Customer Reviews

Charlotte Gray

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I read Charlotte Gray with great interest. At time it was for me so emotionally upsetting I had to stop reading for a while until I recovered my composure. As a former SOE agent, having been dropped in France during WWII I was faced with some very similar conditions. It brought back to my mine some forgotten incidents. This book may be fiction, but it describes very accurately the real French Resistance and not the one described by Hollywood, or those who wished they had been involved. I was so disappointed with the attitude and the behavior of my former countrymen that I did not return to France for forty years. Charlotte Gray explains why very clearly.

Rene J. Defourneaux, Major US Army (Ret.) Author of The Winking Fox, and of The Tracks of the Fox.

Like most of the other reviewers here I found that Charlotte Gray didn't come close to Birdsong - but maybe it is unfair to compare the too. Charlotte is a good read. I came to care deeply about all of the characters and was eager to see what would happen to them. The one part of the story that rings false is the love story between Charlotte and Peter. Much like the granddaughter in Birdsong, this plot seemed contrived as a way to tell the rest of the story. Faulks is at his best describing life in "Free" France and the people who lived there. His prose brings the landscape and even the smells to life. From anyone else this would have probably been considered a wonderful book, maybe it's just that from Faulks we've come to expect a bit more.

I must say that I'm dismayed by several of the reviews that I've read here. The general consensus is that Birdsong is Faulks masterpiece and anything that is written and read afterward by Faulks must measure up to this. Fortunately, I've not read Birdsong so I'm not predisposed toward an opinion of Faulks. However, after reading Charlotte Gray, I will read Birdsong because this man can write like few others around. His ability to weave a story leaves no doubt in my mind that this is a writer who has extraordinary talent. Charlotte Gray was a very plausible story and so multi-leveled that I fail to understand how someone could not like it. Certainly it is not a profound masterpiece with universal insights that will enrich the minds of generations of readers. But it is a very well plotted story with a ton of information that very few people that are still alive today would know about Vichy France and the lives of ordinary people both in England and France that it affected. And, Charlotte Gray is an ordinary person in many respects which some of the reviewers fail to remember. What do they expect that all women who helped out in the war effort did superhuman tasks and that only the bravest or craziest are worth writing about? Get real people, most of the heroes and heroines are largely unimaginative people whom you wouldn't pay much attention to you if you knew them! Faulks has done an admirable job telling a story that's been told many times before but with a decidedly different point of view. He draws you into his characters and makes you want to know what is going to happen to them. This is a page turner that will leave any thinking person with more than they started with by the book's end. He has nothing to be ashamed of with Charlotte Gray and has an enthusiastic fan that will relish reading his Birdsong.

I have had to reflect upon Faulks' 'Charlotte Gray' for some time to refrain from critcising it unduly. This is, quite genuinely, a convincing and well-woven story that will greatly appeal to first time readers of Faulks, yet still it may be a slight disappointment to those who have read 'Birdsong'.

In itself, 'Charlotte Gray' is an accomplished novel by a gifted storyteller. - Our eponymous heroine is a complex and fairly intriuging lady, but in my opinion was less well conceived than the characters who accompany her in wartime France. The Jewish father and son, who aid Charlotte in the Resistance and in her search for her missing lover, are particularly compelling.

In criticism, the concentration camps present in 'Charlotte Gray' would have benefited from the visceral style Faulks' employed in his description of the First World War trenches of 'Birdsong'. Unfortunately, the horrors of the Second World War are not described with the clarity or power present in his earlier book.

....This bestseller (why?!) reads like a male fantasy as the woman lives, and will happily die, for a man that she doesn't really know. Of course, she's also a virgin before Peter comes along.... Also, having some knowledge of the reality of the Resistance and the FANYs, I found Charlotte's invitation to join and rapid ascent incredible. Did Faulks even interview a woman who had been in this area of the war? A far truer account can be found in "Full Moon to France" - an actual true memoir of an American socialite's amazing heroism in the FANYs and with the French Resistance, which she accomplished despite her own eternal and internal terror. Plus she's gutsy and impetuous and says what she thinks!

Jam-packed with twists and turns, Sebastian Faulks' `Charlotte Gray' is definitely a worthwhile. I'll admit I was, at first, sceptical about reading the book, as I feared it would be another demeaning drama about some poor distressed damsel during the war, however, I was honestly taken back by Charlotte's independence, determination and inspirational courage.
Rife with emotional intensity and interesting plots, it was a pleasure to travel with her to France where she hoped to assist in the revolution while searching for Gregory, her lover, a British who is presumed dead by all but the ever-hopeful Charlotte. In France, the plot divides in two, on one hand we follow the trials and tribulations of Charlotte, and on the other we take an in-depth look at WWII in occupied France.
This book provides a stark but accurate picture of the horrors of the Holocaust, without taking from Charlotte's own personal predicaments. I've actually read it three times now, and on every occasion I've discovered some new detail or aspect that has kept me constantly enthralled. You should read this book; it's not just a worthwhile read - it's an experience.

I finished reading Charlotte Gray last night and I woke this morning trying to understand it. I am not sure I understand, still, the narrative relationship of the story of a young, somewhat naive, Scottish girl to that of a group of French villagers struggling to survive under Vichy France. I have not understood Faulks message here.

However, this is nevertheless a marvellous book because it presents an aspect of World War II that I had never really thought about before. I was quite ignorant of the complicity of the French towards their German occupiers. This was quite shocking to me. I wish the whole book was set in Vichy and that we did not have to deal with the storyline of Charlotte and Peter Gregory. The real heart of the novel is the story of the Levades and the story of occupied France. I recommend this book to anyone who would be interested in a different insight to the war.

Charlotte Gray is a wonderful sequel to Birdsong. It is true that is does not quite reach the emotional intensity of its predecessor, but it is still a great book, thunderously entertaining. Faulks is an inspired writer who can flesh out complex characters in an amazing way.

Of course, there were parts of the novel that I liked more than others. I didn't care much about the conflict between Charlotte and her father, or the way it was resolved. I also felt that the pace of the novel is uneven, slow at first but gradually increasing until the frenzy of the last section. Faulks does better when he recreates the atmosphere of the occupied French town. Of all the characters, I found Julien the most interesting, and Andre and Jacob's story completely drained me emotionally. I also loved how Faulks included references and characters from The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Birdsong.

For people who would like to know more about the activities of the English SOE agents in France, I heartily recommend reading " A Quiet Courage", by Liane Jones (unfortunately out of print according to Amazon.com). This book is a real account of the activities of the English women sent as agents during World War II to France to help organise French resistance.

For an entertaining and involving read, try Charlotte Gray. You won't be disappointed!

What I like about this novel is the same sort of thing I like about writers like Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy, David Anthony Durham and Maria Doria Russell. Namely, they're literary writers who aren't afraid to write a novel with a plot. With drama. With love stories and betrayals. With small people caught up in big moments in history. That's absolutely grand. I wish there were more novelists like them. I don't think Sebastian Faulks is quite as good a writer as any of the above, but he does deliver in a great many ways. The opening scene as Peter Gregory crash lands his plane is marvelous, full of danger and action straight away. I commend him for making a female character the focus of what's essentially a war novel, or, at least, a war/resistance novel. So that's the good part.

The book does falter, though, with many of Charlotte's improbable decisions. She's so determined and skilled and focused it's hard to believe. At the same time some of the love scene material is over the top and in general a bit maudlin. You could blame it on the character, but the author seems to want us to believe as Charlotte does.

So, it's not perfect. But it's not a bad read either. If the subject matter interests you do give it a try. It's entertaining, if not a masterpiece.

The story of Charlotte is peripheral to the eventual all-pervading horror of the treatment of Andre and Jacob. In its never-ending awfulness, you want, desperately, to reach into the book and save them. Of course you cannot and so are but a helpless observer as they pass from one hell to a worse one and then on to their deaths. I have never felt so emotionally drained by a book. I now carry these images with me. I wish I didn't but I know I, and everyone else, should. The final 150 pages are very difficult to come to terms with. But then, why should we ever find it easy to come to terms with genocide?
"It's only a story," someone said to me. Except, of course, it is anything but.