Sarah Gainham (1915–1999)
Autor von Night Falls on the City
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Wissenswertes
- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Ames, Sarah Rachel Stainer
- Geburtstag
- 1915-10-01
- Todestag
- 1999-11-24
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- UK
- Geburtsort
- Islington, London, England, UK
- Sterbeort
- Petronell, Austria
- Wohnorte
- Islington, London, England, UK (birth)
Newbury, Berkshire, England, UK
Berlin, Germany
Bonn, Germany
Trieste, Italy
Vienna, Austria (Zeige alle 7)
Petronell, Austria - Berufe
- journalist
novelist - Organisationen
- The Spectator
- Preise und Auszeichnungen
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- Kurzbiographie
- Rachel Stainer was born in Islington, north London, and attended secondary school at Newbury. She moved to Vienna, originally to work for the Four Power Commission and later as the Central Europe correspondent for the Spectator. In 1947, she married Antony Terry, a journalist; this ended in divorce. In 1964, she married Kenneth Ames, also a journalist. Her fiction works were published under the pen name of Sarah Gainham, which she took in honor of her maternal great-grandmother. Sarah Gainham set nearly all her novels in Central Europe, a region she knew intimately from her work and travels, and achieved a reputation as a perceptive chronicler of the immediate post-World War II years. Her reports of the early days in Berlin before the death of Stalin and before the Berlin Wall was built, when the espionage and propaganda battles of the Cold War were in full force, were especially appreciated by other journalists.
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- Werke
- 16
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- 229
- Beliebtheit
- #98,340
- Bewertung
- 3.6
- Rezensionen
- 6
- ISBNs
- 35
- Sprachen
- 1
Plot in a Nutshell
Night Falls in the City opens in Vienna in 1938 on the Eve of the Anschluss. Julia Homburg is an actress and her husband Franz, a left wing politician who is also Jewish. Both are initially reluctant to recognise the changes coming and then drawn into intrigue needed to protect Franz and his family . The novel spans the course of the war and follows Julia and her friends as they adjust to life under the Nazis as their enlightened world changes beyond recognition.
Thoughts
Night Falls in the City is not a novel to rush with. I initially struggled to embrace the story through the first 5-100 pages. It was written in the late 60’s and at times this shows in the language. Sentences are very long and often complex and I found myself having to re-read paragraphs from time to time. There is also a large cast of characters introduced early on in the novel. They predominantly represent the liberal intelligentsia and interconnect. There is also an assumption that the reader understands some of the more recent history of Austria which characters refer to regularly without a great deal of explanation. It is however very much worth sticking with.
The novel worked on two levels for me. I was fascinated by the characters who felt incredibly real. The Austrian cast were privileged and painted with all their flaws – be it Julia’s arrogance and coldness or Hella’s parsimony and need to be seen to be successful. Gainham also avoids caricature when describing the small number of German soldiers, policeman and bureaucrats who become part of Julia’s world. I was quickly invested in seeing how they coped with and survived the increasingly difficult environment.
Beyond the characters and their experiences Gainham also tells a mirroring story of Vienna (and to a lesser extent Austria). The story opens on a beautiful, enlightened City but the Anschluss quickly highlights the darker parts of life that were not far from the surface. As we follow Julia we also follow Vienna as compromises are made until by the end of the novel the city is dirty and heavily damaged.
Gainham writes with a huge amount of detail. We see the inner thought processes of a number of the characters and the City is also presented in tiny details. There is moral ambiguity throughout; we see the unconscious and accepted bias that many had for not just the Jewish people, but also gypsies and the Slavic nations. Early in the novel there is a scene of horrific violence against an elderly Jewish man; most turn away and do nothing.
In a Europe where the far right is again on the rise the novel offers a timely and sometimes difficult insight into where appeasement and compromise can lead.
A final note whilst this works as a stand alone novel it is in fact the first in a trilogy. I will be seeking the final two books out… (mehr)