By
megustaleer
Rescued thread: It'll look a bit odd, but I found it cached in good Old Google
megustaleer
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The Children's War - Spoilers in Here
This thread is for members to discuss plot/characters etc of The Children's War without having to hide the 'spoilers'
Do not read this thread unless you have finished the book, or do not mind having the plot details revealed.
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#2
22nd August 2006, 10:01 PM
Momo
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Thanks, Meg, for opening this. You might not read it for a while because you mentioned you hadn't finished it. But I think it is a great opportunity to actually discuss the book rather than telling each other just how great it is. Which it is.
Just to start:
Some people mentioned in the other thread that they didn't like Zosia. At first, I didn't know what to think about her. Like when she said she only wanted to marry Adam if she knew he could father a child. I thought, what a strange idea. But I did understand her motives in the end and also cannot really criticize her for the way she was.
What do others think?
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#3
23rd August 2006, 10:12 AM
Hazel
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I still don't really like Zosia, even after reading the follow-up A Change of Regime, which just compounded my reasons for not liking her. I think in some ways she was just as bad as the people she was fighting, in her ability to cold-heartedly use and abuse people. I certainly didn't see her as some sort of hero/freedom-fighter.
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#4
23rd August 2006, 10:26 AM
Royal Rother
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I really think Zosia needs to be judged in the context of her role in life. She could not possibly be a cold professional killer, a freedom fighter, a leader of a bunch of people facing persecution, danger and possibly death every moment of her / their lives, and yet also be a normal and stable person able to engage in straightforward relationships.
Although she was difficult to warm to much of the time, there were spells when she was soft, loving and supportive, but for me, showing the contrast in her character made her all the more real.
To have shown her as the hard-nosed freedom fighter / cold-hearted killer part of the time, and then a relatively normal lady the rest of the time would have been more comfortable to read but would have taken a massive amount away from the book for me.
The way Stroyar built the characters was magnificent and the contrasts in their behaviour was very real, as opposed to a normal work of fiction where charcaters generally follow a set of rules, and is part of the reason why this novel should be ranked up among the classics in years to come. (To me, as much as anything, the book was a wonderful study in human behaviour, and I got as much out of the way the various relationships unfolded as I did from the main storyline.)
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#5
23rd August 2006, 10:34 AM
Momo
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That wouldn't have been normal, either. You always have to see people with their background. Of course, you can always say that fighting is wrong, no matter what the cause is. But I think when you degrade people to the kind of subhuman beings they are degraded inthis book (and were degraded during the Nazi regime), you begin to be either a fighter or you give up. It's like in wildlife, fight or get killed, be a predator or its prey. Zosia didn't even decide for herself what she wanted to be, it was decided for her by her parents. As it was decided for so many other people just by their birth or the place they happened to be in at a certain time.
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#6
23rd August 2006, 01:31 PM
Hazel
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I do agree with you RR in some sense, but for me the characterisation of everyone else was so spot on that Zosia's just jarred. I found her swings from cold hearted killer, to soft, and loving too much of a swing. It's hard to fully explain because a lot of what I judge her by features in ACOR, but compared to Ryksard (who ultimately is my favourite character) who was not so black and white, and had a truly tortured soul, Zosia just didn't grab me at all. I think Zosia did what she wanted most of the time and to hell with anyone else, and she used her feminity, and used other's feelings to manipulate events to the way she wanted them. I much preferred the 'greyness' of Ryksard and Peter.
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#7
23rd August 2006, 01:39 PM
Momo
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True, they were the "nicer" guys, though they did their bits of killing as required. Of course, I haven't read ACOR, yet, since I'm still waiting for the copy to arrive, should be here soon, though. Maybe we should start another thread on that one once more people have read it.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting to see how someone who grew up with this relates to his (or in this case her) environment. The trouble is, women had to fight harder at all times to get a place in society, no matter when and where. And they are always (were and still are) judged much more harshly than men - especially by their own sex. Don't you think? I grew up with lots of boys around me because I have three brothers, went to a school that had been an all-boys school until three years before I joined, the children in the neighbourhood were mostly boys, especially those my age. I found it hard to make "girl" friends at first and still wouldn't enjoy working in an all-girls working place. My best friend from school had six brothers and one sister, I think we liked each other because of our boy-ness. What I want to say is, you grow to be more male if you are in a male-dominated environment (which is certainly the case with Zosia) but you are not allowed to get too male!
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#8
23rd August 2006, 02:18 PM
Royal Rother
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Where did you grow up Momo? Sounds like there was something in the water....!
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#9
23rd August 2006, 04:09 PM
Momo
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In the northern part of Germany, Lower Saxony, between Bremen and Osnabrueck ...
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#10
23rd August 2006, 04:15 PM
Hazel
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But Zosia certainly knew how to re-feminise herself when it was required, and she didn't always use that to an unselfish end. That was my main problem with her.
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#11
23rd August 2006, 09:33 PM
Momo
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I can see why you didn't like her or why anybody might not like her. I just try to see her from another side. We all have different experiences and there are certainly situations where everyone of us would have reacted completely different.
I don't want to say that she would be my best friend in real life. I didn't like the way she sent Peter away, I just couldn't believe it. Again, I understood her reason. The trouble with the two of them was that they had so many issues without each other and that they couldn't help the other one. Usually, in an ideal partnership, when you have a problem, the other one is there for you. These two both needed someone to pull them out of their misery. They couldn't be there for each other because they were too involved with their own problems to look after the other. Only when they started to see this did they start to grow together.
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