last year and began Two Lives with the same enthusiasm.
'Two Lives' is not a love story set in the times of holocaust, neither is it an easy read for a relaxing Sunday evening, Rather 'Two Lives' book is a memorial built by Mr. Seth for his Uncle and Aunt with whom he shares his fondest days and as quoted in the book "Admires the most".
This book is a story of an innocent friendship that turns to an great marriage of 38 years, a book of ambition to achieve greater goals in life , a heartfelt honest tribute to survivors and victims of the third Reich , and journey of a boy who learns all of these through the lives of his beloved uncle and aunt.
'Two lives' will leave an impact on your mind in such a way that you will always remember 18th Queen's street of London and streets of Charlottenburg, Berlin , despite ever having to set foot in either places.
And here are personal favourite lines " …
The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that leave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave: so personal as to be almost incommunicable, so fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable.”
'Two Lives' is not a love story set in the times of holocaust, neither is it an easy read for a relaxing Sunday evening, Rather 'Two Lives' book is a memorial built by Mr. Seth for his Uncle and Aunt with whom he shares his fondest days and as quoted in the book "Admires the most".
This book is a story of an innocent friendship that turns to an great marriage of 38 years, a book of ambition to achieve greater goals in life , a heartfelt honest tribute to survivors and victims of the third Reich , and journey of a boy who learns all of these through the lives of his beloved uncle and aunt.
'Two lives' will leave an impact on your mind in such a way that you will always remember 18th Queen's street of London and streets of Charlottenburg, Berlin , despite ever having to set foot in either places.
And here are personal favourite lines " …
The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that leave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave: so personal as to be almost incommunicable, so fugitive as to be almost irrecoverable.”
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