The Year Is '42: A Novel - Softcover

Bielski, Nella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400076641 ISBN 13: 9781400076642

Publisher: Vintage, 2006

Synopsis

Wehrmacht officer Karl Bazinger is living the high life in Occupied Paris. But with his glamorous dinner companions and his open disdain for the Nazis, he begins to attract the attention of the SS. He is drawn into further trouble when he receives a suspicious visit from a friend who may be involved in resistance activities. To lower his profile, Karl requests a transfer to Kiev, where he discovers the extent of the Nazi atrocities. He then begins to suffer from a mysterious ailment, and through the ministrations of a beautiful Russian doctor, he finds his vital reconnection to hope. Urbane, subtle, and elegiac, The Year is ’42 is a moving portrait of ordinary lives lived under the extraordinary circumstances of war.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

In this intimate novel about ordinary lives lived under the extraordinary circumstances of war, we meet Karl Bazinger, a sophisticated Wehrmacht officer who is living the high life in Occupied Paris. With his French girlfriend, his glamorous dinner companions (Coco Chanel, Jean Cocteau, and a suspected spy for the British), and his open disdain for the Nazis, Karl begins to attract the attention of the SS. He is drawn into further trouble when he receives a suspicious visit from Hans, his best friend from Saxony, who may be involved in resistance activities. To lower his profile, Karl requests a transfer to the Eastern Front and sets off on a journey into a very different experience of war.
As a terrible fate for Hans is sealed, Karl is posted to Kiev, where he discovers the extent of the Nazi atrocities in the region and begins to suffer from a mysterious nervous ailment. In the novel's final twist, the ministrations of an "enemy" doctor--a beautiful, stoic Russian woman with her own painful history--will heal Karl and offer him a vital connection to hope and goodness in the midst of hell.
The Year Is '42 communicates the enormity of war with immediacy and intelligence. Urbane, subtle, and elegiac, this small masterpiece captures the myriad gradations of moral position that war demands of those who serve, those who resist, and those who stand and wait.

"From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author:

Nella Bielski was born in the Ukraine and studied philosophy at Moscow University. Living in Paris, she writes in French and is the author of several novels including Oranges for the Son of Alexander Levy and After Arkadia. She has written scripts for the cinema–Isabelle (published by Arcadia Press)–and plays for the theater. A Question of Geography was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1400076641
• ISBN 13: 9781400076642
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224