Post by ivyflight on Dec 30, 2011 0:42:24 GMT -5
My novel will take place in Austria during World War Two, starting in 1942. I have some notes/info I've been collecting and a little intro to the story. Any thoughts?
~~~~~
Isolde and Gabriel are sixteen, born in 1926
Female Main Character:
Isolde Reinhardt (surname translation: determined)
Born: 1926 (16 in November, 1942, when novel starts)
¬Siblings: Alfred (younger brother, 6), Katrina (younger sister, 10)
Isolde loves languages, and particularly, singing in them. She’s a soprano, and wants to go to Paris to sing and speak French. She also has a great talent for them and knows German (1st language), French (her mother’s 1st), working on Latin, and some English.
She’s a mixture, a dreamer and a cynic, one who hopes so hard, who dreams enormous dreams, but also sees the glaring facts and figures as a wall against her. Sometimes she loses hope with the idea that something could never happen. She tries, and she’s determined as hell. She isn’t familiar with that idea of giving up-but sometimes she gets angry, when people tell her things are impossible and whether she’s doubtful of success or not, she rises to meet the challenge.
(Favorite song? Ave Maria. www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/ave_maria.htm) More songs: Child’s folksong: german.about.com/library/blmus_kinderGruen.htm
Embrasse-Moi, Edith Piaf- www.ooltra.net/Lyrics.php?a=EdithPiaf&s=EmbrasseMoi
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y3B1ao1sZ4
Male Main Character:
Gabriel Frei (surname translation: free in German. In Austria, Jews were required to change their last names to something definitively German so as to better integrate them into society.
Born: 1926 (16 in July, 1942, when novel starts)
Siblings: Hezekiah (older brother, 18), Samson (younger brother, 13), Kaleb (younger brother, Samson’s twin), and Sarina (younger sister, 9)
Gabriel is a Jew. Both his parents were Jews; both their parents were Jews (in July, 1787 when it became law that Jews change their surnames, his relatives changed their name to “Frei” hoping that someday, Jews would be liberated from the prejudice they faced.)
Gabriel’s mother, Hanna Frei, was a pianist of some renown. She studied in Vienna and played with many of the other excellent pianists in the area. She travelled to Germany, France, and Britain in the years before the war to play before she and Gabriel’s father, Mordechai, settled down and had children. At this time, she taught others how to play and participated in nearby concerts. Hanna also played the violin and flute, but her real passion was the piano. This lives on in her son. Gabriel grew up with Bach in his ears, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, even the anti-Semite Wagner at his fingertips. He has played since he was a young boy and at 16 is very talented. The music is for him what words are for Isolde.
Gabriel is hopeful, if only because he inherited from his mother the idea that things can only get better. He is a practicing Jew, and he’s scared and horrified about what is happening to his people, but he holds onto the belief that they have survived other such events. That and he loses himself in his music-it distracts him. He has dreams, and he is stubborn enough not to give up until he lives them.
~~~~~~~
So that's some character-sketch-stuff for you. I started writing this, and I don't care if it's before January-I'm not including it in my word count anyway, but it formed and here goes:
~~~~~~~
Austria.
1942.
A world at war, and in the heartland of the Nazi regime, Isolde Reinhardt is singing. She sings while tacking up her horse, Bucephalus, and riding down the road.
“I want you to stay out of the woods, Isolde,” her father said in June, 1938. That was four years ago. And both horse and rider are tired of traversing the roads that lead to the great city of Linz. They’ve already circled the Reinhardt fields countless times. They even ventured to bother their farming neighbors with unexpected visits, especially when Isolde’s best friend, Claus, is working with his father, Herr Ackermann behind the plow. At least the Ackermanns and Reinhardts have always been family friends. The next neighbors live a mile or two down the winding country road. Isolde and Claus can only race it so many times before even bolting down hills at breakneck speed becomes dull.
She sings when helping Alfred get ready for bed or Katrina with her schoolwork.
“Isolde, schatzi, he will never sleep if you don’t quiet down.”
There are, however, times when Isolde is silent.
She does not sing when she and her friends are giggling about the attractive new boy in their class, the son of a German who has just moved to Linz. She knows he is probably the son of a Nazi, and ergo, likely a Nazi as well. But it is 1942, and she is tired of defining people by “Nazi” or, like her parents, people who talk about the party and Anschluss in harsh whispers, only to jump like surprised hares if someone else seems to have heard them.
She does not sing when the man in uniform comes to their door to hand something to her father in a very hush-hush, official manner.
She does sing, softly, to herself, when she hears her parents talking through her bedroom wall, when she recognizes the tone of their voices. Absit omen. She prays to herself. Let this not be a bad omen. Let it be a new law, one that does not apply to us.
She does not sing when her teacher asks if she wants to perform the Horst-Wessel-Lied for her class. First Isolde thinks of her parents, and what they would say if they heard her singing the anthem for the Nazi party. She remembers Kristallnacht, and how mother wouldn’t let her go to school until the 12th, after it was long over. She remembers her father, his drawn, grey face, when his business associate, Herr Austerlitz, and his Jewish family, disappeared. Was it two years ago, now? Three? Instead she fakes illness the day before, just in case, and then the day of, sending Claus with her “regrets.”
She can never say it aloud, but the thought of singing for the Nazi party made her ill.
Eventually, Isolde sings it anyway. She is not so young as to believe that to refuse would not bring consequences. She isn’t Katrina. They circulate, whether the Nazis know it or not: rumors, about what happens to those who oppose the regime or do not show their support. Isolde drowns these out with Ave Maria, and her mother’s favorite, Edith Piaf and her lovely French melodies. If that doesn’t work, she pulls out her Latin books and translates pages until her head aches.
She doesn’t sing when her mother pulls her out of bed in the dark of night, ordering her to the stables to take care of her father’s horse. She doesn’t sing when she hears the back door creak open, and one pair of footsteps on the rug, and one incomprehensible voice. She tries to sing as she brushes Nacht down, but even the lyrical Latin of her favorite song catches in her throat. She doesn’t sing when she opens the front door, about to ask her mother what is wrong when she sees a third figure sitting at their table.
He is thin, drawn, and any pallor to his skin has faded to grey in the prolonged absence of any light. Brown eyes, large and liquid as Bucephalus’, flare, stare, and blink, as she stand in the doorway and her mother hisses for her to shut the door, even as her father darts over and slides the locks shut behind her. Unlike the new Nazi boy, his hair is dark, nearly black in the dim light of kitchen, but Isolde can tell it is filthy-he is filthy.
It is obvious, but it takes Isolde’s mind longer than usual to recognize this.
Alea iacta est, Suetonius would have told her. The die has been cast.
Perhaps a blunter, more pugnacious phrase would have been more appropriate. The knife has been thrown. The arrow has been shot. The blow has been struck.
And indeed it had. Hiding a Jew in the heart of the Nazi regime was no small matter.
~~~~~
Isolde and Gabriel are sixteen, born in 1926
Female Main Character:
Isolde Reinhardt (surname translation: determined)
Born: 1926 (16 in November, 1942, when novel starts)
¬Siblings: Alfred (younger brother, 6), Katrina (younger sister, 10)
Isolde loves languages, and particularly, singing in them. She’s a soprano, and wants to go to Paris to sing and speak French. She also has a great talent for them and knows German (1st language), French (her mother’s 1st), working on Latin, and some English.
She’s a mixture, a dreamer and a cynic, one who hopes so hard, who dreams enormous dreams, but also sees the glaring facts and figures as a wall against her. Sometimes she loses hope with the idea that something could never happen. She tries, and she’s determined as hell. She isn’t familiar with that idea of giving up-but sometimes she gets angry, when people tell her things are impossible and whether she’s doubtful of success or not, she rises to meet the challenge.
(Favorite song? Ave Maria. www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/ave_maria.htm) More songs: Child’s folksong: german.about.com/library/blmus_kinderGruen.htm
Embrasse-Moi, Edith Piaf- www.ooltra.net/Lyrics.php?a=EdithPiaf&s=EmbrasseMoi
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y3B1ao1sZ4
Male Main Character:
Gabriel Frei (surname translation: free in German. In Austria, Jews were required to change their last names to something definitively German so as to better integrate them into society.
Born: 1926 (16 in July, 1942, when novel starts)
Siblings: Hezekiah (older brother, 18), Samson (younger brother, 13), Kaleb (younger brother, Samson’s twin), and Sarina (younger sister, 9)
Gabriel is a Jew. Both his parents were Jews; both their parents were Jews (in July, 1787 when it became law that Jews change their surnames, his relatives changed their name to “Frei” hoping that someday, Jews would be liberated from the prejudice they faced.)
Gabriel’s mother, Hanna Frei, was a pianist of some renown. She studied in Vienna and played with many of the other excellent pianists in the area. She travelled to Germany, France, and Britain in the years before the war to play before she and Gabriel’s father, Mordechai, settled down and had children. At this time, she taught others how to play and participated in nearby concerts. Hanna also played the violin and flute, but her real passion was the piano. This lives on in her son. Gabriel grew up with Bach in his ears, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, even the anti-Semite Wagner at his fingertips. He has played since he was a young boy and at 16 is very talented. The music is for him what words are for Isolde.
Gabriel is hopeful, if only because he inherited from his mother the idea that things can only get better. He is a practicing Jew, and he’s scared and horrified about what is happening to his people, but he holds onto the belief that they have survived other such events. That and he loses himself in his music-it distracts him. He has dreams, and he is stubborn enough not to give up until he lives them.
~~~~~~~
So that's some character-sketch-stuff for you. I started writing this, and I don't care if it's before January-I'm not including it in my word count anyway, but it formed and here goes:
~~~~~~~
Austria.
1942.
A world at war, and in the heartland of the Nazi regime, Isolde Reinhardt is singing. She sings while tacking up her horse, Bucephalus, and riding down the road.
“I want you to stay out of the woods, Isolde,” her father said in June, 1938. That was four years ago. And both horse and rider are tired of traversing the roads that lead to the great city of Linz. They’ve already circled the Reinhardt fields countless times. They even ventured to bother their farming neighbors with unexpected visits, especially when Isolde’s best friend, Claus, is working with his father, Herr Ackermann behind the plow. At least the Ackermanns and Reinhardts have always been family friends. The next neighbors live a mile or two down the winding country road. Isolde and Claus can only race it so many times before even bolting down hills at breakneck speed becomes dull.
She sings when helping Alfred get ready for bed or Katrina with her schoolwork.
“Isolde, schatzi, he will never sleep if you don’t quiet down.”
There are, however, times when Isolde is silent.
She does not sing when she and her friends are giggling about the attractive new boy in their class, the son of a German who has just moved to Linz. She knows he is probably the son of a Nazi, and ergo, likely a Nazi as well. But it is 1942, and she is tired of defining people by “Nazi” or, like her parents, people who talk about the party and Anschluss in harsh whispers, only to jump like surprised hares if someone else seems to have heard them.
She does not sing when the man in uniform comes to their door to hand something to her father in a very hush-hush, official manner.
She does sing, softly, to herself, when she hears her parents talking through her bedroom wall, when she recognizes the tone of their voices. Absit omen. She prays to herself. Let this not be a bad omen. Let it be a new law, one that does not apply to us.
She does not sing when her teacher asks if she wants to perform the Horst-Wessel-Lied for her class. First Isolde thinks of her parents, and what they would say if they heard her singing the anthem for the Nazi party. She remembers Kristallnacht, and how mother wouldn’t let her go to school until the 12th, after it was long over. She remembers her father, his drawn, grey face, when his business associate, Herr Austerlitz, and his Jewish family, disappeared. Was it two years ago, now? Three? Instead she fakes illness the day before, just in case, and then the day of, sending Claus with her “regrets.”
She can never say it aloud, but the thought of singing for the Nazi party made her ill.
Eventually, Isolde sings it anyway. She is not so young as to believe that to refuse would not bring consequences. She isn’t Katrina. They circulate, whether the Nazis know it or not: rumors, about what happens to those who oppose the regime or do not show their support. Isolde drowns these out with Ave Maria, and her mother’s favorite, Edith Piaf and her lovely French melodies. If that doesn’t work, she pulls out her Latin books and translates pages until her head aches.
She doesn’t sing when her mother pulls her out of bed in the dark of night, ordering her to the stables to take care of her father’s horse. She doesn’t sing when she hears the back door creak open, and one pair of footsteps on the rug, and one incomprehensible voice. She tries to sing as she brushes Nacht down, but even the lyrical Latin of her favorite song catches in her throat. She doesn’t sing when she opens the front door, about to ask her mother what is wrong when she sees a third figure sitting at their table.
He is thin, drawn, and any pallor to his skin has faded to grey in the prolonged absence of any light. Brown eyes, large and liquid as Bucephalus’, flare, stare, and blink, as she stand in the doorway and her mother hisses for her to shut the door, even as her father darts over and slides the locks shut behind her. Unlike the new Nazi boy, his hair is dark, nearly black in the dim light of kitchen, but Isolde can tell it is filthy-he is filthy.
It is obvious, but it takes Isolde’s mind longer than usual to recognize this.
Alea iacta est, Suetonius would have told her. The die has been cast.
Perhaps a blunter, more pugnacious phrase would have been more appropriate. The knife has been thrown. The arrow has been shot. The blow has been struck.
And indeed it had. Hiding a Jew in the heart of the Nazi regime was no small matter.
