In Our Strange Gardens
was named a BookSense 76 Recommended Pick for January 2002! Michel has a
story to tell. It's about his father, an exquisitely common man whose
very ordinariness is a source of grave embarrassment for the boy. It's
also the story told to him by his uncle, who shared a family secret with
the child in the flickering black and white images of a Sunday matinee.
Years before, in the bitter years of World War II, during the Nazi occupation of France, two brothers found themselves at the mercy of a German guard following an explosive act of resistance. Thrown into a deep pit with a small group of terrified prisoners, the men are told that one of them will die by dawn to serve as an example for the others. It's up to the prisoners to propose who will be sacrificed. But in the middle of the night, the guard returns with an extraordinary proposition of his own. A novel of revelation, innocence and ignorance, of the power of language and the strength and complexity of family, In Our Strange Gardens is a fable of nuance and power, a mesmerizing addition to the literature of war. |
A short, reflective piece that would be ideal in schools, telling moral lessons and how heroes grow out of the mundane before a child's eyes. Beautifully written in a poetic, first person point of view, the story is told as an adult looking back toward childhood.
Let's just say this story, for a change, gives a positive reputation for clowns. A neat twist in sobering circumstances, all is happy and better in the end, as people do sometimes truly grow and thrive from tragedy if they overcome. Rather than an actual story, it is composed an introduction, a life changing scene, and an afterword.
Yes, this is a ridiculously short review - so short I considered not putting it up at all - but with the short content length there's not much to say other than the point of the story: the moral lesson.
