Book Review: Lunch with Charlotte

I have had the pleasure of listening to the audio edition of Lunch with Charlotte written and read by the late Leon Berger. It is the true life story of the eponymous Charlotte revealed across innumerable lunchtime conversations with her friend, the author.

She was born to Jewish parents in Austria in 1919, fled to England during the war and died in Canada in 2010. It should be straightforward therefore to think of it as a holocaust survival story. However, perhaps it would be more fully encompassing to say that the second world war was, yes, a crucial and traumatic event in her life, but by no means its only event of significance. Nor is its core message that the Nazis were, and fascism is, deplorable.

Indeed, the event that most formed Charlotte's fascinating and contradictory character, while it may have been facilitated by the war, was much closer to home. And it is the formation of Charlotte's personality during her turbulent and ever-changing life that, in my view, is the true subject of the story.

The novel is written with simple realism, with few elaborate turns of phrase. However, it is in this uncomplicated language that the compassion and wisdom of the novel reside. All its many characters are drawn as people living within the confines of their limitations, as humans who must breathe, eat and love. Even the Brownshirts and Nazi bureaucrats are humans first, for all their flaws.

I wept considerably while listening to this novel, out of fear for its characters' safety as well as the wretched inability to do anything to help them. Indeed, some may be wary of reading a novel that covers such a dark period.

Therefore, allow me to reassure you. The novel is composed of a warmth, humour and humility that raise it well above the reach of the ravages of hatred. By the time you come to the end of the novel, though death and despair will have paid their visits, it is the mutual affection of a friendship lived to its fullest that will remain.

Buy the book. Watch the promotional video.

Republic, not Royalty

Eight or nine centuries ago, the word 'roialte' appeared in Old French to describe the office of the king and, in due course, came to describe the rights and privileges granted to those in his favour, including the right to exploit resources on lands claimed by the king.

About three centuries ago, the first copyright law was created and the modern manner in which authors are paid for their work (through outright purchase or a share of profits) was established. 

About a hundred and fifty years after that, the term 'royalty' developed to include intellectual property and so became a standard term in publishing contracts.

So, I as author, am like the feudal lord of the publisher, who plays the role of king, and I am granted the right by them to collect money from those who buy my book, who play the part of peasants in this increasingly bizarre pantomime.

As a writer, of course I believe that words matter and therefore terminology matters, and so I call for an end to this anachronistic spectacle. Just as, according to Roland Barthes, the birth of the reader necessitates the death of the author, so the death of the royalty is necessitated by the birth of the republic.

Henceforth, it is by that latter term - republic - that I will refer to my writerly earnings.

Full House

The kitchen is in pandemonium. Socrates is demanding the toaster explain how it knows when to pop up. Diogenes the Cynic is shouting insults into the oven. Heraclitus keeps running the kitchen tap for five seconds at a time. He looks confused. It's full of philosophers doing crazy things. Glad I had breakfast earlier. Hope they don't find the coffee.

The dining room is equally nuts. Jane Goodall has let the hamster out of its cage. Einstein is apparently deep in conversation with my plant. Stephen Hawking is complaining that the steps that lead onto my balcony are 'the worst in the universe'.

The living room is a total mess. Wassily Kandinsky is rearranging bits of old children's toys. Salvador Dali has put my wall clock in his armpit, and he keeps touching himself. Gross. Frida Kahlo is staring into the mirror, wiggling her eyebrows furiously.

The bedroom, oh the bedroom! Roald Dahl is looking for the essence of dreams under the bed, and C. S. Lewis is hiding in the cupboard. Beatrix Potter is chattering animatedly at the fungus growing under the window sill.

In the yard, Eleanor of Aquitaine is complaining about the garage doors being locked, while Henry the Eighth sneaks up behind her with a piece of rope. Queen Elizabeth I is demanding someone draw her portrait on the wall with our pavement chalk.

And, at last, I'm back in the room. The host turns over the last playing card. I've named them all in order. Beaming with pleasure, I quietly thank the 52 historical figures who made me the winner of the Memory Wizard competition three years in a row.