Reviewer: Kate
I received a copy of The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
In 1942 Paris, gifted architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money – and maybe get him killed. But if he’s clever enough, he’ll avoid any trouble. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won’t find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can’t resist.
But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what’s at stake. The Paris Architect asks us to consider what we owe each other, and just how far we’ll go to make things right.
Written by an architect whose knowledge imbues every page, this story becomes more gripping with every soul hidden and every life saved.
Review:
If you have a fascination with World War II (like I do), or Paris, or Germany, or fashion, or architecture, or psychology—really if you are at all interested by human beings and their rational for actions—benevolent or malign—you really want to read The Paris Architect. Charles Belfoure has the ability to shape characters the same way he might craft buildings. The architect’s skill of seeing through to the skeleton of a building must have imbued him with the power to reveal the true face(s) of humanity.
Belfoure’s protagonist, Lucien, is not a likeable person. He is a philandering coward. But he has something that many other people don’t have and can’t buy—vision. It is his vision that allows him to become something more than the less-than-honorable man we meet at the beginning of the book. His journey is interesting and complex, and it reveals the multifaceted, taciturn, contradictory nature of human beings.
Hate is a mode of self-preservation, and yet would we need that mode if hate weren’t so prevalent?
In Nazi-occupied Paris in the 1940s, Parisian citizens were willing to deliver other citizens to the hands of death in order to spare their own lives. It’s not an original story, people have sacrificed others before themselves throughout history—snitches are everywhere. But this book isn’t so much about any triumph of good over this kind of evil. Instead, The Paris Architect seems to be more about the stories we tell ourselves to make life more bearable. The narrative poses bold questions: Should the lives of many be lost to save the lives of just a few? Is there honor in survival at all costs? Is there such a things as redemption? What does it mean to be a good person?
If you like a good puzzle, The Paris Architect proves a great diversion. There are so many pieces and you just don’t know what the puzzle will look like in the end. There is no reference and no directions. Just the pieces and the challenge. Loved it!
