Κρυφές Ζωές

by Alex Christofi, Βάσια Τζανακάρη (translator)

Παρίσι, 1958. Ύστερα από μια τυχαία συνάντηση, ο Ραλφ και η Έλσα μπλέκονται σε μια ερωτική σχέση που θα αλλάξει τα πάντα. Και οι δυο τους φέρουν ουλές από τα βίαια γεγονότα που σημάδεψαν την Ευρώπη. Ο Ραλφ έφυγε παιδί από τη Γερμανία και πέρασε τα παιδικά του χρόνια ως πρόσφυγας στην Αγγλία προτού το σύντομο πέρασμά του από τον Βρετανικό Στρατό και το τέλος του πολέμου τον οδηγήσουν στο Παρίσι, όπου αισθάνεται ότι μπορεί να κρυφτεί από το παρελθόν και να επιχειρήσει σταδιακά να το ξεπεράσει.

Η Έλσα επίσης κατάγεται από τη Γερμανία και βασανίζεται από τις δικές της τραυματικές αναμνήσεις. Προσπαθεί να κρύψει από τον Ραλφ τις περιστάσεις που την έφεραν στη Γαλλία αλλά καθώς ερωτεύονται ολοένα και πιο βαθιά ο ένας τον άλλον έρχεται αντιμέτωπη με ένα δίλημμα: μπορεί να τον εμπιστευτεί για να τη συγχωρήσει για το παρελθόν της ή το βάρος των ευθυνών της θα την απομακρύνει από τον Ραλφ μια για πάντα;

Σ’ ένα Παρίσι που γιατρεύει τις πληγές του από τον Δεύτερο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και τρώει τις σάρκες του καθώς η τάξη του παλιού κόσμου καταρρέει, ο Ραλφ προσπαθεί απεγνωσμένα να κρατηθεί στο μοναδικό πρόσωπο στο οποίο νιώθει ότι ανήκει, ενώ συνάμα αντιμετωπίζει την προοπτική μιας πραγματικότητας όπου ο έρωτας ίσως να μην αρκεί.



Μια αξέχαστη ερωτική ιστορία και μια συγκινητική ματιά στο τίμημα που κλήθηκαν να πληρώσουν οι άνθρωποι που έζησαν στη ματωμένη Ευρώπη του εικοστού αιώνα.

Genres: Historical Fiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 2017

About the author

ALEX CHRISTOFI is Editorial Director at Transworld Publishers and author of books published in twelve languages, including the novels Let Us Be True and Glass, winner of the Betty Trask Prize for fiction. He has written for numerous publications including the Guardian, the London Magazine, The White Review and the Brixton Review of Books, and contributed an essay to the anthology What Doesn't Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival. Dostoevsky in Love, his first work of non-fiction, was selected as a Times and Sunday Times literary non-fiction book of the year and shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize. His latest book is CYPRIA: A journey to the heart of the Mediterranean (Bloomsbury, 2024).

@alex_christofi

Reviews

[Stace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Reviewed by Julie on www.whisperingstories.com

‘Let Us Be True’ is the second novel by British based best-selling author, Alex Christofi. The tale is told in the third person from the perspectives of our main protagonists, Ralf and Elsa. The book is divided into three parts with the action taking place between 1958 and 1992.

Ralf and Elsa are both German-born and meet in Paris in 1958. Their wartime experiences have had a profound effect on them both. Ralf ended up in England and Elsa, in France. As well as coming to terms with their own demons, they have to adjust to a post-war reality of great upheaval and social change. Previously accepted dynamics, norms and values are continually challenged with many displaced people across Europe trying to find a place to call home. Ralf and Elsa’s relationship is short but meaningful as their lives collide for brief moment in time.

I enjoyed Ralf’s backstory from his arrival in England to his time serving with the British Army. This was fleshed out to some extent with the introduction of Ralf’s father and the flashback passages which covered the Weimar Republic years in Germany.

Ralf is without doubt a lost, searching soul and Elsa has an enigmatic, detached quality. I desperately wanted to like her but feel I did no more than scratch the surface of her personality. I fared slightly better in the second part when we moved from Ralf to witness some events from Elsa’s perspective, growing up under the Nazi regime away from her family, which would go some way to explaining her character.

I found rating this story extremely hard. I thought the concept was brave, imaginative and very evocative. For the quality of the descriptive prose alone, it was a five star book all the way. The author gave the characters some amazing material to work with but sadly for me, they somehow never quite fulfilled their potential. I found some of their dialogue a little awkward and try as I might, I just didn’t feel the chemistry between them.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the huge amount of research and sensitivity that has gone into the turbulent Paris backdrop of the fifties. I am sorry that I could not fully engage with this tale but suspect that others will find layers that I missed and objectively therefore, award four stars.

[Mairead Hearne (swirlandthread.com) · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the Winner of The Betty Trask Prize

Let Us Be True, by Alex Christofi, ‘charts the lives of two extraordinary characters through an era of great uncertainty, from the war and its aftermath through to the deadly unrest of 1960s Paris.’

Just published by Serpent’s Tail, can I just say from the outset that I loved this book...stunning.

My Review:

Elsa and Ralf.

Paris 1958.

Two people whose paths cross accidentally, but whose lives will forever be entwined…

Let Us Be True is their story…

Ralf, born in Hamburg, fled to the UK with his mother and fought during the war on the British side. During demobilisation, Ralf made a decision ‘when the time came to board his train for England, he remained on the platform. England and Germany seemed, however unfairly, part of the grey continuum of sadness and arbitrary cruelty, whereas Paris was a city of possibility, glimpsed from a train window, standing near whole among the ruins of Europe.’

Ralf settled well enough in Paris enjoying the daily chats with the local people. He lived a very simple life in academia, making occasional friendships but he never found true love. His father had passed away tragically when he was younger and this event remained heavy in his heart at all times. With just his mother now living in the UK, Ralf never really felt the desire to return.

Elsa is rather an unusual character. Also born in Germany, Elsa lived through quite a formidable youth, where the rules of Hitler were strictly adhered to. After the war ended, Elsa saw an opportunity to escape the hardship and relocated to Paris. Elsa is quite an elusive character. As a reader, it’s very difficult to get inside her head, making her a bit of an enigma. She is very protective of her past yet Ralf is an open book.

A chance meeting of the two of them in a Parisian bar sees the beginning of something very special, something very fragile.

Let Us Be True is an historical document in many ways. Paris, after the war was a place where many refugees of all nationalities took refuge and it is among these that Ralf finds himself in the company of. One of his friends, Fouad, is an immigrant who left Algiers in search of a better life for himself and his wife, Fatima.

‘I became aware of a certain distant planet called France. They were our invaders, our oppressors, yes, but we used their own language to curse them, the only language they spoke. And while I heard about the daily injustices we all suffered, the experience on my doorstep was that the French brought money… 1945…people really thought France must now understand. We had won victory over Germany together, we had fought together for liberation’

But, as history shows us to be the case, trouble was imminent on the streets of Paris, as the Algerians demonstrated for their independence. The city was in turmoil and Alex Christofi gives the reader an insight into this disturbing time in French history.

In parallel with this, Ralf and Elsa’s story continues.

Their relationship is fraught with difficulty from the beginning. Elsa flits in and out of Ralf’s life, yet he wants more from her. He envisions a life where they both grow old together with their children to accompany them into their senior years. He dreams of a life that neither of them seem able to grasp.

Elsa and Ralf, both uprooted from their homeland, are refugees in Paris. There is a feeling of loss always present in their lives. As Ralf attempts to find out more about Elsa, he makes a decision that would reverberate through the rest of their lives.

Let Us Be True is an exquisite novel, both inside and outside.

Alex Christofi writes with magic in his words. His love for the city of Paris is evident in the obvious research that went into every page. I was completely transported to another world. I have read and loved Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels and this captivating book, Let Us Be True, reminds me very much of how I felt on completing them….bereft yet hopeful.

In the words of Ralf..

‘How rare and lucky it was to have felt joy and pain, fear and love, to have eyes that could know the shape of everything along an unbroken line, ears that could read the ripples of particles miles away, and to able to express it to one another, and to create a new life together.’

An enthralling novel that I highly recommend…..just beautiful..

[Theresa Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say, right up front, that Let Us Be True was so much more than what I was expecting. A love story, yes, but more than this; a deeply philosophical narrative of identity delivered with elegance and poignancy.
 

Ralf and Elsa are Germans in a post WWII Europe. Ralf is ‘sort of Jewish’ and Elsa is the very picture of Aryan womanhood: ‘biologically valuable’. They were both adolescents during the rise of Nazi Germany, and while Ralf was relocated out of Germany into England before the war, Elsa only left Germany five years after the war’s conclusion. Each of them are now adrift, no longer able to call Germany home but feeling like interlopers everywhere else.
 

It’s such an interesting concept to explore and one I will admit to giving little thought to. A war ends, but what happens to those ordinary citizens, the ones who believed whole heartedly in the ideology of their nation and its leader:

‘They had all been prepared to suffer and be ruthless in service of a grand vision of the future, without seeing that all one is left with, in the end, is the past.’
 

To begin again is not so simple. People remember and they still hate the enemy; the suggestion of forgiveness is offensive. They detect accents, assess appearances, pass judgement; unrest remains. For Elsa, who married a Frenchman and left Germany for good, her history was still inside her, permanently marking her, preventing her from living her life with ease:

‘She had been a different person once. She knew unutterable words, could see the faces of these men shaved and bound up in the square with signs around their necks, had lived above a stolen shop, praised for not being them. But they lived on as evidence that a complete crime was impossible, that you cannot create a new world, only set new conditions. What would the world have been like without this? These bakeries, these men with hats and ringlets, brothers, husbands, sons, who stepped onto the road to let her pass in safety.
Say they had been a corrupt people, and it was possible to extinguish them. The act of killing tainted the purity of the vision. One could not separate what one was from what one did; one did not accept the truth from a liar. She herself had helped to shoot down planes, the pilots burning in their shells. Some might call her a murderer. What would be done with her and people like her in the coming decades, the damned, silent mass?’
 

I was particularly moved by Elsa and her story. Her life in Nazi Germany was recounted with a natural ease that made the horrors of everyday living within Germany more pronounced. With Elsa, Alex Christofi has demonstrated how impossible it is to leave your past, that ‘other self’, entirely behind. Elsa didn’t always act in a way that inspired admiration, but once you’ve read this novel to its end, her choices along the way make much better sense in hindsight. I developed a great deal of empathy for Elsa over the course of this novel. The weight of a nation’s atrocities must have sat heavily on many shoulders after WWII.
 

Ralf has a different history, but is no less displaced or weighted down by it. Not knowing Elsa’s past – since she refuses to disclose it – he fails to ever truly understand her, yet still loves her for his entire life, a love story to set your heart sighing. He spends much of his life not knowing who he is, where he belongs, or what he believes in. Later in his life, he goes out of his way to make kindness to strangers his main call of duty, and I love this path of redemption. Ralf is a complex character, permanently shadowed by the loss of his father at such a young age:

‘Ralf looked hard at her. “No, this is not my life. We may struggle one way but we are all being dragged another by our heritage, by history.”’

He could never truly shed his past and claim his own identity, not until the very end of the novel, when life finally deals him a good hand.
 

Alex Christofi has a beautiful turn of phrase. He conveys so much through Ralf’s and Elsa’s reflective backstories, concisely depicting both horror and glory with ease and compassion. Let Us Be True is a novel that has imprinted onto my conscience and will stay with me for a long time. If you have an interest in stories about WWII, I highly recommend you add Let Us Be True to your reading list.


Thanks is extended to Profile Books via Allen and Unwin for providing me with a copy of Let Us Be True for review.

[Jackie Law · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When he was six years old, he had been taught that compassion was the only quality of any consequence, and tonight he had tied a knot along the smooth train of his life, and it would trail behind him, snagging over rough ground, staring back at him when he stopped to look, no matter how far he tried to pay it out.”

Let Us Be True, by Alex Christofi, is a love story – not a romance but rather a story of survival and its toll. The protagonist is Ralf who meets the beautiful Elsa in a run-down Parisian bar and embarks on an affair.

Ralf was born in Hamburg, the son of Emil – an academic who researched eugenics. Ralf and his mother fled to London as Hitler rose to power.

Elsa, a child of loyal Nazi sympathisers living in Berlin, carved out a life for herself in the aftermath of the conflict. She now seeks excitement but is loath to risk all she has achieved, even for love.

“They had all been prepared to suffer and be ruthless in service of a grand vision of the future, without seeing that all one is left with, in the end, is the past.”

The couple’s backstories provide insight into the life of ordinary Germans between the world wars. Given current events this makes for sobering reading. Emil’s story in particular moved me – a man who produced scientific evidence that nobody was willing to hear.

After serving with the British in the war, Ralf stayed in Paris rather than return to his mother in London. She wished for him to find a wife and raise a family, not appreciating how displaced he felt. In Paris he befriended Fouad, an Algerian Muslim suffering discrimination that the war should have proved indefensible. Fouad’s story is just one tragedy of many told here.

“We may struggle one way but we are all being dragged another by our heritage, by history.”

Ralf falls passionately in love with Elsa but she tells him little of her history or circumstances. When he surreptitiously follows her and discovers the truth it comes at a cost. He descends into a destructive spiral, becoming involved in student agitation, eventually emerging to return to London following the death of his mother.

The writing is poetic in its stark beauty, the phraseology adept and poignant, evoking a past that has been lived, futures lost. The denouement rises from a settling tenebrosity whilst avoiding compromising the preceding character development. Life goes on.

An affecting narrative of studied elegance that seduces the reader despite its dark core. This, his second book, places the author amongst those whose trajectory I will now closely follow. Literature lovers, you want to read this book.

My copy of this book was provided gratis by the publisher, Serpent’s Tail.

[Cheryl M-M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This read brings a sense of nostalgia with it and an aura of hidden emotions and unfulfilled desires. It is so much more than just a love story. It is about fractured identities and the trauma of war.

It is often hard for non-nomads or people who stay in one place their entire lives to understand what it is like to not feel as if you have a home or a country that feels like home. Being uprooted and becoming a displaced person can rock the very foundation of your existence.

I believe Elsa and Ralf share this feeling of not belonging and loss. Their home country and country of birth is their common denominator, despite their completely different paths in life.

Ralf doesn’t even feel at home in his surrogate country, and he also refuses to maintain a relationship with his mother. His landlord has become his family, a port of call in dire situations and France has become his safe haven.

Elsa is a survivor, albeit one from the other side of the battlefield. Her experiences have made her emotionally unresponsive, which is why she finds it hard to connect with her child and why she struggles to find a sense of peace in her life. It is also the reason she accepts certain negative aspects of her marriage including the occasional bouts of violence.

I wonder if Elsa believes her guilt is something that would eventually come between them. A secret she can never reveal and perhaps never completely move on from.

Overall Elsa gives off a sense of detachment, a cold and hard face she presents to the world. It’s easy to forget her age at the time of her crimes and her complicity. Her trauma is no more than a footnote in history, although it is ultimately what steers and directs her sense of unhappiness.
In that sense the two of them share another bond in the form of very specific trauma. One could argue that his will always be greater because of the historical implications, however I would argue that trauma cannot be measured by what outsiders think.

France, like many other countries are often guilty of revisionism, especially when it comes to history. They like to forget and hide their guilt and crimes, and the part they played in some of the bloodiest and politically disruptive times in the twentieth century. They like to sweep a lot of uncomfortable truths under the carpet of national charm.

This is a love story taking place during some of those periods in time, so it isn’t just about two broken people finding a safe haven in each other, it is also about shining a light on the past. A past that is in danger of being repeated as we speak.

The author brings a maturity, insight and wisdom to the pages. He writes as if he has experienced decades of longing, pain and heartbreak. He is an author I will be revisiting. Oh and kudos to him for the Vélodrome d’Hiver part of the story. It’s a very significant and poignant part of history. A small moment in the book, but those are the ones that count.
*I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher.*

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I was just rating this on the quality of the writing, it would have been a four or five. It's beautifully written and you feel as if you're in the various locations (Paris in particular, London not so much). It's also very powerful in terms of portraying people's inhumanity towards each other and the devastating impact of war on ordinary lives.

Where it's weak, though, is in the depiction of the relationship between Ralf and Elsa. The two characters are so unlikeable that I really wasn't bothered about whether they stayed together or not. They seem to bring out the worst in each other and their selfish obsession with their tragic love story is not appealing.

[Klarita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the last pages, the way the story was narrated and the fact that Ralf who has always felt alone, has left behind his legacy, he has a child and grandchildren. He returns to Paris to meet them, I was eager to learn if Elsa was alive or not and if yes would they see each other again?! Tears came out and I felt poignant during these pages, there were flashbacks from the early years of their young life, and now at their 60s, Elsa and Ralf reminisce all they have been through. The fact that they did not see each other one last time hurt me but I guess this is a better ending. This book was beautiful!!!!

[Sue Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to rate this one. Between 2 and 3 stars. I found no sympathy with the characters. The writing seemed forced at times, there was no flow, no drawing me into the story.

[Starboookk Athina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πόσα μυστικά μπορεί να κρύβει ένας άνθρωπος; Σε τι βαθμό τα βιώματά του καθορίζουν την πορεία του στη ζωή;
Βρισκόμαστε στο Παρίσι του 1958, ένα Παρίσι που προσπαθεί να βρει τις ισορροπίες του μετά την κατοχή, ένα Παρίσι που βράζει από εξεγέρσεις και διαδηλώσεις.
Εκεί θα συναντήσουμε τον Ραλφ και την Έλσα. Θα γνωριστούν τυχαία σε ένα μπαρ, θα ερωτευτούν και θα ζήσουν κάποιες στιγμές ευτυχίας. Ωστόσο η Έλσα δείχνει να μην θέλει να δεθεί μαζί του. Πώς θα εξελιχθεί άραγε η σχέση τους; Πόσο βαθιά θα χαραχτεί στις ψυχές τους; Είναι ικανή να κλείσει τις πληγές που έχει ανοίξει ο πόλεμος;
Το βιβλίο χωρίζεται σε τρία μέρη. Το πρώτο μέρος είναι αφιερωμένο στον Ραλφ, το δεύτερο στην Έλσα και το τρίτο στα χρόνια που ακολούθησαν μετά τη γνωριμία τους. Είναι ένα βιβλίο που μας ταξιδεύει σε κάθε γωνιά του Παρισιού. Μας δίνει πληροφορίες για την περίοδο του πολέμου και για τις εξελίξεις στην πολιτική σκηνή του Παρισιού της δεκαετίας του '60. Ο συγγραφέας γράφει σε τρίτο πρόσωπο, γεγονός που στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο νομίζω το καθιστά λίγο απρόσωπο. Η αλήθεια είναι ότι δεν μπόρεσα να δεθώ πολύ με κάποιον χαρακτήρα. Υπάρχει μια μεγάλη ανατροπή στο τέλος που όμως πιστεύω οτι θα μπορούσε να εξελιχθεί διαφορετικά. Σε γενικές γραμμές όμως είναι ένα ωραίο βιβλίο.

[Jiali He · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every time I go to a new city, I need to watch a film or read a book which is related to it. And Let Us Be True is the one that I got in Paris.

Elsa is such a bold, attractive, unpredictable and mostly unforgettable woman to Ralf.

This book is more than just a romantic love story.

“They say that of all forms of caution, caution love is the most fatal to true happiness. I suppose it’s the sort of truth one can only recognize when it’s too late.”

“Not all life need strive. To be one of the living was a miracle; to feel alive, to really feel it in one’s bones, stranger still. How rare and lucky it was to have felt joy and pain, fear and love, to have eyes that could know the shape of everything along an unbroken line, ears that could read the ripples of particles miles away, and to be able to express it to one another, and to create new life together. “

[Jayden Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.5/10 was a 6.5 before i read the last chapter
this is so sad i think this is one of the saddest endings ive read so far at least for me cos it wasnt the ending i wanted i really wanted that classic type of ending like ralf and elsa reconnecting or running into each other again
or maybe it’s just that we never got to hear from elsa after 1958 cos im really curious how she felt around the time when ralf came back the way their love was described was so deep and meaningful also just for it to be like cooked in the ending
overall i wish there wasnt all the politics nonsense in the book the actual love story itself was amazing nothing like ive ever seen before i really wish we got a happily ever after though

[Aljoša · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the book that i found in Paris on August 19. It was there next to a shop on the windowpane and it was about to start raining. I picked it up, saw that the taglines mentions that the author is "from the school of Julian Barnes" so naturally I took it with me.

I can say that it's an interesting book, set in Paris in the mid-20th century. I kinda has the style and plot of Julian Barnes' books, but not quite. The characters are very interesting, but some of the flashbacks felt unnecessary.
Who would've thought that after discovering Barnes in 2017, that five years later I would find this book in Paris and read it in Belgium? Certainly not me

[Venuskitten · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not only a love story between Ralf and Elsa, but also a portrayal of the human cost of the tumultuous Second World War and its aftermath. The characters move across Europe as time passes across the decades. The book is very well written with three dimensional characters, looking at the effect of world changing events on individuals with a poignancy and clarity that brings the characters into sharp focus.

[Jane Griffiths · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very beautifully written story. The plot is star-crossed lovers. Pictures painted with words.goes a bit quickly from 1950s Paris, where the story is basically set, through mai '68 and the 1970s, the expected and slightly rushed dénouement. Ending a bit inconclusive. But lovely, lovely writing, and I felt I had really met met the people. Ralf and Elsa, both German, one adopted English, the other adopted French. I enjoyed the story.

[Bernadette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let Us be True is one of the best novels I have read this year. It's great on historical detail and the characters are brilliantly realised - but best of all is Christofi's prose, which conveys a wealth of emotion and is at times heart-achingly beautiful. I would definitely recommend!

[Nasia Toska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πραγματικά δεν περίμενα ότι θα μου άρεσε τόσο πολύ αυτό το μυθιστόρημα. Από το πρώτο κεφάλαιο κατάλαβα ότι δεν θα με απογοητεύσει , έτσι και έγινε. Μια ιστορία αγάπης στα μεταπολεμικά χρόνια στο Παρίσι ... Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα τα αξίζει τα πέντε αστεράκια

[Chrysa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another let down... the love story didnt touch me at all ... the only good thing about this book was the writing but still at times got bored especially during the end and it made me skip some pages...

[Ελευθερία · Rating 2 out of 5]

Το είχα ξαναδιαβάσει ένα χρόνο πριν κ δε το θυμόμουν παρά ελάχιστα, κάτι μου θύμιζε διαρκώς. Δε ξέρω τι λέει αυτό για το βιβλίο, δε θυμόμουν ούτε το τέλος. 😂 Κάτι ήθελε να πει, λίγο love story αλλά όχι ακριβώς, λίγο περιγραφή του πολέμου αλλά όχι ακριβώς, λίγο από όλα κ τίποτα συνάμα.

[Xara Zafeiratou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't that convinced with this love story.Decent read though.

[Abi Denner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pessimist romance beautiful but depressing

[Bernie Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hated the ending