The Sunday Salon: a German novel on ww2

Hello everyone,

I had a long-long break in writing my Almost Insider blog.

Now I'm back.

As you know I'm reading mostly historical novels, mostly about history of Central-Europe. This Sunday I would like to talk about a German novel on the ww2 by Arno Surminski. The original title is Vaterland ohne Väter, what means, homeland without fathers. It's about a 62 years old woman, who's father has fallen in the ww2, somewhere near to Stalingrad.

She is retired, has lot of free time to researching about the life of her father. Fortunately one of her relatives finds the father's diary and some photos of him and his companion-in-arms. It starts the "time travel" into the past.

It the book beside the narration of the protagonist, there are quotes from real letters from this time. From letters of soldiers and wives, children, eyewitnesses, or even quotes from the most important political persons of that years.

And most of the chapters have quotes from memoirs of Napoleon's campaign in 1812.

We learn a lot about the young man Robert Rosen and his mates trough the documents have found, but mostly there are just the imagination of his daughter, how he was, what he felt, how he met her mother, etc.

So, I'm over 60 pages, it’s still 400 to come.

Happy reading!