Almost Autumn

This was a tough book to finish. Not because the story wasn't compelling, set in Norway during World War II and I currently live in Norway and wanted to know more about its history, but because the world is so full of stories of the systemic oppression and dehumanization of people happening right now. But plotting my progress in Goodreads helped me ease back into the fate of rebellious, restless Ilse Stern and her Jewish family and her first crush, the young Hermann Rod who is supposed to be taking art lessons across the city but is actually working for the Norwegian resistance. I took up the book again today after abandoning it in late fall after starting to read it in September, all too aware of what had to happen to the characters. And suddenly I raced through the remaining pages, the particular experiences of Norwegian Jews and the tightening grip of Nazi occupation fully imagined, including a brief sojourn in a forest cabin or Hutte that completes the loss of idyll and Norwegian way of life. There is a terrible, frustrating ambiguity to this story that is quite honestly as perfect as it is heartbreaking. The translation by Rosie Hedger is by turns lyrical and clipped, with a deep sense of understanding the awkward, intensely private choices and confusions of Norwegians caught up in working for the Nazis, capturing somehow the tragic rhythms of silence and doubt that led so many to wait too long, deny too much until it was ultimately too late.