Dove Finisce la Notte, Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully translated for the italian version published by Garzanti by Vera Sarzano is a powerful book. At many levels.
It analyzes in fact a fragmented, tormented society not anymore free under all aspects; cultural, human. The claustrophobic sensation of not being in grade of doing anymore normal activities as in the past, like being who the person wants to be or just is or an activity like reading a book by an author appreciated but "banned" by the dictatorship means sadness, poverty, and an important loss of personal freedom; this lack of freedom is revealed in all its powerful devastation.
Yes, it was known that at a certain point Adolf Hitler created a list of unwanted authors, banning them, burning that books on 1933. People who tried their best for making a strong opposition to the regime he created and that would have brought Europe to the last Second World War were not seen well at all.
Thomas Mann one of the favorite authors of our heroine who had created a special and secret place carved in her house for these prohibited books was one of them.
The list of books that were burned included A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, How I Became a Socialist by Helen Keller, The Iron Heel, The Jacket and Martin Eden by Jack London, An Appeal to Reason by Thomas Mann, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, The Outline of History by HG Wells, Monographs about Marc Chagall and Paul Klee, and all books published before 1933 written by Sigmund Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Stefan Zweig, John Dos Passos and many more.
I highly suggest to all of you of reading these authors who made the difference. Hermann Hesse is not in this list but as remarked in the book by the author, he helped some writers in the while. I read most of the production by Hesse when a teenager. Another author you will love a lot.
There is this sense suffocation in that historical period and the author capture it vividly; when situations are so limiting for people, and when any kind of human expression can't be expressed but repressed for fear and when there is the uncertainty of the "other" seen constantly with doubt and suspect and not anymore with the old and dear trust of more happiest periods where liberty meant everything.
The story opens on 1990 with the arrival of a letter "from the past" at the house of an old lady called Martha, pretty methodical. Martha lived a good and serene existence, her day was scheduled perfectly. Not that of course it is not possible to receive beauty news, but she didn't for sure wait anymore new, big, unexpected surprises from the remote past of her existence, and not from her teenage age! but once her post man brought her a letter written many decades ago, she returned to that distant years, when she fell in love for a blond and beautiful boy, later disappeared forever.
It was on 1990 that Maya the nephew of Martha attended a school year in Tarrytown close to NYC. Her granny always said her she had to visit the world, for learning more, for appreciate it.
Her granny would have disappeared in that distant land, and what remained of her discovered after many years from her disappearance. But why that trip? Why the USA, when her granny lived in Germany and, apparently she didn't have connection with the USA?
Martha...She was an avid reader, and she didn't like at all Hitler and the regime he established. She didn't live well the period close to the beginning of the Second World War. She lived with her mom and her twin brother Wolfgang with which in the past she was united. Wolfgang changed a lot with the arrival on scene of Hitler, a dictator he loved so badly. That 1938 was characterized by the the entrance in scene of Siegfried, a boy with which Martha will falls in love with and not just her...; someone not German, someone who worked for the Allies, and for the USA.
Now, let me introduce you the Resort Montgomery, a place with an intricate history.
Everything started when Franz decided to leave Europe for the USA, because of debts he had accumulated in the while. He wasn't a clear person at all and once arrived in the USA and in that corner of the world, so green, so beauty and fascinating, appreciated by a lot of people, President Roosevelt included, he decided that that place would have been his one. He did all his best for ruin the other proprietor of the Resort, mr Stockwell and he would have continued to cause a lot of sadness and unhappiness to everyone close to him, his wife, his children included.
Speaking of children, the arrival of Hans meant a lot of expectations, because Franz thought that Hans would have continued the familiar activity. But Hans was bewitched by the arrival in their resort of Roosevelt and a too much wonderful opportunity he could not refuse. So, Franz, after the marriage of Hans with Elisa, once Hans abandoned the wife, would have had the ungrateful obligation of warming the bed of the young, poor girl left alone, impregnating her various times; that eccentric boy, Hans didn't mind and was in search of freedom from constrictions and a defined future, "marching" in the unknown and in a country, where freedom the word he was searching for, was just a pale memory.
Maya when discovers what happened to her granny flies to the USA and decides to stay at the Resort, understanding pretty soon that her granny was killed, for what seen by the authoptic exam; and maybe there was still a dangerous criminal somewhere free.
Ben is the nephew of mr Montgomery and he organizes that days Maya is in the resort a creative writing course. Thinking that he has in front of her a famous Northern European writer, he suggests her of following the courses. Not only: the two will also become pretty soon in love.
Maya accepts to let believe to people that she is who she isn't. It will be just for a while. The revelation of the murder is written and based on a fairy tale that I would suggest to you of reading very well The Fairy of War and in the forest, where it seems that most of the protagonists of this tale discovered a secure refugee...
The author at the end said that this book was directly inspired by her grand-dad and grand-mother's letters and material that they had accumulated in the while. Stunning!
I found this book impressively fascinating; it sounded as if time was suspended and characters and familiar dynamics were pretty complicated in particular the one of the Montgomery Family.
The author is at her first novel but she was part of movie projects like Contagion, The Marigold Hotel, and the stunning beautiful movie (and book) The Help.
I thank Garzanti for the ebook.
Anna Maria Polidori
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