This is the first of my number books and has the smallest number on my to-be-read piles..
Vikram Seth is a writer of fiction. He is from India but has lived in China and the UK. He writes in English. I read his incredibly long novel A Suitable Boy some years ago and I remember that I enjoyed it, although the details of the story now escape me. I also read his book about travelling in China for a previous challenge – see my review here. In 2005 he published a family memoir, Two Lives, which I bought in hardback and enjoyed, but in the years since then I must have at some time given it away because I no longer own it. I am not sure what persuaded me to dispose of this book but recently I decided to buy a second-hand copy in a charity shop somewhere and place it on my to-be-read pile to see if it is still worth keeping. This challenge has given me the opportunity to read it again.
The two lives in the title of the book are those of the author’s uncle, Shanti, and his uncle’s wife, Henny. Their lives cover most of the twentieth century and global events, especially WW2, affect them.
Shanti grew up in India, was orphaned and eventually became a dentist. He moved first to Germany and then to England, where he set up his practice. He went with British troops to Italy in the 1940s, to deal with their dental needs, and lost his right arm to enemy fire. He later went on to adapt his techniques for one handed use and lived and worked in London.
Henny was a German Jew with whose family Shanti had boarded in Germany. She fled the country in the 1930s to live in Britain but her mother and sister were not so fortunate and were murdered in the Holocaust. This affected, obviously, the whole of Henny’s life and she found it difficult to like or to forgive any German who was not actively part of the Resistance during the war.
The author knew his relatives well and even lived with them for some years. He interviewed his uncle about his life, before his death, and found many letters that Henny had kept over her lifetime which means that the book is well researched and full of actual examples of what happened. This makes for an excellent biography, filled with detail about life in a multi-cultural couple made up of immigrants from two different countries and faiths. It is very readable and explores lots of contemporary issues, and I have no idea what was behind my decision to part with my original copy. I shall place this copy, which is a paperback, on my biography/memoir shelves.
Anne Is Reading 