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The Devouring: Jakob’s Colours by Lindsay Hawdon

8/4/2015

15 Comments

 
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See the colours, Jakob. See them.

The sun drops lower, sinks like hot metal spoon over the horizon, streaks of vermillion cutting across the skies. And then, and only then, as the first stars began to shine do the thousands upon thousands of crocuses begin to open their petals and bloom. By morning the desert floor is carpeted in a sea of blue, mallow in the shadows, violet in the light.

Yavy mixes paints to sell to the artists at the market. Years later, he tells his son, Jakob, to identify the colours as he runs through the alien landscape to distract him from his fear. Later still, Yavy’s wife, Lor, tells seven-year-old Jakob and his younger brother and sister a story about a family riding on horseback, outwitting the evil Ushalin with their cunning and speed. On the way, they fill their seven vessels with the seven colours of the rainbow, their vibrancy finally defeating the Walls of Monochrome. It might seem like a fairy story, but the stakes couldn’t be higher: the Nazi Office of Racial Hygiene considers them vermin and wants them dead.

The Porrajamos (literally, The Devouring) is the less well-known side of the Holocaust in which, according to the notes at the back of the novel, between a half and one and a half million Romani lives were cut brutally short. The continuing prejudice against gypsies is exemplified in the fact that their murder was not recognised at the Nuremberg trials and that, unlike their Jewish counterparts, gypsies orphaned by Nazis do not qualify for reparations. But the attempts to destroy gypsy culture were not solely the province of the Nazis: as with native Americans and Australians, Yenish (the term for travellers of Swiss origin) children were forcibly taken from their parents to be “civilised” right up to the 1970s.

Yavy is one such boy, so headstrong he’s taken from the orphanage to be subjected to disturbing psychiatric treatments in an Austrian asylum. And yet his strength of character wins through and he progresses from inmate to lowly odd job man, invisible to the higher status doctors and nurses. But it’s this invisibility that enables him to rescue Lor, a middle-class English teenager, treated by torturous insulin coma and told she’s mad because she sees visions of her mother (coincidently, or perhaps not, also a painter) after her death. So the two escape for a few years of family happiness until the civil rights of gypsies are gradually eroded and the “clean-up” begins. (Of course, had Lor not thrown in her lot with a gypsy boy, she’d still have been a victim of the Nazis; psychiatric patients, along with homosexuals, being another minority group sometimes overlooked in Holocaust memorials.)

In its faithfulness to the history, this can’t not be a tragic tale, but Lindsay Hawdon adds notes of colour both in some beautifully descriptive writing and in the bonds of love between the family members and the courageous acts of kindness they experience along the way. Yet, in its structure, travelling back and forth in time, weaving between Jakob’s present and his parents’ pasts, it lost momentum for me at times and I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I’d hoped. Nevertheless, Jakob’s Colours is a brave, important and bighearted debut novel Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton for my proof copy.


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
15 Comments
Charli Mills
9/4/2015 10:51:06 am

I'm stunned to even find a literary book on the topic! I should feel delighted, but I know it's going to be a rough read. I know the plight of the Roma from a young Roma-American who has his masters in Roma Studies. I read early drafts of his masters thesis and at times I could hardly focus on the structure because the content was so unfair and distressing. The Decade of Roma Inclusion has only perpetuated deeply rooted prejudices and instead of inviting Roma to take over governance of their own, it has operated skewed studies to show they have no inclination or intelligence to do so. The job that Jakob has as you explain in your review is typical today of how Roman are used in different country's workforce, if even allowed to work. That there is no fixed number for the Porrajamos only shows how little Roma matter -- they are uncountable. Thank you for reviewing this book.

Reply
Annecdotist
10/4/2015 02:04:51 am

Thanks for this, Charli. So helpful to have your informed perspective. I was vaguely aware that the Roma had been victims of the Nazis but wasn't terribly informed about it. Seems there vested interests in keeping it that way, so Lindsay's novel is a political as well as literary endeavour. This line from your comment really resonated with me:
"skewed studies to show they have no inclination or intelligence" – it could apply to any and every minority group.

Reply
Charli Mills
11/4/2015 04:56:51 pm

Thus the vulnerability of minority groups. This sparked some good sharing on Facebook, too and I'm going to add a Roma page under the Bunkhouse Bookstore. This is definitely a minority whose voice needs to be heard. And I'm glad to see the literary community telling a Roma story.

Charli Mills
11/4/2015 06:19:13 pm

Anne, I've linked to your review, Jakob's Colours and other books on a Romani Holocaust Page at Carrot Ranch: http://carrotranch.com/bunkhouse-bookstore/romani-holocaust/

Reply
Annecdotist
13/4/2015 04:10:55 am

Thanks, Charli, really exciting that people are discussing this. Have you tried connecting with the author?

Reply
Charli Mills
13/4/2015 04:59:56 pm

No I hadn't but thank you for all the great links on Twitter!

Norah Colvin link
13/4/2015 05:51:26 am

Your review and Charli's comments convince me that this is a book I should read. That it stays true to the history encourages me to do so as I found learning history (dates and battles) very dry, but enjoy (I'm not sure if that is the word for this story) reading about people's lives and relationships. This sounds like a very important part of history of which I know nothing. I have even learned some by reading this post. Thank you for sharing. I think I'll have to check this one out.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
13/4/2015 05:58:57 am

I'm very excited, Anne! I have just bought the audiobook - my next read! Thank you! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
13/4/2015 06:23:45 am

I'm excited too that you've got the audiobook, Norah! I'm like you, I have seen more interest in the dates of kings and queens, although I did enjoy the social history of the Industrial Revolution that I studied at school. But most of my information of all kinds comes from fiction nowadays so it was helpful to come across this one. Do come back and let me know how you find it.

Reply
Charli Mills
16/4/2015 12:53:53 pm

Yay! I'm glad you bought this audiobook!

Reply
Clare O'Dea link
13/4/2015 06:38:11 am

Hi Anne,
I've heard of the Yenish/Jensich and the injustice they endured at the hands of the Swiss state but I'm really surprised to see an English novel featuring a Yenish family. Once again you are introducing me to Swiss-themed books. This is a must-read for me!
Clare

Reply
Annecdotist
13/4/2015 06:55:50 am

I'd be really interested in your views on the novel given your research into the topic. I'm not sure if the author is British or American as there doesn't seem to be a bio in the book, but anyway, great that she's picked up on this neglected topic.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
2/6/2015 04:46:12 am

Anne, I have just "finished" this book. What a tragic tale. I am grateful to you for the recommendation and I am pleased that I have learned a little of this very sad and tragic part of our history.
I will admit that I found concentrating on the story at times difficult. I'm not sure if that was because of the writing or the narrating. I found that too often I was feeling annoyed with the narrator, questioning the accents she was using and the intonations. Bec used to request that I didn't use voices when I was reading to her as a young child, and I think this reading may have been better without them too. It was too distracting.
You mentioned the beautiful descriptions, and I agree that there were indeed some of those, but at times I felt it was too overdone, too many similar ways of describing the same thing, as if it was necessary to find as many ways as possible to say the same thing and bulk out the book.
You also mentioned the structure of the book and moving backwards and forwards in time. I found this difficult and didn't enjoy that aspect of it. I could not see any purpose in telling the story this way. It wasn't as if something new was being discovered and we had to go back in time to figure out why it had occurred. There seemed to be no connection between the parts.
I found the "Background" that was provided at the end of the book most interesting. You have referred to much of it here.
I think if I had not read your review, I would not have started reading, or if I had started, I would not have finished this book. I am pleased I did follow it to the end so am grateful to you for the recommendation. Thanks. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
3/6/2015 03:57:54 am

Thanks for sharing your experience of this one, Norah, and sorry it was hard going. Your comments highlight the potential difference between reading silently to oneself versus being read to (and really timely for me as I'd just started last night reading a novel Reader for Hire). I don't listen to books nearly as much as you do, but I do occasionally catch readings on the radio, and I so agree that the voice has to be right. I think you probably have to be able to shut out the voice and concentrate on the story but you can't do that if it jars.
Sounds like it was worth reading for the learning but less so for the pleasure, which also reflects my own experience.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
4/6/2015 05:56:32 am

Definitely! Thanks again for the recommendation. :)




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