The Nightingale Discussion

[rablissful]

I WILL BE BACK TONIGHT

or tomorrow.

I have about an hour left in the book and that's all I'll be doing tonight once I get home.

[onesweetworld]

I forgot to read the book. Oops!

[onesweetworld]

Mar 22, 2016 9:59:57 GMT -5 ugaqueencity said:

Mar 22, 2016 9:57:12 GMT -5 onesweetworld said:

I forgot to read the book. Oops!

 I loved it, but it's definitely emotional and has some major trigger warnings that I wasn't expecting

I think I bought it...

[wannabmama]

I read it and have been waiting to talk about it! I need to get on a computer for full answering capabilities...trying to type it out on Tapatalk might kill me, ha. But I loved the book. I will be back to answer discussion questions when I'm on a computer.
Thanks for getting us going ugaqueencity I enjoyed reading your responses.

[ceejay]

Mar 22, 2016 9:57:12 GMT -5 onesweetworld said:

I forgot to read the book. Oops!

+1!  I kept meaning to get a digital copy from my library but I never did. I promise I'll try harder to read next month!

[mill23]

I'm still on my wait list at the library! But I am looking forward to hearing whether you guys liked it or not.

[butlerfan]

Mar 22, 2016 10:36:40 GMT -5 pippacricket said:

Would it help to have a mid-month check in for those that sometimes forget about the book? Like a "hey guys, how are you liking this book so far?" Or what have you. I know some things are out of your control (library wait lists, busy schedules, etc) but I wonder if checking in would be a helpful reminder for those that would have read the book but it just slipped their mind.

YES!!!!!

[getzystark]

OH! I forgot I was reading this. WHOOOOPSIES. I'll hurry up and read everyone's discussion when I'm done!

[rablissful]

OK I finished this last night but MY EMOTIONS. Plus tired. I promise I will post later.

I agree with a mid-month check in would be helpful. Since there are so many library people, do you think that for this next vote we should plan the next TWO book club books? (IE take the top two that were voted for and have one for April and one for May, then every month vote for the book in two months time? So in April we'll still nominate books and vote, but instead of it being the May book it would be June.) That way library people may be able to actually get the book in time for discussion.

[rablissful]

1. The Nightingale opens with an intriguing statement that lays out one of the major themes of the book: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” What do you think the narrator means by this? Is love the ideal and war the reality? How does war change the way these characters love? How does love influence their actions in the war? On a personal level, has love affected your life choices? Have those choices affected who and how you love?


I think she means exactly what she says. In love we always have this idyllic expectations of ourselves- wanting to be a better person etc. When going through hard times we really find out who we truly are as people- what we can handle, what breaks us, and how tough we can be. 

Isabelle finally found love (sobbing) and opened herself up. She felt true and real love, and not just with Gaet but with her sister and father. 
Vianne did everything she had to out of love for her children. She put up with more than any woman or mother should have to. She then learned how strong she was and started taking chances by helping and protecting other women's children.


2. Take a moment to talk about the narrative structure of The Nightingale. Why do you think Kristin Hannah chose to keep the narrator’s identity a secret in the beginning and end of the novel? Were you surprised by who it turned out to be? Did you go back and reread the beginning of the novel once you finished? Were you satisfied when you discovered who was narrating the novel?

I think she chose to keep the narrator's identity a secret to protect the ending. We know (based on math) it's likely Isabelle or Vianne, we just don't know who. Did Isabelle finally get the life she deserved, or did Vianne finally escape her personal hell? We don't know until the end.

I wasn't necessarily surprised with who it was. I kind of assumed it was her or Isabelle. I was devastated when I found out Isabelle died though. I didn't go back to reread the beginning though since I had started it Sunday. I'll probably reread the entire book again because it was amazing but not anytime soon.




3. The sisters Isabelle and Vianne respond to the war in very different ways. Isabelle reacts with anger and defiance, risking her life to join the resistance against Nazi occupation. Vianne proceeds with caution and fear, avoiding conflicts for the sake of her children. Who do you admire—or relate to, or sympathize with—more, Vianne or Isabelle? Discuss your reasons. You may choose to share your own stories and experiences as well.


I want to be Isabelle but I'm more of a Vianne. I am very much a "do whatever I can to get through this hell without getting in too much trouble" kind of person. I would probably do what Vianne did, quiet behind the scenes defiance versus outward going to fight.




4. Isabelle’s niece Sophie admires her aunt’s courage: “Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.” Do you agree? Is it better to take a risk and fail than never try at all? Do you think you could have acted as heroically as Isabelle under such horrifying circumstances? Who is more heroic in your mind—Isabelle or Vianne?


I think both sisters are heroic in their own way. Isabelle was at a place in her life where she could jump full force into the war to combat the Nazis- her only attachments were her sister and father (and both of those relationships were strained). Vianne could not really do that without risking the lives of her children. She fought for peace and safety at home. She fought to keep her children safe, which is just as important.


Isabelle may have outwardly fought the Nazis by finding a path across the mountains to rescue downed pilots. Vianne forged papers to help save Jewish children. They should both be recognized for their efforts because they both fought the war, even if it was in very different ways.




5. Each of the sisters experiences love in a different way. Vianne’s love is that of a mature woman, a wife and a mother devoted to her family; Isabelle’s love is youthful and impulsive, more of a girlish dream than a reality. How did Isabelle’s feelings of abandonment shape her personality and her life? How did Vianne’s maternal love lead to acts of heroism, saving the lives of Jewish children? How did love—and war—bring these two sisters closer together?


Isabelle turned into someone constantly seeking recognition. She needs to be noticed and she wants to be loved. This shaped her into wanting to take action, to DO something no matter the risk. 

Vianne is all about her children, and she was astonished when she found out that other children were being harmed. She couldn't let that stand as a mother. She would risk anything for her children, and that extends to others. 

The war brought them together because no matter what their differences are, they are doing what they do out of love. They finally realized that love is what is most important and that they had completely wasted their time together.


6. Take a moment to talk about Beck. Is he a sympathetic character? Did you believe he was a good man, or was he just trying to seduce Vianne. Did he deserve his fate?


Oh Beck. I didn't know whether to love him or hate him. I do think he was a good man who got in way over his head. He loved his wife and his children. I think that they both were guilty of falling for each other given the circumstances- him helping her and her helping him. Not to mention living together and being stressed...

I don't think he deserved his fate. There were plenty of Nazi's that did. I'm glad he didn't catch Isabelle though!


That being said he was still a Nazi so I have to hate him a little bit.




7. When Isabelle works with Anouk and other women of the French resistance, she notices “the wordless bond of women.” What does she mean? Do you agree that women who come from different backgrounds but share a common path can create a silent bond with other women? Why do you think this is so?


I think she means that women intuitively understand others in similar situations. It reminds me of here. I don't know many of you but we are all going through something similar which bonds us together even though some of us are from different countries, are different ages, vastly different backgrounds. 


8. Vianne recalls her husband Antoine telling her that “we choose to see miracles.” What does he mean by this? Is it his way of telling his wife he knows the truth about their son’s biological father? Or is it his way of looking at life, of coping with the terrible events they’ve lived through? Is seeing the beauty in the world an active choice? Is it possible to find miracles in our lives, if we look for them?


I'm not sure if he really knew. I'd like to think so and that he was ok with it. Either way, I think it was his way of seeing past the hell of war and looking for the good (exact opposite of V & I's father). 

Seeing beauty is definitely an active choice. Look at V & I's father. He came back from the war and shut out his daughter's and wife. He couldn't see the good anymore. Antoine is making the conscious decision to look for hope and for good and for joy. It would be very easy for him to go inward and break down, but he didn't.




9. Discuss the scene in which Ari is taken away. What do you believe is the right answer in this situation—if there is one? What would you have done in Vianne’s position?



FEELINGS. ALL OF THEM. I cried and cried at this part. 

I don't believe there was a right answer in this situation. I think there should have been compromise though. He was old enough that he obviously remembered Vianne and Sophie so late in life. I don't think it was right to cut him completely out. Did his biological family have every right to raise him in the Jewish community? Absolutely. But I do not think it was right to deny him any access whatsoever to Vianne and Sophie.

I don't know what I would have done in V's position. Her hands were tied.


10. Finally, a show of hands: Who cried—or at least got a little choked up—while reading this book? Which scenes moved you the most? Which character’s fate would you say was the most tragic? The most poignant? The most harrowing? Did the book give you a better understanding of life under Nazi occupation during World War II? Did it move you, inspire you, haunt you? And finally, what will you remember most about The Nightingale?


ALL THE CRYING.

I think Vianne and Isabelle were both tragic in their own ways. Isabelle was finally about to have a life with love and laughter when she died. Vianne, on the other hand, lost her self-respect, her sister, her father, and her adopted son and had to live with that.

This book simultaneously will haunt and inspire me. My mom is a WW2 junkie so I already had a pretty good idea what life was like, but this book put me there. 

[shopgirl24]

I'll be back to post my answers later tonight. I didn't get to finish them last night. Loved the book, even if it did break my heart at the end.

[thechickencoop]

Dammit book club. Add me to the forgot-about-it list.

Adding this to my queue now.

And, side note, queue is a fucking weird word. It just took me forever to figure out how to spell it.

[rablissful]

Mar 23, 2016 19:40:43 GMT -5 pippacricket said:

Ok can we address the son, Julian for a second here? I don't know why but that keeps sticking out in my head. Does he have a right to know who his biological father is? What if he somehow finds out through DNA in the future that he's of German descent? Or maybe I'm just making an issue out of nothing lol. But for some reason this has been bugging me!

Knowing the older generation, it is not abnormal that he doesn't know anything about his past, the war, etc. They didn't really talk about things like we do now.

[daisy818]

So many days late - I read the book as soon as it was posted, then took about a week to get over the uncontrolled feels/crying, and then this week I have been too swamped at work to post! But here goes:

1. The Nightingale opens with an intriguing statement that lays out one of the major themes of the book: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” What do you think the narrator means by this? Is love the ideal and war the reality? How does war change the way these characters love? How does love influence their actions in the war? On a personal level, has love affected your life choices? Have those choices affected who and how you love? I viewed this as being about the aspirational nature of love - we want to be the best person of ourselves to those we love - and the survivalist nature of war - it truly pushes you to the very edges of what you are capable of doing to survive. Love both pushes both women to do what they do, but it also shapes what they ultimately find themselves capable of doing.


2. Take a moment to talk about the narrative structure of The Nightingale. Why do you think Kristin Hannah chose to keep the narrator’s identity a secret in the beginning and end of the novel? Were you surprised by who it turned out to be? Did you go back and reread the beginning of the novel once you finished? Were you satisfied when you discovered who was narrating the novel? I understood the ploy, and I did keep trying to guess who the narrator was. I was hoping it was Isabelle, and after I realized that it was Vianne I just knew that Isabelle was going to die. So many tears.


3. The sisters Isabelle and Vianne respond to the war in very different ways. Isabelle reacts with anger and defiance, risking her life to join the resistance against Nazi occupation. Vianne proceeds with caution and fear, avoiding conflicts for the sake of her children. Who do you admire—or relate to, or sympathize with—more, Vianne or Isabelle? Discuss your reasons. You may choose to share your own stories and experiences as well. I definitely felt more connected to Isabelle. Vianne's behavior, while understandable, just wasn't my style. I don't think I would have been as amazing a rebel as Isabelle, but I would have had feelings more akin to Isabelle than Vianne.


4. Isabelle’s niece Sophie admires her aunt’s courage: “Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.” Do you agree? Is it better to take a risk and fail than never try at all? Do you think you could have acted as heroically as Isabelle under such horrifying circumstances? Who is more heroic in your mind—Isabelle or Vianne? Both women did heroic acts, but I definitely found Isabelle to be the more heroic. Especially when I was Isabelle's age, I definitely would rather take a risk to than do nothing at all. As I said before, I don't think I would have been as amazing as Isabelle, but I think I would have gone down fighting rather than trying to just live quietly under the Nazi regime.


5. Each of the sisters experiences love in a different way. Vianne’s love is that of a mature woman, a wife and a mother devoted to her family; Isabelle’s love is youthful and impulsive, more of a girlish dream than a reality. How did Isabelle’s feelings of abandonment shape her personality and her life? How did Vianne’s maternal love lead to acts of heroism, saving the lives of Jewish children? How did love—and war—bring these two sisters closer together? I think Isabelle's feelings of abandonment definitely shaped her actions - she felt as though she had nothing to lose, and when you have nothing to lose you are better able to take extraordinary risks. Vianne had a great deal to lose, but she also due to her own love she could not bear to let the Jewish children fall into the hands of the Nazis. As both sisters grew to understand loss and doing what you must to save something (either French independence for Isabelle and the children for Vianne) the sisters grew to understand and appreciate each other in a way they never did before.


6. Take a moment to talk about Beck. Is he a sympathetic character? Did you believe he was a good man, or was he just trying to seduce Vianne. Did he deserve his fate? Oh Beck. He was so complicated and I just couldn't figure out how I felt! On one hand, he seemed like a genuinely good guy who got in over his head when he thought he was just doing his patriotic duty by joining the German army. But then when Vianne saw him with the whip, or hoarding food as people starved, and, you know, the fact that he was still a Nazi, I began to fear that his kindness to Vianne was an act. I did find myself growing to like him by the end, and I was so saddened by his death (it was the only time in the novel that I was truly mad at Isabelle - why did she have to stupidly bring the dead airman there?? She put Vianne and Sophie in danger and was the reason for Beck's death) He certainly didn't deserve to die as he did, even though I was very glad that Vianne and Isabelle were not caught. I kept thinking about his little wife and children who would never know what happened to him, only that he disappeared.


7. When Isabelle works with Anouk and other women of the French resistance, she notices “the wordless bond of women.” What does she mean? Do you agree that women who come from different backgrounds but share a common path can create a silent bond with other women? Why do you think this is so?
I can see, particularly at that time in history, how women in the resistance would have had a wordless understanding that was different than that of men. To work with the resistance was to shatter the expectations of women, and to engage in such work they would have recognized in each other a certain strength and drive to not simply follow the role that women were to have.

8. Vianne recalls her husband Antoine telling her that “we choose to see miracles.” What does he mean by this? Is it his way of telling his wife he knows the truth about their son’s biological father? Or is it his way of looking at life, of coping with the terrible events they’ve lived through? Is seeing the beauty in the world an active choice? Is it possible to find miracles in our lives, if we look for them?
I definitely took his statement as him conveying to her that he knew and understood the truth about the baby but that he was choosing to accept the story she had told him about her baby's conception (which would have been miraculous), and in turn he was choosing to move forward as a family in a positive way. He was making a choice to see the world as he wanted to see it, and he wanted live his life with Vianne no matter what had happened. We always have the choice as to how we view and respond to the world around us.

9. Discuss the scene in which Ari is taken away. What do you believe is the right answer in this situation—if there is one? What would you have done in Vianne’s position? I definitely initially reacted by thinking how horrible it was to take Ari away, and I was so saddened by the whole scene. It was truly heartbreaking. But I also (later) was able to accept that the Jewish people had suffered so immensely and any chance to unify orphans with relatives was an important part of the healing that was necessary after the war. It was a situation where I understood and agreed with the big picture, but the specific example of Ari was just so terribly sad. I def cried a lot when they were reunited at the end.


10. Finally, a show of hands: Who cried—or at least got a little choked up—while reading this book? Which scenes moved you the most? Which character’s fate would you say was the most tragic? The most poignant? The most harrowing? Did the book give you a better understanding of life under Nazi occupation during World War II? Did it move you, inspire you, haunt you? And finally, what will you remember most about The Nightingale? So much crying. I cried about their dad sacrificing himself. And I got upset when Beck died. And I cried during most of the reunion part at the end. BUT worst was when Isabelle died. I seriously was just kept thinking, "This is bullshit! She survived the concentration campe and Gaet came to find her and then she DIES?!?" I was especially annoyed since Isabelle was pretty closely modeled after a real woman (down to the same concentration camps) and she lived to a ripe old age, dying in 2007. I sort of hate how authors feel the need to add all sorts of sads to a story to make it "deeper." It would have still been a great novel if Isabelle and Gaet had lived a long happy life together (and I would have still cried, but it would have been happy crying).

Also, I'm tearing up at the office just writing about this book.

[daisy818]

Mar 25, 2016 20:19:11 GMT -5 pippacricket said:

Mar 25, 2016 19:41:51 GMT -5 ugaqueencity said:

daisy818, I feel the same way about Beck but you were able to word it so much better.

Also, who was Isabelle's character based on? I really wanted to read more on the resistance but was so heartbroken by the book's ending that I decided not to, knowing the real person survived has peaked my interest again

The author used Andreé de Jongh as inspiration for Isabelle.

Says Wikipedia. I'm not actually that smart.

Or maybe I am...

SPOILER: Click to show

I'm not

Here's the page on her. She was super badass. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrée_de_Jongh