"Two Lives" by Vikram Seth

Date: 08 November 2009 21:12:27

[I wonder if the picture thing works - I followed Auntie Doris's instructions so hopefully it will do the trick!] [Hooray!] "Two Lives" is the true story, built up from interviews and letters, of the lives of Vikram Seth's uncle and aunt, Shanti and Henny. The story is fascinating, as it encompasses both Indian and European history - Shanti and Henny met in the 1930s in Berlin where he was a student there and lodged with Henny's family. At the start of the war Henny (who was Jewish) managed to get out to England and work there (her beloved mother and sister died in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz respectively), whilst Shanti saw active duty, losing an arm at Monte Cassino. After the war they continued to live in London, although they did not marry until the early 1950s when they were both in their early 40s, and she never returned to Berlin, although she stayed in touch with many of her circle of friends from before the war. Henny died in 1989, Shanti about 10 years later. This is a really compelling read, with a picture of their lives, histories, and relationship built up in retrospect following interviews with Shanti in the last few years of his life, letters from him to Henny during the war, and through Henny's letters to Shanti and her family and friends in Berlin and wider until the 1950s. They were quite an odd couple in many ways, and the book touches on their unusual relationship - although clearly devoted to each other, the letters between Henny and her friends show a side of her that Shanti clearly didn't know, including a relationship with a female friend with whom she lodged in London during the war that is rather ambiguous. There is also a lot of heartbreaking detail about the Nazi concentration camps, in order to place what her family went through into context - it's definitely not a cheerful read at times. Interestingly, given the times, the fact that theirs was a mixed-race marriage is not really touched on at all. Shanti himself says it wasn't an issue, and there seems to be no mention of it at all in Henny's correspondence, her friends and family appeared to just completely accept him. The main mention of racism is when Vikram's younger brother comes to England and has an awful time in Leicester, and this is compared with Shanti's experience, but I would have been interested to have known a bit more about the marriage itself from this perspective. I'd very much recommend this book though. I think Vikram Seth (who is one of my favourite authors) gives a very fair and sympathetic portrayal of two complex and at times quite difficult people, despite something that happened at the end of Shanti's life which Vikram found really difficult to reconcile with his relationship with his uncle. Actually, reading this reminded me of how I felt when I read his novels, particularly "A Suitable Boy" (which is up there in my top 2 or 3 novels ever) - it wasn't always a comfortable read, but I was totally drawn into the lives of the people I was reading about, and really wanted to know what happened next. Our next book group book is also set in Nazi Germany (and is I think the 4th book dealing with Nazi Germany and/or the Holocaust that we've read this year), so I think I'm going to try and read another book on a different subject before returning to the book for the group. That has had rave reviews so I'm looking forward to that, even though of course it will probably be quite harrowing.