Transatlantic: Based on a true story, utterly gripping and heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction

The Flight Portfolio è una vera gioia dall'inizio alla fine. L'argomento è drammatico ma l'autrice riesce a renderlo lieve anche nelle parti più tragiche. La Horringer ha una grande preparazione storica e una cultura umanistica profonda, cosa piuttosto rara nelle scrittrici statunitensi.Anche per chi sa tutto sulla persecuzione degli ebrei nella seconda guerra mondiale, ci sono molte sorprese e molte storie incredibili presentate con grande maestria. Direi che è il miglior libro che ho letto nel 2019.Spero di leggere presto altri sui libri.

An American friend recommended this book to me but, sadly it wasn't available on Kindle. Happily it was available from the US. With a leap of faith I ordered it & was very pleased I did. It had been loveingly read before but the book is in good condition & shipping was trouble free for me. It's next on my list of reads!

This was a compelling story & I immediately ordered the book that it is based on.

Her evocations of the feel of Vichy France and Orringer’s descriptions of the wartime France-the geography, the cafe’s, the countryside, are all sensuously written and portrayed such that I felt I was there. She created a veritable cinematic portrayal of the highest quality in my mind as I read.There’s real tension at the portrayal of the civilizational mission that Varian Fry and his associates undertake. This novel shows the fragility of civilization itself and the heroic efforts necessary to preserve it, made personal in the work of artists and intellectuals that provide the artistic portrayals we need to see and the ideas we need to contemplate. The author is brilliant in her portrayal of this effort and the forces of barbarism-both subtle and those unsubtly brutal-that wish to wipe out humanistic civilization. Varian Fry’s efforts deserved an exposition and a victory lap. All of that is fascinating and illuminating.However, intersectional ideology nearly undoes the novel’s beauty. The driving frisson of Fry’s homosexuality and his love for Elliot Grant simply doesn’t work. And the introduction of the race issue on the part of Grant’s parentage feels utterly gratuitous. Frankly, the relationship between Fry and Grant comes across as flat and uninteresting. I have my doubts that the author really understands gay male passion, especially that of the closeted/semi-uncloseted sort that existed in elite all male colleges. Whatever passion that’s supposed to exist comes across as banal and not very interesting. And Elliot Grant is an utterly one dimensional character. One has the impression that the author simply keeps telling us things about him so that he strikes us as interesting. But really, he’s portrayed as type and a device, and not a well-developed character or person in full. This is the what the tragically reductionistic ideology of intersectionality-it reduces people to types, preventing us from seeing them as persons in full.If you allow ideology triumph over aesthetics, you’ll lose art’s depth and ability to portray and speak to the whole complexity of reality.Sadly, this uninterestingly portrayed allegedly touchstone point of Fry’s character, which is supposed to be revelatory and explanatory, has the effect of reducing Fry. Luckily, because the author relies on Fry’s actual history, he is saved from this attempt at intersectional ideological reduction of what was a complex character operating in a complex milieu.There are some strange quirks in the author’s prose. Her overuse of the word “aperture” remains throughout the book. It’s hard to count how many times she repeats the word “surrealist.” This jarring overuse of these words makes me think her editor was busy trying to talk her out of the dead end plot device of Fry and Grant’s unconvincing passion.However, in large measure the book tells a fantastic story with magnificent descriptions of that unique era of civilizational menace and the heroic people who labored against all odds and every obstacle to preserve the good, true, and beautiful.

Unable to read as this pricey copy as it came with pages missing it’s only got 531 out of the 576 pages. The final page is creased and glued on to the back cover. Pages untrimmed , generally looks like the book binder was either drunk or bound it for a laugh. The book is a total mess. I can’t believe that the publishers could supply a book in this state. The author should perhaps use UK publisher, this is not the first time that I have received sub standard books bound in the USA and it makes me reluctant to buy USA bound books. To say I’m cross would be an understatement.