Finally finished this. The early scenes with the young Méret as she studies with Vicktor are often lyrical, helped perhaps by the numerous allusions to classical music. If you love the classics you will enjoy those references. It's 1934 through the beginning of the war in Austria at the start. The Nazis have begun to show their true colors and some Jews who had already fled Germany were now trying to get to England. I love the way Lawton describes the English naïveté: "Think of them as children. Think of Europe as the drawing room and England as the kindergarten of Europe. They are innocents. They actually boast of not having been invaded since 1066. When in fact all that means is that they have lived outside the mainstream of Europe. They are innocents.. . .Good God, why London? Why not Paris or Amsterdam? What does London have to offer? The madman Thomas Beecham. Beecham waving his baton in the pouring rain for a nation of philistines in wet wool and false teeth!”
But I thought the book dragged once they all got to England and I just didn't find it as interesting nor comprehensible.
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