The Ragged Edge of Night, Olivia Hawker Book Review
If you like character development, history, faith, and humanity, this book is worth a read.
A good book. A bit too poetic and colorful in language for me. But as the story developed and we came to love the characters, the book emerged as a quality read. Add on the historical context from which Olivia Hawker wrote the book and it became that much more important.
I would recommend this book to read for the sheer fact that it's enjoyable. But I also recommend it for the fact that you’ll come away from the book with a little bit more compassion for other people. As readers, these are the types of emotions we want to take away from books. The words we read make us a little bit better.
From the synopsis:
Germany, 1942. Franciscan friar Anton Starzmann is stripped of his place in the world when his school is seized by the Nazis. He relocates to a small German hamlet to wed Elisabeth Herter, a widow who seeks a marriage — in name only — to a man who can help raise her three children. Anton seeks something too — atonement for failing to protect his young students from the wrath of the Nazis. But neither he nor Elisabeth expects their lives to be shaken once again by the inescapable rumble of war.
This book was a gift. I had no idea what it was about other than reading the back blurb. Like I said earlier, I was expecting daring missions to overthrow the Nazi regime. Instead, we the readers find ourselves following a former Friar who answers an ad in the paper to become a husband to a widow. That’s always an interesting lede.
I had trouble with Anton’s inner monologue. As a former Friar, faith was a large part of his life. As such, discussions with himself and his God made sense. However, because the book is written in the third person, getting to those thoughts and inner conversations made it more of a tell versus a show. And also, who has those types of thoughts. Here is where the language got a little too unrealistic for me. In writing, I want an author to show me Anton’s conflictedness with his faith, not give me monologues of him feeling conflicted.
I think the relationship with Elisabeth could have been better explored. She was my favorite character. As readers, we are privy to details about all of their lives that the characters aren’t. Writing it the way it was written, it would have been good to see more of her motherly instincts, not from Anton’s view, but maybe from neighbors and the children’s perspectives.
This book snuck up on me. It was slow to start and I only really started to enjoy it about halfway through as the conflict began to reveal itself. Short chapters and poetic prose made this an easy book to read. As I turned the pages, more and more details about Anton and Elisabeth came to light. We the reader experienced German atrocities through the eyes of its own citizens, and the price all humans paid during these troubled times.
The reason I say this book snuck up on me is that even by the end of the book I still felt a bit dissatisfied. I thought it was an entertaining read, but what did I really get out of the book?
It wasn’t until I read the epilogue of Hawker that everything clicked. What bloomed from that was a deep appreciation of the story told. I think it had to have been read in this way — sequentially — rather than knowing the background first and the motivation behind writing the story.
So what did I learn?
Basically, what the Germans experienced was a loss of faith in their country. Anton’s life as a friar was reflective to life as a German. Losing his faith in God evolved into losing his faith in Germany. He became such an ardent opponent of that that he risked the lives of his children and wife to fight for the resistance. Hawker likens this fight to what is occurring in the world today. Is that a bit extreme? Of course. But the beginnings of doubt in leadership and humanity is all that is needed. With that, I agree.
But is that even the point?
I don’t think this is necessarily one of those I learned something important books. Instead, it’s a book that spreads your perspective and awareness just a little bit wider. This is one of those empathy-builder books. Even if just a little, we find compassion for people who are different from us. Just because the citizens of Germany are lumped together with Germany in the 1940’s, doesn’t mean that Germans and Nazi’s are synonymous.
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