Title: The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
Book Beginnings quote:
The day of the countess's famous harvest party began with a driving rain that hammered down on all the ancient von Lingenfels castle's sore spots -- springing leaks, dampening floors, and turning its yellow facade a slick, beetle-like black. In the courtyard, the paper lanterns and carefully strung garlands of wheat drooped and collapsed.
Friday56 quote:
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. There was no further talk of politics, and Connie seemed truly interested in learning all about her. Benita had never been asked so many questions.
Summary:
Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a Nazi resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows.
Review: The Women in the Castle was this month's book club selection. Every gal who braved the windy forecast for a 'bomb cyclone' said they really enjoyed the book. So did I. Oddly and to a person, we all noticed the similarities between the politics of Germany in the 1930s and 40s under the Nazis and what we are experiencing today in American politics. We had to stop ourselves from talking about one issue just to move on and discuss other questions from the publisher. Shattuck said the story was related to her family story but didn't elaborate on that note. Did she mean her grandparents were Nazi resisters like the characters in the book? Or did she just mean that her grandparents had to live through the lean years after WWII were Germans were forced to confront their complicity in the Holocaust even if they were ignorant, as most said? Shattuck also said that the book took her seven years to write and it was published in 2017. There is no way she knew what kind of politics Trump would bring forward, or embrace at the time of her writing. So we decided her book was unintentionally prescient.
Most WWII books stop at wars end. This book is mainly set after the war's end when Marianne sets out to find and protect the other resister's widows. She finds two and brings them and their children to live with her in the old family castle that is a cold and leaky place. The stories of these three women, and to a smaller degree their children, populate the book. War has all kinds of victims. Some die in the fighting, others can't seem to make sense of their lives after it is over. This book addresses those grey zones of life in the shadows and aftermath of war.
Discussion questions for The Women in the Castle (from Lit Lovers):
1. What does the novel reveal about the method and degree of Hitler's appeal to the German populace? In what way does it address the most problematic question of the War: how the German people allowed themselves to be swept away by Hitler and Nazi propaganda. Just as important, how much—and at what point—did ordinary citizens truly know about the impoundment and murder of Europe's Jewish population.
2. Describe each of the three women—Marianne, Ania, and Benita. Talk about their different views of the Hitler regime as it unfolded and their various reasons for supporting it. What was each woman's role, or position, in German society, and how did each experience the war? What about the years after the war?
3. Which woman's story do you find most compelling, frightening, or horrifying? Are you more sympathetic toward one than the other two?
4. Most of the recent books about World War II focus on the horrors of the holocaust, and for good reason. Yet ordinary Germans also suffered, especially as the war neared the end. What was it like for the country as Nazism collapsed? Consider the population at large, but most particularly the women at Burg Lingenfels. How are the three of them luckier than most survivors?
5. What roles do hope…denial…and forgiveness play in this novel? Is Jessica Shattuck's book an attempt to somehow exonerate the citizens who supported Hitler's rise to power?*6. What comparisons can you make between the politics of the 1930s/40s in Germany and those of today in the US?*7. WWII has certainly been fodder for a lot of books and movies. What are you favorites about this topic? How does this book compare to those?
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