Translated from the French, this haunting novel begins in 1932 Normandy with 10-year old Ludo - nephew of an eccentric kite-maker - falling in love with the little daughter of a Polish aristocrat. During WW II their paths cross again, he in the resistance, she sleeping with the enemy. As a kite flies free, yet is tethered by its string, so they are caught. Poetic and suffused with existential meaning and the darkness of war, yet too there is humour and heart-warming characters like the village restauranteur and a resistance-fighter Madame.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 94 Autumn 2019 ) |
