BookwormBy John Andrews
There comes a time in life when one has the chance to reflect on our good fortune that this green and tranquil country of ours has never been invaded (well at least not since the Normans). One can readily understand therefore the indignation and disbelief experienced by the French when their beloved country was invaded and the arrogant Germans marched into Paris in June 1940.
I have just finished reading one of the most remarkable books chronicling these events, written as a diary by Agnes Humbert and titled Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France, recently published in hardback by Bloomsbury. A particular feature of the book is the brilliant translation from the French by Barbara Mellor who first came upon it in its evocative 1946 French edition and was immediately captured by the power and intensity of the narrative and the compelling presence of Agnes Humbert herself.
Humbert, like Mellor, was an art historian and at the time of the Occupation held a prestigious post at the newly-created Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris. Her immediate reaction to the occupation was, like so many, to flee the capital, but she soon returns and, with a leap of blind faith and reckless courage, helps to form one of the first organised groups of the French Resistance.
Humbert and some of her learned colleagues at the Musée are eventually betrayed and imprisoned, and finally deported as slave workers to Germany for the rest of the War.
Resistance is written in the form of a journal and this is what gives the book its vivid immediacy and incomparable verve. We live through Agnes Humbert’s initial excitement in publishing the underground journal, then her reaction to the dangers that this involved, then terror at her imprisonment in the most degrading of conditions. Her candour, her recall, her eye for detail and her incredible sense of humour are conveyed with a remarkable freshness and never an ounce of self -pity.
Long may our good fortune last in these uncertain times.