A verse novel of two obsessions. The first, is Foenkinos's subject, Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish painter who died pregnant in Auschwitz, having spent the last couple of years of her life in relative solitude obsessively, maniacally, painting images of her and her family's life. I just reread a collection: Charlotte: A Diary in Pictures, including 80 of such paintings. When I first read it I became obsessed about her obsession, but could not find her other collection (until recently), Life? or Theatre? a collection which in part focuses on her family history of suicide, seven of eight women. I bought a biography of Salomon recently but had trouble getting into it. The tone wasn't right for my experience of the subject. It lacked the passion (and obsession) of her life as I experienced it.

The second obsession is of a novelist, Foenkinos, who had experienced Salomon's work, and couldn't stop thinking of her. For years he couldn't find the form to encapsulate his experience of her life, but finally hit on the verse novel form, where he himself features as a novelist trying to give tribute to her life and work. I can't speak to the translation, but I have read glowing reviews of the original, and I found that some of the verse in English unfortunately came off flatter than I had expected. The novel as biography is fascinating because her life is fascinating, but the biographical rendering of her life is sometimes rather straightforward. But the form in general was original and useful in capturing what many of us experience in encountering her life and work. Her story is sort of quietly, sadly mesmerizing. And why is there so much joy in her work?! That's an inspiring part of her story, and (of course) its endorsement--its celebration!--of art in the performance of a life.

When Salomon knew the Nazis were closing on her, she bundled her life work--more than a thousand paintings!--and put it in the safekeeping of a friend, who kept it until after the war. If this is the first you have heard of Salomon, I encourage you to read her work and this novel. You may yourself be obsessed as Foenkinos and I have been

Everybody else loved this but I’m afraid that I struggled. Maybe the time was wrong because everything from the cover to the description had my name on it.

I received this in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. Thank you to the author, David Foenkinos, and the publisher, Cannongate Books, for this opportunity.

This book is a gripping portrait of an exceptional painter and young woman who suffered an early and tragic demise. Charlotte Salomon was gassed along with six million Jews, who were murdered at the hands of the nazis. She was just twenty-six when her life was tragically ended, and pregnant with her first child. Before this, she was a renowned painter, most famed for her series of autobiographical paintings, titled 'Life? Or Theatre?'. This is the biography of her life.

I believe this is my first experience of reading an entire novel written in verse and it wasn't nearly as daunting as I had anticipated it to be. The writing was clear, direct and hardly read like prose at all. The truncated sentence length and the abundance of clear, white space around the lines helped with this. Both also made this feel like a very fast read. I liked this style of narrative, although I was expecting something different. I'm not sure what, exactly. I think I assume poetic writing must also be flowery writing and this did not adhere to that style, at all, and yet still managed to be beautiful in places.

Despite this being a poignant and haunting piece, especially towards the end, I did not interact with the entirety of it, as I would have liked to. I knew nothing of this painter's life, before reading this, and suffered a little because of it. The central portion started to feel a little too extended and, therefore, dull. I also found myself thrown from the original tale with the intrusion of the author's voice. Whilst full of interesting insights, I found these jarred with the emotion of the piece and I felt plucked from something wonderful and transported back to the regular world. They felt like intrusions rather than necessary commentary.

In all, this was a very moving piece and one I hope to come back to when I have gathered more information on the incredible life of an extraordinary woman.

So on one hand I really liked this - it's a clever mixture between a novel, a biography and a poem, and has the intensity of personal experience as well as the distance of hindsight. I'm intrigued by Charlotte Saloman and I am glad to have read this book and learnt about her. However, although it is innovative, I found myself unengaged for most of it. The writing style means we progress through time so quickly and learn so much but can't absorb it - so although it was interesting, after the first 20 pages you've been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt. It's quirky until it's annoying. Still, it's short and worth a read. Hopefully I'll be able to view some of her art when in Amsterdam.

This was an interesting read, and a total departure from my usual books. It was incredibly sad but I would recommend it.

This Review Contains spoilers
This book is without a doubt the best book I have read this year, it was outstanding. I chose to read this book because I am an avid reader of anything set during the Holocaust period, a period I often struggle to comprehend.
Charlotte tells the true story of artist Charlotte Saloman, a young Jewish girl living in Germany whilst Hitler was in power and her struggle to make sense of the world around her using art.
Charlotte’s family dealt with several tragedies prior to the Holocaust due to a strong family history of mental illness. In fact, the portrayal of mental illness in this book is handled incredibly sensitively.
“This novel is inspired by the life of Charlotte Saloman.
A German painter murdered at the age of twenty-six, when she was pregnant. My principal source is is her autobiographical work, Life? Or Theatre?”
For Charlotte Saloman death has always been a part of her life.
“Charlotte learned to read her name on a gravestone.
So she wasn’t the first Charlotte.
Before her, there had been her aunt, her mother’s sister.
The two sisters were very close, until one evening in 1913.”
Charlotte and Franziska spent their time laughing and joking together as much as their parents would allow. Their father is strict and unyielding and their mother is the more gentle of the two but it is a gentleness tinged with sorrow. Her life has been a series of tragedies.
“It is a cold November night.
While everyone is sleeping, Charlotte gets out of bed.
She gathers a few belongings, as if she is going on a trip.
Charlotte has just turned eighteen.
She walks quickly toward her destination.
A bridge.
A bridge she loves.
She has known for a long time that it will be the last bridge.
In the black of night. Unseen she jumps.”
Her body is found the next day and her parents are beside themselves. Franziska feels she is to blame, she should have known what was happening, should have been able to prevent it.
The guilt of those living with the death of a loved one by suicide is perfectly captured in this book and dealt with in an empathetic manner.
Shortly after Charlotte’s death the war begins and Franziska decides to become a nurse. There she meets her husband and on the 16th April 1917 she has a baby girl.
“Franziska wants to call her Charlotte. In homage to her sister.
Albert does not want his daughter to bear a dead woman’s name.
Still less one who committed suicide.
Franziska weeps, outraged, infuriated.
It is a way of making her live again, she thinks.
Please, Albert begs, be reasonable.
But he knows that she isn’t.
It is part of why he loves her, this gentle madness.
The way she has of never being the same woman.
She is by turns free and submissive,
Feverish and dazzling.
He senses that conflict is pointless.
Besides, who ever feels like fighting during a war?
So Charlotte it will be?”
After a while Albert notes that Franziska has become unstable in her actions, increasingly absent from her family. In fact, there are days when she hardly bothers with Charlotte. After some time she tries to commit suicide. In an act of desperation Albert sends her to her parents where she is observed at all times by a nurse.
“The Grunwalds eat in the large dining room.
The nurse crosses the room, sits down next to them for a moment.
Suddenly, the mother is seized by a vision.
Franziska alone in her room, walking over to the window.
She glares at the nurse.
Jumps to her feet and runs upstairs to her daughter.
She opens the door, just in time to see the body falling.
She screams her head off, but it’s too late.
A thud.
The mother moves forward, trembling.
Franziska is lying in a pool of her own blood.”
Charlotte’s family tell her that her mother died of flu, a lie that she won’t discover until much later.
When Charlotte is a teenager her father meets an opera singer named Paula and he marries her. Paula and Albert get married in a synagogue.
“Raised by her rabbi father, Paula is a true believer.
Judaism has had little importance in Charlotte’s life.
One might even say: none at all.
Her childhood is based around an absence of Jewish culture.”
I loved the writing style of this book, the way we get snapshots of the character’s lives and thus we learn to care about what happens to them.
Charlotte’s grandmother has had a life beset by family tragedies.
“There are her two daughters, of course.
But they are only the culmination of a long line of suicides.
Her brother too threw himself in a river…
But it wasn’t over for Charlotte’s grandmother.
No sooner was their mother in the ground than her younger sister committed suicide.”
When things start to look bad for those of Jewish faith it is a gradual process, a series of changes so small you might not notice it from the outside.
”When it all starts, some of their friends are going to leave Germany.
These friends encourage them to do the same.
Paula could sing in the United States.
Albert could easily find work there.
No, he says.
It’s out of the question.
This is their homeland.
This is Germany.
They must be optimistic.”
Then in January 1933, the Nazi’s come to power. Paula is no longer allowed to give public performances and they know it won’t be long before Albert is also prevented from working.
“Attacks are spreading, books are burning. In the Salomon’s apartment, they meet up in the evenings.
Artists, intellectuals, doctors.
Some continue to believe this is a passing phase. The logical consequence of an economic crisis.
Someone must always be blamed for a nation’s woes.”
It is around this time that Charlotte’s grandparents decide to leave the country.
“Charlotte stays in Berlin with her father and Paula.
She goes back to school where the humiliations never end.
Until the day when a law forbids her from pursuing her studies.
One year before her baccalaureat exams, she has to drop out.
She leaves with a school report praising her impeccable behaviour.”
Whilst the world around Charlotte is in turmoil she seeks refuge in painting. For Charlotte it is a source of joy.
After feeling so lost, she has at last found her way.
She was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin but only after they had carefully considered the potential dangers to Aryan girls from associated with a Jewish girl when all Jewish girls are temptresses, deviants.
Nineteen thirty-eight is the year of the disintegration.
Charlotte’s final hopes will be smashed to pieces.
A terrible humiliation awaits her.
Charlotte has entered her work into a competition.
“The first prize is awarded to Charlotte Saloman.
Instantly the room becomes tense.
It is impossible that she should receive his prize.
The ceremony attracts too much attention.
People would talk about the Jewishness of the art school.
The prizewinner herself would be too exposed.
She would immediately become a target.
She might be imprisoned.”
Charlotte is informed she has won the contest but she cannot receive the trophy and so she chooses for her best friend to win it and leaves the school never to come back again.
Albert is taken in for questioning and without any warning he is thrown into Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp to the north of Berlin. When he gets out he decides to send Charlotte to her grandparent’s house in France.
He knows now that there is no hope.
He was on the front line of the horror.
She must flee, quickly.
While it is still possible.
It is around this time that Charlotte learns the truth of her mother’s death and the news makes her feel adrift.
After some times all Germans living in France have to declare themselves and she and her grandfather get sent to the Gurs camp in the Pyrenees. Her grandfather becomes ill and they are released so she can get him proper care.
“To survive she must paint her story.
That is the only way out.
She repeats this again and again.
She must bring the dead back to life….
She is going to paint her memories like a novel.
The drawings will be accompanied by long texts.
It is a story that will be read as well as looked at.
To paint and to write.
This combination is a way of expressing herself entirely.
Or let’s say totally.
It is a world.”
In a world where she isn’t allowed an indentity anymore painting is the one way of preserving it.
During the summer of 1942 all Jews are required to present themselves to the authorities. When they go to present themselves they are surrounded by gendarmes. Charlotte manages to escape.
The Jews must and will pay.
To ensure this they send one of the highest-ranking SS officers.
And also perhaps the cruellest: Alois Brunner.
His biography is sickening.
In 1987 Brunner declares
'All of them deserved to die.
Because they were the Devils.’
Before adding: ‘I have no
Regrets and I would do it again.”
That comment alone sickened me.
I think the reason this book was so hard hitting is because I know it really happened. I have been to the museums recording some of the horrific things that happened and seen photos of the victims and remnants of their possessions but this is the first time I have read an account from the era.
This was an outstanding and truly haunting read.

This is the story of Charlotte Salomon, a Jewish artist born into a family stricken by suicide in Germany just before Hitler’s rise to power.

Being a female artist is still a struggle in these times, but being Jewish is worse, so although she holds tremendous promise she must keep a low profile. At least she has her great love to console her – even if that love is secret and snatched in small moments.

After her father is detained and tortured she escapes from Germany, but still she is not safe. The war pursues her to her bolt hole and the madness that has haunted her family is closing in on her too.

Charlotte Saloman was an artist I had not heard of before reading this book, but her story is one I think should be shared. Not just because of her artistic genius but also because it is a mirror to agonies that so many went through during the second world war and none of their stories should be forgotten.

This is an unusual book, the writing is style is not like any that I can recall having read before. David Foenkinos writes in short, sparing sentences. They are almost rhythmic, as if he’s written a thousand haiku’s then mixed the order of them up a bit. It works, but probably only in this book. The rest of the book is a little off kilter too, it veers from a biography to a novelisation to a memoir of the author’s own search for the artist. In many ways this really is high literature, yet it managed to retain its accessibility. It inspired me to search for examples of the artists work, and I know that if there were to be an exhibition near me at any time I would go because of having read this book.

I wish life had been better to Charlotte, but I am grateful that there is this memorial to her. I think she would have appreciated it’s honesty.

5 Bites

NB I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review. The BookEaters always write honest reviews.

I found this a stunning book: brief, poignant but absorbing. I was at first surprised at the spare, simplistic style of the writing, written in short phrases with the barest of embellishment, but it gradually seemed exactly right for the subject matter and the rather mysterious central character, and my interest was piqued and then drawn along by the gentle development of her short but eventful life. I can understand how the writer became fascinated with this character, a real artist of the period, as I have been moved myself to do some further research on Charlotte Salomon and her amazing paintings. I was genuinely touched by the writing and the subtlety of the emotions expressed, leaving a memorable, long-lasting impression of the artist and her work.

Unfortunately I was unable to finish this book. It lacked an interesting pull for me, despite the story of Charlotte Salomon being an interesting one. I felt it was lacking in a hook.

I didn't like the style of this book at all so only read the first chapter.

DNF, unable to give a review. Just really not my cup of tea. Apologies.

This is a quietly beautiful, devastating and powerful work which is both fact and fiction (some scenes must be reimagined by the author). It is written in deceptive simple prose but includes statements of brutal honesty. The book outlines the life story of the artist Charlotte Salomon but also about the various family tragedies that the family suffered both before and during WWII. It also touches on the lives of many others who were close to the family through work or love, mainly in Berlin and in Villefranche-sur-mer in the south of France. I came to this novel not knowing very much but unfortunately had read an outline on Goodreads. I think it is best to come to this book without knowing too much about the family background. It is all the more powerful for that.

In writing the book the author visited many of the places covering in the book and talked to the family members of those who knew Charlotte, I felt those sections sat well within the wider narrative and were an helpful addition to the reader. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in historical fiction or art history. Thanks to Canongate and Netgalley

I actually learned something from this book - I hadn't heard of Charlotte Salomon before and was inspired to look into her art. The story is unusually laid out, and at first glance looks like a long poem. Charlotte's story is both fascinating and tragic, and the author writes with respect and reverence for her work. I thought this worked as both a novel and a biography, and I really appreciated the unique way the story was told.

I’d never even heard of Charlotte Salomon before and how pleased I am to have now discovered her thanks to David Foenkinos’ powerful and moving fictionalised biography of her. He claims it is a novel but this seems disingenuous to me, as it is clearly based almost entirely on fact, not least as he drew on her own art as his principal source. Be that as it may, this exploration of her life and work is beautifully conveyed in very spare and simple language – every sentence is on a new line – and the author clearly feels a deep emotional attachment to Salomon. A German artist – but also tragically for the times, a Jew - Salomon was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 aged just 26. In this concise novel/biography the author has created a memorable and haunting depiction of this talented woman whose work thankfully survived her. He admits to his own obsession with her and his desire to get to know her and walk in her footsteps. This personal approach worked most effectively in making her come alive for the reader. I very much enjoyed the book and also found it a wonderful stepping stone to discovering more about Charlotte Salomon and her paintings.

Charlotte Salomon is a fascinating subject but I am afraid this novel doesn't do her justice. It read like a well written short biography and I never felt I go to know the real Charlotte at all so I was disappointed. Perhaps something got lost in the translation?

This is a good beginning for people who know nothing about Charlotte Salomon and may be interested enough to learn more by reading non fiction books about her life and work.