Far to Go: A Novel

Far to Go is one of the most compelling books I've read this year. Allison Pick has created a beautiful work of historical fiction that tells a story of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia--a story that I've never heard told before. I finished the novel feeling humbled and grateful that there are such storytellers at work in Canada today.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It did shine a light on the Czech experience, however, which was interesting.

A Holocaust book, yes, but one with a strikingly different story. Pick did a remarkable job with this book. The writing is elegant, but not self-consciously arty, and Pick manages to explore the impact of events on several characters in just a couple hundred pages.

Fascinating read with an interesting writing style - contemporary narrator who remains unknown until bringing the story to its revelatory conclusion..

Relatable characterization with both surprises and authenticity. Emotional involvement with the characters both positive and negative, I wanted to know more, resulting in a nonstop read.

While it wasn't the happy ending, as the narrator had warned, to me it was concluded satisfyingly. History doesn't provide us with all the insights and information for which we would wish. This is definitely one of those instances. And it is fiction, one thing for which I had to remind myself!

A moving story of a Jewish family in 1939 at the brink of the holocaust trying to figure out if they should leave or not, the paranoia, fear , indecision and the results of this. Interjected is a modern narrator who'se identity is clear at the end. it is also a tale of betrayal and unselfishness as Pavel and Anneliese put their 6 year old son on the Kindertransport. They are flawed characters who we see through the eyes of Marta, Pepik's devoted nanny. But who knows how one would act thrust into the days before war??

This book kept me up late at night in an attempt to finish it. While the topic was familiar, it was told in a new and interesting way.

Loved it. I especially liked the balance between the two different storylines, one modern and the other in late 1930s Czechoslovakia. And the twist at the end! Very clever, very well written.

Far to Go tells the story of a Czechoslovakian Jewish family and their nanny, during the start of the war. The story is told from the perspective of the nanny, Marta, who is not Jewish and therefore safe from Hitler. 'Her' family obviously isn't safe, so they try to escape what's coming. I'm not very enthusiastic about the book. The main reason for that is Marta. I just couldn't relate to or understand her character. For me, that makes the difference between an interesting story and a good book. Far to Go is definitely an interesting story, but not a book I would want to read again.

I chose to read this book because it was long-listed for the Booker Prize this year. It was with some misgiving that I began reading. Here are my shameful thoughts presented to you in all honesty..."Not another book about the Holocaust...How many do I have to read?" My Jiminy Cricket conscience tells me - "Never enough". After all, I only have to read the stories, don't I? And perhaps it might be a good idea to tell them to my children - even though they are well beyond bedtime stories. And this is not the stuff of bedtime stories.Do you wonder, as I do, how memories/history will change once our slim connection with the past evaporates? As the generation before you dies and you are pushed to the front line? What orders should you give ? What philosophy should you bequeath to the next generation? My children perceive me as ancient, of course. The way I perceived my mother as ancient. The 1940s to my young eyes were so funny and old-fashioned in terms of dress and hopelessly romantic love songs (think "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when"). And yet they were only 30 years ago when I was a teenager. Now my kids are close to 20. It's hard to imagine that they must see the 1970s as funny and old fashioned. What must they think of WWII and the Nazi atrocities? It must seem very far away and hard to believe. And so, yes. Reading Far to Go wasn't easy - and yes, to a degree, we all know how it will end. But I didn't know about the Kindertransport. So it is a story from a different angle. And the angle is further fractured and complicated by the author's own connection to the tragedy which she chooses to present at this point in time in a fictionalised form. It is a story about making difficult decisions. About trying to read "history" as it happens. About deciding what to pack. About sacrifice.It is ultimately a story about identity. And what is identity but a jumbled up mass of stories that people have told you about yourself or you have told you about yourself. What if someone questions your identity? What if your identity becomes dangerous to own? What if you thought you were something and then you are told years later that in fact you are something else? How does that change you? Which bit of you is real? It is a good story. And one that leaves many questions. The best kind really.

This is the first book I've picked up from the 2011 Booker Prize longlist. By the end of the Kindle sample - where I usually decide whether I want to keep reading or not - I really wasn't into the story, hadn't figured the characters out and wasn't especially bothered about keeping reading. I went against my own judgement however and carried on. And got captivated by the family story. In retrospect it is hard to understand why all Jewish families weren't taking every opportunity to flee from Nazism in 1938. This book does a great job of painting the picture of a pretty ordinary family in Czechoslovakia, with Jewish heritage but not really practising Jews, seeing jobs and opportunities taken away from them, being betrayed by friends and still not really getting how bad it was going to get. As is pointed out in other reviews, the decision to send children to safety on the Kindertransport is central to the story, and I thought the "contemporary framing story" (phrasing stolen from Fleur) was necessary to show the after effects of the Kindertransport and made this into a 21st century book rather than one that could have been told anytime post-World War II. I completely agree with Fleur that it was an excellent decision to tell the main story through the eyes of the non-Jewish non-family member nanny though, Marta had just enough distance from the main characters to tell the story objectively whilst still being involved in the story. A good book, that doesn't get five stars from me because I found the beginning confusing, but I thought it was well worth a read and a Booker longlist place.

From the cover and the initial blurb I was expecting this book to focus on the Kindertransport aspect of the story and the story of Pepik, a young Czech boy, in his new home but in reality I found the book concentrated on the moving story of why a loving family would send away their child to another country ... FAR away. The story is mainly told by Pepik's nanny, Marta, a flawed but very credible voice who is dealing with past and present demons as she makes choices and decisions that affect the whole family. Interspersed with Marta's narration of the family life with Pavel, Anneliese and Pepik there appear to be 2 other strands: one is a set of letters from friends, family and related characters from Pepik's world with the stark dates of deaths in concentration camps that touch you with their simple teling of the magnitutude and horror of that time; and then there is a modern storyline that initially frustrates as you try to work out its relevance and who is speaking [I even needed to go back and re-read bits to try to work out context and relevance to the story arc] but gradually this aspect came into clearer focus and I feel it does add to the overall story's conclusion despite my initial confusion.I think the story of the family feels very real with great human touches that enable us to feel we know them and the reality and brutality are conveyed in a matter of fact way that makes the situations they face even more poignant. When Pepik eventually leaves on the Kindertransport we feel his desolation and hurting because of the slow build up and his treatment in the UK made me want to explore how credible that depiction was. This is a well-told tale that is enlightening and thought-provoking about a tough period of recent history.

Far to Go is written by a Canadian writer , who based her book on her grandparents escape from Czechoslovakia during the second World War.Alison Pick, the author, not only based her book on her grandparents' experiences, but also has done quite a bit of research on the topic of Czechoslavakia during WW11, and also on Kindertransport.Far to Go by Alison Pick is quite broad in scope, covering the time period leading up to WW11 and also the early days of WW11 in Czechoslovakia . She covers the topic of Kindertransport . Kindertransport, which I'd not been aware of before reading this book, was a rescue mission that took place about 9 months before the outbreak of WW11. The Kindertransport mission involved the transport of about 10,000 children from Nazi Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia to the UK, where the young children were placed with UK foster homes, hostels, and farms. The vast majority of children survived the Kindertransport , but few of the children were reunited with their parents after WW11, because the vast majority of the parents were killed during WW11.Anyway, although Far To Go involves the topic of Kindertransport , as well as getting into modern day feelings of one child who was a part of Kindertransport effort, the story tells so much more.Although relatively broad in scope - it's also a very personal story, focusing on one family, a relatively secular Jewish family in Czechoslovakia in 1939. Annelise and Pavel Bauer are a fairly affluent young couple , with one child, Joseph, or " Pepik" as he is nicknamed , and they employ a non - Jewish nanny named Marta Mueller.It was so interesting to read about the personal reactions of each of these people as war threatened. One of the members of the family is nearly ready to denounce the Jewish Religion - another embraces the traditions and Jewish Religion more strongly then ever in the face of the war on the Jewish. The denial or lack of denial as to what is happening in Czechslovakia is also very interesting as it varies from person to person. The impact the of threatened was on the marriage is very realistic and the reaction of the young child to all of what is happening is also explored. Marta, the nanny, is both an observer and participant to all of what is happening. I found it to be a eye opening and insightful reading. It was a sad truth to see the Bauer family decieved by close friends who were a part of the Nazi movement.I did not find the use of a present tense narrator along with the events taking place in 1939 to be confusing at all. In fact it added an element of both mysterty and eventual elightment.This is a wonderfully written, engaging story from which I learned much about Czechoslovakia during WW11 . I found it to be a real page turner - such is the mystery of what will happen next. I found myself very involved with the family making choices and suffering during pre WW11. None of the characters are perfect , but all are sympathetic to some degree.All in all - a wonderful read. 4stars. Far To Go is Long Listed for the 2011 Man Booker prize .

Far to Go is set mainly in the Sudetenland (the areas in Czechoslovakia near the border with Germany) and Prague in 1937 and 1938. It's written by a Canadian author, Alison Pick, and is based on her grandparents' lives. The main character, Marta, is nanny to Pepik Bauer, and very close to him - closer than his mother, almost. His parents, Pavel and Anneliese Bauer, are wealthy Jews in the Sudetenland, where Pavel owns a textile factory. As the novel progresses, Pavel changes from being a secular Jew who knows very little about his religious background to being much more observant. The novel is about life closing in on the family (and to a lesser extent Marta) as Hitler first takes over the Sudetenland then Prague. The detailed part of the story stops before World War 2 starts.I really liked how Pick showed that a series of small decisions were crucial to what happened to the family, and Marta 's dilemmas were quite convincing. What I didn't like was the way she had a modern looking back story line woven through the book - it felt like a creative writing course device, and the twist wasn't necessary for a good story. A few too many sentences like "The moon rubbed the river's back" early on didn't help. I enjoyed Simon Mawer's The Glass Room more, mainly for his better writing, but this one made me cry.Overall I found it good, with a different perspective from other Holocaust books I've read, and would like to read more about the Kindertransport children now.

I picked this up back in 2011 when it was longlisted for the Booker Prize and I wanted to read all the nominees; however, it was cut from the final shortlist before I read it, so I never got around to it.Many of the books longlisted that year had a twin in terms of theme and subject; Far To Go and Half-Blood Blues are both novels dealing with lesser-known aspects of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. In the case of Half-Blood Blues this was black German citizens; in the case of Far To Go it is the Kindertransport, a rescue mission in the year preceding the war which successfully took nearly 10,000 Jewish children to sanctuary in the United Kingdom from Nazi Germany’s sphere of influence.Far To Go takes place in Czechoslovakia, first in the Sudetenland and then in Prague, following the Bauer family: father Pavel, mother Anneliese, nanny Marta, and six-year-old Pepik. The Bauers are secular, non-practising Jews, but of course this does not matter to the Nazis. As the oppressions upon their freedom slowly multiply, and as the continent slouches towards war, the Bauer family must make a difficult decision about whether or not to send Pepik away. Much of the novel is about the uncertainty the Jews of Europe faced in the lead-up to the Holocaust. It seems incredible to someone in the modern day that Jews would not take any opportunity they could to flee, but we have the benefit of hindsight; it would have been a difficult thing to abandon a hometown, a family business, friends and relatives, when one had no idea that the oppression would culminate in genocide. It’s particularly awful when reading of families who fled to places which they believed would be safe but which we know were not: Prague, Amsterdam, Paris.More importantly, though, Far To Go is about the fog of history and memory, tying in with the fate of the transported children themselves: their lives were saved, but they were cut off from their families, their culture, their history. The Kindertransport was only intended to be temporary, but the families left behind almost always died in the camps; these Jewish children were cut adrift. Segments of Far To Go are narrated by a mysterious woman who similarly feels a sense of loss, of not belonging, despite not being from the Kindertransport herself. By the end of the novel it is clear that it has been, somewhat, a piece of metafiction; an imagining of a past that is impossible to reconstruct.Alison Pick is more well-known in Canada as a poet than an author, and Far To Go is only her second novel. Her prose is competent and flows well, yet never sat quite right with me; too often the dialogue feels constructed, the writing feels a little uncertain of itself. This is less noticeable later in the book, as more momentous and emotional events are occurring, but for the first 100-odd pages it felt a bit awkward. She also sometimes feels to be trying a bit too hard to establish a sense of time, awkwardly inserting bits of contemporary culture (“She could see a copy of the new Henry Miller book, Tropic of Cancer.”)In this sense it is similar to Half-Blood Blues in more than just subject matter; I would regard both novels as good, but not great. (Interestingly, both also have a protagonist who betrays loved ones to the Nazis as retribution for their own perceived betrayals, and are then forever haunted by that moment of selfishness.) Half-Blood Blues is probably the slightly better novel, which is perhaps why it was shortlisted over Far To Go. Neither, in my eyes, ever really deserved to win it. They are both competent, compelling, important books in which the author successfully instils the emotion and passion necessary for such a serious subject; yet I felt they also both lacked something, some final spark which would have carried them over the finish line and made them truly great.

‘Far to Go’ is the story of the Bauer family, Pavel, Anneliese and their six year old son Pepik, along with Pepik’s governess, Marta, they live a quiet life in Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. Their lives are changed forever with the arrival of Adolf Hitler and his government in 1939, the Bauer family, who are Jewish but chose not to practice their religion believe they will be safe because of this.Summary from Goodreads.Unintentionally, I have read a number of WWII novels but I have not come across the Kindertrain or the Nazis in Czechoslovakia until now. Far to Go is an intense, detailed account of an upper-middle class family living in Prague at the time of Hitler. I understand why Alison Pick is receiving many accolades for her writing. Still, I found it flat and dry, except for the bits with Pepik.As a novel, it gets a 6.5 out of 10.

I must say, the UK cover of this book tells the story in a glance. I believe that's the first thing I noticed.Novels about the Holocaust are nothing new, and I got to a point some time ago where I just quit reading them. Although it is an essential time that should remain as a period to never forget, at some point I got to where a) I felt saturated, having seen many of the same content and literary conventions reappearing again and again and b) I just had to turn away from the emotional toll some of these books brought on. I do have a few on my tbr shelf yet to read (Austerlitz and Panorama to name a couple), but in general I don't make this type of literature my first choice of reading material. Truthfully, had this book not been on the Booker Prize longlist this year I probably would never have picked it up, and as it turns out, that would have been a crying shame. Although it has many of the same elements from other Holocaust literature, there are some fundamental differences I didn't expect in Far to Go that set it apart.Far to Go alternates between two times and two places: Czechoslovakia on the eve of and during the Nazi invasion and occupation, and modern Montreal. In Czechoslovakia, we meet the Bauer family, an ordinary upper middle-class family, living a normal life: Pavel, Annaliese and their young son Pepik, who is watched over by his nanny Marta. Pavel owns a textiles factory that allows his family to live well. Annaliese, who grew up in Prague, wears the most current fashions, sports "large Greta Garbo sunglasses and fresh red lipstick," and falls well into her social role as wife of a wealthy industrialist. Annaliese has had some tragedy in her life: she lost her baby daughter when she was only three weeks old. It was Marta who took care of her afterwards, and who takes on most of Pepik's upbringing as well. The fact that the family is Jewish isn't a major factor in their lives -- Pavel's self identity is more tied up in his love for his country and pride in his forbears.But the Nazis begin to roll into Czechoslovakia. As they hear about and witness events by Nazi soldiers and ordinary people being caught up in the anti-Jewish rhetoric, and as the factory is taken over, Annaliese realizes that her family may not be so safe, and begins to try to convince Pavel that it's time to leave. Marta, who is not Jewish, is involved in a secret affair with Ernst, a married man, Pavel's foreman, and good friend to the Bauers. As the Nazis begin to get closer to home, she begins to sense a strange shift in him, one that runs contrary to the Ernst she thinks she knows.While up to this point the novel employs several familiar components of other Holocaust literature, Pick intersperses a modern-day character in between the ongoing story of the Bauers that keeps this book from becoming like so many others. In Montreal, a woman named Lisa is busy pursuing her life's work, the collection and documentation of stories told by those who escaped the Holocaust as young children thanks to the Kindertransport program. As the Kindertransport Association website notes, this effort began after "... the atrocities in Germany and Austria, the untiring persistence of the refuge advocates, and philosemitic sympathy in some high places – in the words of British Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare “Here is a chance of taking the young generation of a great people, here is a chance of mitigating to some extend the terrible suffering of their parents and their friends” – swayed the government to permit an unspecified number of children under the age of 17 to enter the United Kingdom. It was agreed to admit the children on temporary travel documents, with the idea that they would rejoin their parents when the crisis was over. A fifty Pound Sterling bond had to be posted for each child “to assure their ultimate resettlement.” The children were to travel in sealed trains. The first transport left on December 1, 1938, less than one month after Kristallnacht; the last left on September 1, 1939—just two days before Great Britain's entry into the war, which marked the end of the program. By that time, approximately 10,000 children had made the trip."Part of Lisa's work involves letters sent to these children and to those who took them in by the parents left behind; the book actually opens with one of these that will immediately draw in the reader to find out more, and more letters and stories are scattered throughout the novel that could tell the story in their own right.Lisa explains that the Kindertransport story is filled with ambiguities: while she's found many examples of things having worked out for these relocated children, the bulk of the stories are "cases of trauma and upset." Many of the children arrived speaking no English, to poor families, and have had "everything solid ... pulled out from under them." The addition of this researcher, who admittedly can't always "frame the world in objective terms," as academics are supposed to, and the Kindertransport at the heart of this novel, provides the novel with an added dimension. These elements set it apart from the more conventional aspects of the Bauer family story, as does the novel's end.Far to Go is a wonderful book. What I appreciated most about this novel was not so much the story itself, but something else that may not seem so obvious as you're reading through it. I came away with this feeling that the book works so well because Alison Pick chose a subject that is important to her, and that although she's going to make some money on this book, in many ways it rises above the simply commercial. While she wants her readers to connect with their feelings about the Holocaust, there's so much more here than just riding the wave of emotions you feel about that time period to get you through the novel. I may get torched for saying this (and flame away), but sometimes I've spotted this approach in a few books set during the Holocaust. There is a real story at work here -- how the Kindertransport affected those who made it out, those who were left behind, and those who made room for these children in their homes. There are, of course, also the events leading up to the need for its creation. I don't mean to imply that Far to Go is at all clinical in the telling, because the opposite is true -- unless you're cold and unfeeling, the novel will unavoidably tug at your emotional heartstrings. I've often noticed that sometimes the best writing happens when an author is passionate about what he/she writes, and that is definitely the case here.So go get a box of tissues and have nothing else planned while you're reading this book. You will not want to put it down.

So, thought you’ve read every tragic tale to come out of the Holocaust? Think again.Alison Pick’s story, a mixture of fiction and pieced together truths, takes us into the heart-breaking, emotional mine field of Kindertransport, Czechoslovakia; an attempt at saving the young and innocent from Nazi death camps. As Jewish businessman Pavel Bauer and his wife Anneliese become aware of Hitler’s intentions for their country, the need to remove their six year old son Pepik from increasing persecution and danger becomes imperative and very risky. The Bauer’s first cautious effort fails and it is at this point that the story began in earnest to capture my attention. Pepik’s nanny Marta, a Christian and loved family member is a frustrating character in many ways. Caught up in the turmoil, she finds herself struggling with moral decisions she is far from capable of and unfortunately readers are side tracked into her self-centered world.Pick’s tale is no more harrowing than many Holocaust stories, and early on suffers from a bad case of analogyitis, but Pepik’s journey from family security to the terror of something unknown is enough to carry this book to its surprising conclusion, and highlights once again the many wrongs that were never made right in WWII. The fact that this story has some truth and documentation is a powerful plus and overall Pick has done an admirable job in the telling.