Charlotte Gray: The Novel

Third book review: Charlotte Gray, by Sebastian Faulks

Having already seen the movie based on this book, I was expecting to find the book like a longer version of the movie. It was actually quite different, and while I liked some parts more, others I preferred in the movie adaptation.

Charlotte Gray is the story of a Scottish lady who travels to England to work during the war, and falls in love with an emotionally scarred airman, Peter Gregory. She feels that he desperately needs her, and that her love is crucial to him. His plane is shot down over France, and Charlotte goes to France to find him, while serving as a British Secret Courier. She defies her superiors and remains in France after completing her mission, compelled by her love for France, and hoping to find Gregory. While in France, Charlotte lives in a small village, and is touched by the lives of two small Jewish boys, and the Jewish father of her French Resistance contact. The book follows the stories of these three characters until the very end, unlike the movie which has a romanticised, though still unpleasant, ending for them.

Charlotte comes across to me as an ordinary woman, who could have compromised the British Resistance in her quest to find her Airman. I was expecting a rather more heroic and involved character, and was slightly disappointed by this. In the film, Gregory drops off the scene after being shot down, and the love plot becomes a bit irritating, however in the book, you hear from him as he attempts to return to England. This made Charlotte's quest more believable for me, and did not come across as an impediment (as in the movie).

I felt that the book was beautifully written, gripping, and very poignant. I only had two downers - the lack of importance of Charlotte's role in the Resistance, and the ending. The movie was tense and action packed, and I felt that Charlotte was a help to the Resistance. In the book, I felt that she was a bit useless, and interfering, and rather rude to use the Resistance as a cover for searching for her lover. I enjoyed the twist at the end of the movie, and thus, found the book's end to be shallow and hollow. I was so disappointed that I had to watch the movie again so that the "right" ending would be stuck in my head!!

Gripes aside, Charlotte Gray was a good read, and I couldn't put it down.