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Jodi Picoult has a reputation for taking controversial subjects and treating them with a certain delicacy whilst at the same time remaining honest in her approach. This book is always honest in what it attempts to describe, though, the subject matter being what it is, the delicacy is sometimes difficult to maintain. The acknowledgements state that this book was suggested by another - THE SUNFLOWER by Simon Wiesenthal, the hunter of Nazi war criminals. Whilst he was a prisoner in a concentration camp, he was asked by a dying SS soldier to forgive him. The soldier felt that only a Jew could do so. Wiesenthal could not make up his mind and left the room without providing an answer. It is this philosophical question of whether forgiveness for such crimes as those perpetrated by the Nazis is ever possible that informs THE STORYTELLER. It is told from four separate viewpoints, those of Sage Stringer, a young woman who is a baker in New Hampshire, Josef Weber, an old man whom she befriends, Minka, her Jewish grandmother and Leo Stein of the US Justice Department. In addition there are extracts from a continuing story about a village being ravaged by a vampire, clearly intended to mirror events in the main plot. It is by no means easy to ensure that this structure does not become obscure but Picault manages it extremely well and each individual section dovetails neatly into the overall narrative. The effect is rather like that of a choir, in which different voices are skilfully blended. The situation in which Sage finds herself, hiding herself away and attending a grief therapy group, arises from the facial scar resulting from a car accident. She is so conscious of what she regards as her disfigurement that she takes a job in a bakery where she works alone all night and sleeps during the day. She is having an affair with a married man, not because she loves him, but because she expects it to be a temporary arrangement which she will eventually regret. When she meets Josef at her therapy group she is convinced that she has at last found a real friend, even though he is a very old man. The relationship is blossoming when one day he tells her a secret and asks for her help. The core of the novel – the effect of the German invasion of Poland on Jews living there - lies in the stories told by Josef and Minka. Josef provides us with glimpses of German behaviour during the actual invasion as Reiner Hartmann callously shoots an innocent Polish boy who tries in vain to save his life by pointing to himself and saying ‘nineteen'. On another occasion he slaughters a mother and child in a pit, the mother having instructed her little girl not to look but simply to sing a lullaby with her until it is over. Minka's story takes us back to her youth as part of a Jewish family living in the Polish city of Lodz. She is a happy young girl, never more so than when in the company of her friend Darija. This happiness is short-lived, however, when the Germans invade. We are shown the beginning of the 'final solution' in the gas vans of Chelmno and Minka and her family find themselves starving in the Lodz ghetto. All of this, however, is merely a prelude to the horrors of life in Auschwitz and Belsen, by the side of which Minka's fictional account of the murderous vampire pales by comparison. However, this is not simply another telling of the story of the Holocaust in which millions of people were slaughtered. What stands out is the sheer incomprehension of the victims, knowing their innocence of any crime, in the face of behaviour so devoid of all humanity. In the person of Josef, Picault attempts to show the effect, both at the time of the events and subsequently, of such barbarity on the persecutors themselves. In fact, the question of guilt, which Sage argues first with Josef and later with Leo, and the possibility or otherwise of forgiveness is slightly overdone. The discussions become somewhat repetitive and too little is left to the reader's imagination of the reader. This, however, is only a slight niggle in the context what is a very intelligent and always interesting novel. § Arnold Taylor is a retired Examinations Board Officer, amateur writer and even more amateur bridge player.
Reviewed by Arnold Taylor, April 2013
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