Customer Reviews

Resistance

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Resistance was the fourth of Anita Shreve's books that I've read. I've just finished it, and find myself haunted by both the characters and the setting. It is an incredibly tense story, and each turn of the page is exciting and dreadful, as the reader becomes more and more afraid for the characters. When I reached the end, I simply sat down and cried. This book brought home to me, more than anything else, how fortunate we all are to sleep peacefully in our beds at night, quietly and without fear. A wonderful book.

RESISTANCE by Anita Shreve
January 6, 2007

Amazon rating 3/5

I've read a few books by Anita Shreve and I have to say, this is my least favorite. Usually, I can count on Anita Shreve to pull me in and keep me totally glued to the pages of the book until the very end. EDEN CLOSE, WEIGHT OF WATER, FORTUNE'S ROCKS, THE LAST TIME THEY MET... all these books were great reading. For some reason RESISTANCE failed to draw me in, which is unfortunate because the subject matter was yet another opportunity for a wonderfully told story by Shreve. RESISTANCE takes place in Belgium and focuses on an American pilot whose plane falls near a small Belgian village. His life is saved by a young boy and is hid away from the rest of the village in the home of a woman and her husband who are part of the Resistance, helping to save lives that are endangered by the German Nazis.

Claire Daussouis is the woman who takes the American, Ted Brice, into hiding, and nurses him back to health. The two eventually start an affair, a time in their lives that becomes more treasured than they had expected. They know their time together is limited because of the war, but Ted is hoping that maybe he can find a way to stay with her, despite the fact that she is married to another man, a man that she has hinted she does not really love.

RESISTANCE was full of intrigue and danger but for me, it was the telling of the story that I think fell short. There were way too many characters introduced in the first few chapters that I failed to connect with anyone, including the American pilot. I have to say the overall story is tragic, and while a better-written book would have had me in tears, I didn't shed one because I just did not really connect with Claire or Ted. The ending of the story should have been more satisfying than it was, taking the story into modern times. But again, because I had not related to the two main characters, I was not moved as much as I should have been. To be fair, the story in itself was worth reading about, and it has been a while since I've read a book that took place during W.W.II, but from a master writer such as Anita Shreve, I had expected much more.

I'm a major Shreve fan, and her new Fortune's Rocks is, I think, her best. But Resistance is my next favorite. In this remarkable love story, Shreve captures the delicate balance between passion and loyalty that besets any romatnic triangle, but becomes so much more poignant set as it is in the world of anti-Nazi resistance, where both husband and lover are clearly good men. A beautiful book.

"Resistance" was a most readable story that took place in a small window of time during World War II in Belgium. An American B-17 plane crash-lands and the crew is spirited off to nearby safe houses by members of the Belgian Resistance. The story focuses on Claire, a local woman in an unhappy marriage, and Ted Brice, the pilot.

Shreve depicts the seemingly hopeless situation, tempered by hope, in the face of wartime hardships and the risks that the Resistance members took on a daily basis.

I found the ending a bit contrived and rushed, with some questionable aspects.

This is a story that encompasses only a little more than a month in the thousands of days of war, but it is a story of great emotional intensity. I cannot remember when I read a book this quickly.

I love Anita Shreve books but when I started to read this I realized it must be based on the true story of a village (in France?) that hid soldiers (British, I believe) during World War I and a daughter was conceived between one of the soldiers and a village girl. There is a nonfiction book about it entitled "The Englishman's Story" or something to that effect. The premise was unoriginal. I felt like I was reading a wartime version of "The Bridges of Madison County." But aside from that I admit I still enjoyed it to some extent and found it hard to put down. Then I came to the part when the couple go into another village that was too simply and conveniently explained away by stating that they wanted to be together in public. (ARE THEY CRAZY!?) It seemed as if she was rushed to come up with a way that he is caught (or how you think he is caught) but it was so bizarre. Up until then they barely walk out the door for fear of being discovered, then suddenly decide to go have a drink in a public cafe. I found it ludicrous and one small detail like that can almost ruin a book for me.

Great romance! I loved the way Ms. Shreve developed such a vision of emotional and physical attraction between two characters that didn't fluently speak each other's language. No need to speak, the attraction was passionately evident in the written word. No need for Ted or Claire to ever speak in "I love you" contexts. The characters were beautifully illustrated, their features clear, their affects imaginable. The book is a pleasing, quick read. I was satisfied with the conclusion, it brought a perfect sense of closure to the story. Guess I'm offering just a "3 star" because "The Pilot's Wife" was my first Anita Shreve read (definitely a 5 star) and because I had a tough time at the start of "Resistance" (well, maybe more than just the start) being able to quickly reference character names with their role in the story line. The pronunciation of the names made it difficult to quickly recall, without re-reading previous pages, who exactly this person was and what their character brought to the story. Sure, "Ted" or "Claire" were a sinch, but I truly floundered with the Belgians. (forgive my ethnocentricity). Definitely worth struggling through the Dinants, the Dauvins, the Daussois', the Omloops, and the Chabotauxs however. Don't let my handicap disuade you from reading the book!

Just finished Resistance today and can't stop thinking about it. A slow start but as the story unfolded, I couldn't put it down. And I thought The Pilots Wife was good!

With this story, Anita Shreve has given a personal face to a very sensitive piece of world history. It was romantic in an "English Patient" sort of way, but also quite heartbreaking in its brutal descriptions of torture, executions and beatings, and in its overall sadness and hopelessness. For that reason, I can't say that reading this book was an enjoyable experience, but it was brilliantly written with impeccable attention to detail and well-developed plot and characters. It held me so captivated that I read all 222 pages in one sitting.

In THE RESISTANCE, Anita Shreve takes a very sad time in world history and writes a poignant story which lets us see that when good people take a stand against injustice, that stand makes an incalculable difference.
This is the World War II story of a small Belgian town and its "underground" network of ordinary citizens who transport condemned anti-Germans to freedom.
THE RESISTANCE gives a visual and distressing picture of World War II, the people and the daily hardships they faced. It shows their hope in what could easily be perceived as a hopeless situation.
The main characters are Ted Brice, a downed American fighter pilot and Claire, a Belgian housewife, two people who are brought together by Ted's need to use the resistance network and Claire's house which is one of the stops along the line. Though neither intends it, a relationship develops between them that produces that "one-in-a-lifetime" bond.
This book was hard to get started with because of the depressing times, but once started, it was harder still to put down.

This was my second book by Shreve, Fortune's Rocks being my first. Without a doubt, Anita Shreve is one of my favorite authors. She astounds me with her brilliant writing and ability to touch emotions to the core.
The fact that I've visited the area in Belgium she writes about and also the fact that my father was at Normandy for the invasion made this story all the more powerful for me.
I believe when one chooses to read a book called "Resistance" one cannot expect a "happy" ending. It was a horrific time in our history and Shreve did an incredible job of portraying this. I admit some parts of the story on what the Gestapo did in the villages were very graphic.....graphic but real. Yes, the story was disturbing when one realizes it is fact. But I also feel (and I'm paraphrasing) "When one forgets history, one is doomed to repeat history."
The love affair Shreve tells of Claire and Ted was not only poignant but I'm sure based on thousands of stories very similar. I thought she captured it best with Ted's thoughts, "And he himself knew that the war itself had changed the rules, twisted them beyond all recognition." This is exactly what war does. It's unavoidable. I feel people hurt more and love more during war.....just as Claire and Ted did. Shreve beautifully captured this love and the pain and horror that surrounded all of it.
Realistically, the story/love affair could end no other way. I believe the reader knows this from the first page and this particular reader wants to thank Anita Shreve for a passionate love story combined with a realistic account of the heartbreaking tragedy of war. I highly recommend this book and at just 222 pages, it's a quick read difficult to put down. To quote the LA Times, "I reached the last chapter with hungry eyes, wanting more." And more for me is to now read "Eden Close" and continue soaking up this tremendous author and her powerful prose.