Julie Orringer

This book really grew on me. The Invisible Bridge is a big old fashioned novel which follows three young Hungarian Jewish brothers through the years leading up to World War II and the war years themselves. The leading character is the middle brother Andras who wins a scholarship to study architecture in Paris, where he meets and falls in love with a beautiful expatriate ballet teacher. Sounds corny, eh ? It isn't.
This story is about the Holocaust, but it lacks enormous amounts of melodrama . show more The devil is in the details, and the author piles up the everyday setbacks and mounting frustrations, rules, and deficits until one can see why & how the Holocaust snuck up on so many millions of people. I half-joked to my husband when I started reading The Invisible Bridge that any book which starts in Europe in 1936 begs you to scream a warning to all the characters : Get out !!! But after reading the novel, I can understand why so many waited too long to even attempt to get out and why so many simply couldn't escape. I am no closer to understanding the mentality or the rationale behind the killings, but I do think I understand the victims better.
I did want to ask Ms Orringer if the book is biographical - is she the teenage girl at the end of the novel who is going to ask her grandfather to explain what really happened ?
This is definitely a big fat book and the initial pace is ponderous, but the tempo speeds up as the war grinds the characters into smaller and smaller pieces. It is worth sticking with. show less

There appears to be a flood of new novels about World War II in the offing, many focusing on those who resisted Nazi ideology or military occupation, in one way or another. Julie Orringer's new novel is likely to stand out from the crowd precisely because it doesn't over-emphasize derring-do -- Varian Fry, in her telling, is a reluctant hero as he tries to save Marc Chagall and others from an evil that he and others are only beginning to understand will become known as the Holocaust. show more Instead, Orringer emphasizes character development: the stress that living in a quasi-occupied world (Vichy France) places on Fry and his motley group of helpers and on those desperately trying to find a way out of Europe before it's too late.

Orringer blends fact with fiction here, and deals with questions such as which lives are most worth saving -- and how one should make that assessment. When Fry's college lover calls on him to help a young man -- whom the lover describes as a brilliant scientist -- those issues come front and center. Who gets saved -- and at what price?

I found this a little slow to get into, in spite of my existing interest in Fry and his activities. And I'd still urge anyone interested in the tale to read "Villa Air-Bel" by Rosemary Sullivan, the immensely readable non-fiction account of these events. Orringer draws on it heavily but has taken some creative license, in ways that sometimes worked for me, and sometimes felt like they were a step too far. But overall, this was a tremendously readable novel. Best of all, Orringer doesn't adopt that slyly knowing stance that too many of those writing about World War II do -- her characters understand that there is serious threat to those they are helping leave Europe, but there aren't any anachronistic hints about exactly WHAT was about to happen in Poland and eastern Europe, or overly-heavy foreshadowing. Her characters know what they could have known at the time, no more and no less. They understand the serious threats to those who think and speak freely, even as they struggle to understand how it could have gone so wrong. And it's to Orringer's credit that she has found ways to combine a sense of personal vulnerability on Fry's part -- she emphasizes his sexuality, and the background of his lover as main plot threads -- with the broader story.

I received an advance e-galley from the publisher via Edelweiss; my views are my own... show less

This is such a sad, wise, beautiful family saga and unlike any I have read before. Based predominantly on Orringer's ancestors, she clearly reasearched and listened incredibly well. That said, to also make it a readable, enjoyable story is quite a feat. As soon as I got into the novel, I realized how little I knew about Hungary's involvement in World War II ~ both from a political perspective (i.e., its tenuous alliance with Germany) and how it affected the Hungarian Jews. It is not often show more written about. The plot basically follows the lives of three brothers, Andras, Tibor and Matyas and their families, friends and lovers, before, during and a bit after World War II. The relationships are surprisingly beautiful and the other realization I had was that it was a LONG time since I read a novel where the family members (and friends) truly loved and cared for each other (there being an overflow of dysfuntional family stories these days, I think!). It was refreshing. Each brother has a unique path and the discovery is in following their lives and their correspondence with the family members. The book is long and does drag in some spots, but that is a very small complaint. Highly recommended to get lost in, learn and have renewed faith in the power of love (of all kinds, familial, friendship and partners). show less

In 1937, Andras Lévi travels from his home in Budapest to Paris to study architecture at the École Spéciale. He faces a variety of challenges adjusting to the new country and making ends meet, but manages to find a part-time job, make friends of fellow students, and most importantly, fall in love with Klara, an older woman with a secret past. But their happiness is overshadowed by the growing threat of Nazi Germany, especially since Andras and Klara are both Jewish. A series of events show more take Andras and Klara back to Hungary, where Andras is pressed into service not as a soldier, but as a member of a labor corps responsible for digging ditches, felling trees, loading boxcars, and so on.

The first half of The Invisible Bridge takes place primarily in Paris, and serves to develop a rich cast of characters in a setting that is idyllic compared to what they have in store. Andras is established as a promising young architect; his brother Tibor, a physician. The brothers meet their future wives, and forge strong bonds with a group of peers. And then suddenly, new laws affecting Jewish immigrants change everything, and their close-knit group is scattered. The second half of the book covers the war years in harrowing detail, and it was interesting to read about World War II from a Hungarian perspective. Hungary was part of the Axis powers allied with Germany and Italy, but this was somewhat by force. Many of the characters in this book secretly hoped for Germany's downfall. Life was one struggle after another: labor servicemen were subjected to extremely poor conditions as well as physical and emotional abuse. It wasn't any easier for those left at home, as they faced food shortages and government corruption. And communication channels were poor, so people often didn't know how their loved ones were faring while they were apart.

The Invisible Bridge is a well-paced story of love and hardship, but it's also a long book (nearly 600 pages), and I lost concentration in the last 100 pages. Some aspects felt repetitive: Andras leaves for labor service, returns home, and is called up again. And then he comes home. And then he is called back. And ... well, you get the idea. Each time there were new plot developments both in his life and in the war, but I still tired of it. And yet, there was a lot of excitement in this story, as well as emotion, and I will not soon forget Andras, his family, and the hardships they had to overcome. show less