From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman

Andrzej Szczypiorski

Start date: May 1, 2017

Finish date: May 31, 2017

Discussion: Around Europe 2017

Why we're reading this: Winner of the Around Europe poll for Ukraine/Poland/Belarus/Moldova
[close] Winner of the Around Europe poll for Ukraine/Poland/Belarus/Moldova

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What Members Thought

May 26, 2017 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-centurylit-late, 1001-books-list, eastern-central-european-lit, library-borrow, holocaust

I was recently looking through an old journal for something else entirely, yet came across this title and author scribbled on one of the pages. I don't know what the context was because it's literally just there, pretty much all by itself. I have no memory of writing it down, and it's interesting to me that I wrote it there to begin with since I have a separate little notebook I write down titles that I want to read one day.

When this book was nominated and chosen to be a group read for a Goodrea I was recently looking through an old journal for something else entirely, yet came across this title and author scribbled on one of the pages. I don't know what the context was because it's literally just there, pretty much all by itself. I have no memory of writing it down, and it's interesting to me that I wrote it there to begin with since I have a separate little notebook I write down titles that I want to read one day.

When this book was nominated and chosen to be a group read for a Goodreads group, I didn't recall the title at all. But apparently, somewhere around 12 years ago or so, I made a plan to read this book.

Well, better late than never.

Irma Seidenman is a young Jewish widow in Warsaw, 1943. Warsaw in 1943 was Nazi-occupied, times are fucking shitty, people are even fucking shittier, and there's this beautiful Mrs. Seidenman who, as luck has it, is blond-haired and blue-eyed which, as you can imagine, worked in her favor.

A cast of characters work together to help Irma escape, and therein is really the beauty, to me, of this novel. Their lives come together in unexpected ways and, in a way, it makes me think of the goodness in people that we tend to never really see because the media wants to be all "but people suck!" And generally I believe that. Once in a while you hear about some amazing act of kindness or humanity, like the homeless people who helped all those people in Manchester recently, or just whatever. Reading this book made me think of that sort of thing. It's hard to find goodness sometimes.

But the book didn't blow me away like it did so many other readers. I find it interesting that the person who everyone conspires to save is the woman with blond hair and blue eyes, the "beautiful Mrs. Seidenman". If she had a different complexion, and if she wasn't so beautiful, no one would have given a fuck. And so for all the goodness of these people, now I wonder just how good they really were. People tend to do what is "good" when someone sure is hot, don't they?

I guess what this really brings up is questions about altruism, but that's a little deeper than I am prepared to go into on Friday night.

On one hand, the author's proselytizing was amazing in that it covered so much history and information; on the other hand, it was distracting and caused the story to feel disjointed. Again, some readers appear to really have enjoyed that. The story is told with an interesting structure and that appears to either really work for readers or it doesn't. It didn't work that well for me, the bouncing back and forth in time, though I appreciated Szczypiorski's efforts.

All in all, glad to have read this, but I just didn't love it.

...more

8 likes · Like · see review

May 09, 2017 Pamela rated it really liked it

Shelves: boxall-1001-read

Intense and lyrical, this is an unusual and compelling picture of 1943 Warsaw, but it is not a straightforward historical novel. Forget the English title (the Polish title translates as 'Beginning', a more enigmatic and ambiguous title that is more fitting). Look past the beautiful, but unblemished and luminous, picture on the book's cover. And ignore the blurb that suggests this is just the story of one Jewish woman who is passing as a Polish officer's wife, until she is recognised and imprison ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Nov 29, 2013 Karen Michele Burns rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-5-star-books, 1001-books-completed

This testament to the Polish people during WWII took me through a lovely and quiet Sunday morning. The writing was intriguing. The book could have been considered linked stories as that was the format of the writing. I recently read another book that told what would happen to characters in the future as the reader absorbed the details of the past and present and I find it an unusual but effective way to advance a narrative. Szczypiorski was particularly good at weaving in this technique. The Bea ...more

1 like · Like · see review

May 30, 2017 Joey Anderson rated it really liked it

This novel draws an interesting portrait of Poland whose central focus is WWII Warsaw, but travels beyond that time frame to the future and past of the characters and Poland itself.

More on this novel later, but it feels like the one is walking through the tombstones of history.

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Jan 30, 2015 Lauren rated it liked it

Shelves: ate-2017

A cross section of life in Warsaw during WW2. While an interesting read, for me it pales in comparison with Life and Fate, which was about a cross section of life in Russia during WW2. ...more

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