Review: When Paris Went Dark, by Ronald C. Rosbottom

Facts never tell the entire story. A list of dates, times, characters, and events may lead to some detached kind of awareness, but it falls short of capturing real “truth.” This book, however, details in great depth the daily lives of both Occupier and Occupied. Here, the dry and meaningless facts are joined by memoir, essay, poetry, biography…an in-depth look at the human beings who lived on either side of the conflict. Historical caricature is dismantled to reveal honest humanity, authentic suffering, doubt and anxiety, a full-bodied portrait of people caught in a tense, difficult time.

The presentation is wonderful, the facts spliced perfectly with the human narrative, bringing to light new considerations and perspectives on history. The book is informative and expansive, giving context and meaning to facts that otherwise may seem detached from genuine human experience. It shows the world that was as rich, dubious, and complicated as the world we currently inhabit. It brings in the innumerable shades of gray so often ignored when discussing these trying situations. Several times I was brought to tears by the overwhelming weight of the choices people had to make, and make daily, in those dark days. Facts are easy to swallow and judgments are easy to make from our perspective, now, but this book does an excellent job of reminding you that the facts are only part of the story and that judgments are easy to make when you’re not the one who had to do something.

I picked up this book, at first, to do research for a project I’m working on. I opened the book hoping to get a general idea of the mood of the time, to pick up a few choice details to enhance the realism of my project, and to search for any themes that ran through the reality of the time. Now that I’ve put it down, my perspective on it is very different. I have been crushed and inspired, destroyed and repaired, I have been brought face to face with the humanity of a terrifying and complicated time, and in it I found something closer to the truth of what happened than I’ve ever found, before.

I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the occupation.

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