Review: Charlotte Gray

One of my biggest pet peeves is male writers who POORLY write female characters. Charlotte Gray, by Sebastian Faulks, is a perfect example of this unfortunate trend.

Before I explain why I didn’t not enjoy this book, let me give you a rundown about the plot, because it actually sounds pretty good and some of you out there who aren’t as overly-critical as me might really enjoy it.

During WWII, Charlotte travels from her home in Scotland to London to help with the war effort and very soon after falls in love with a British pilot, Gregory. Gregory gets shot down over France and Charlotte decides to head to France to find him. She joins an underground network supporting the French Resistance. Her first assignment takes her to Lauvarette, a small village that is occupied by the German army. Charlotte develops a friendship with a Jewish resistance fighter, Julien, as well as becoming involved in an attempt to hide two young Jewish children whose parents were deported to a concentration camp.

I can’t tell you much more that wouldn’t be considered a spoiler at this point.

Ok, so sounds interesting, right? Well, I had a MAJOR problem with the way Faulks wrote this character. First, Charlotte and Gregory have little to no meaningful interaction (besides apparently good sex) prior to his disappearance, and yet we were supposed to believe that Charlotte was SO in love with Gregory that she would risk her life to find him? They knew nothing about each other and never told each other how they felt about each other….and yet she jumped out of an airplane and lives in disguise for 6 months to find him and bring him back home?

No, I don’t believe that.

I also don’t believe that she would spend six months in Lauvarette, develop a deep friendship with Julien with whom she has EVERYTHING in common, have sex with him, and share more experiences with him than with Gregory and STILL claim that she is in love with the missing pilot.

There were some other major distractions that really got on my nerves. The biggest one was Charlotte’s repeated recollection to some sort of abuse from her father, contributing to the depression that has plagued her for many years. First of all, clearly, the author doesn’t understand clinical depression because Charlotte exhibited NO symptoms of depression or lethargy or hopelessness during the course of the novel. Second, the explanation, when it is revealed, of why her father “abused” her was nothing short of a cop out.

One thing that I thought was great about the book was the education on the relationship between the duplicity between the Germans and the French during the early years of WWII. As I have mentioned before, my high school and college history classes did not adequately prepare me to write eloquently about world history, so I won't attempt to do it here. But my interest is piqued and I will probably be writing more reviews of WWII history in the next few months.

Boys, if you don't know how to write about women, write about men. That's my advice to you.