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Sophie’s Choice

William Styron

Start date: July 1, 2024

Finish date: July 31, 2024

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Why we're reading this: July 2024 New School Classic Group Read
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New School Classics- 1915-2005

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What Members Thought

Jul 19, 2020 Candi rated it really liked it

Shelves: kindle-book-i-own, ww-2, book-i-own, historical-fiction, chunksters

“The landscape and the living figures of that summer, as in some umber-smeared snapshot found in the brittle black pages of an old album, had become more dusty and indistinct as time for me unspooled with negligent haste into my own middle age, yet that summer’s agony still cried out for explanation.”

Humor, Brooklyn, mental illness, eroticism, and the Holocaust. Sounds like an unlikely concoction for a novel, doesn’t it? This was totally unexpected! The only knowledge I had going into this is th “The landscape and the living figures of that summer, as in some umber-smeared snapshot found in the brittle black pages of an old album, had become more dusty and indistinct as time for me unspooled with negligent haste into my own middle age, yet that summer’s agony still cried out for explanation.”

Humor, Brooklyn, mental illness, eroticism, and the Holocaust. Sounds like an unlikely concoction for a novel, doesn’t it? This was totally unexpected! The only knowledge I had going into this is that it was a wildly popular film about World War II starring Meryl Streep, and that it would involve some troubling ‘choice’ of some sort. What I walked away from was a deeply moving, brilliantly written, sometimes overblown, story about three people whose lives converge during the summer of 1947.

“I was fated to get ensnared, like some hapless June bug, in the incredible spider’s nest of emotions that made up the relation between Sophie and Nathan…”

In one way, this is a coming of age novel. Stingo is a twenty-two year old aspiring writer who has moved to Brooklyn after being dismissed from McGraw-Hill. He is plagued by the stigma of male virginity as well as a wicked case of persistent tumescence. The decision to narrate this story from Stingo’s point of view at first both puzzled and intrigued me. I expected this to be from Sophie’s perspective or from some omniscient narrator. It didn’t take long for me to grab onto Stingo and go along for the ride with him. When Stingo moves into The Pink Palace, a rooming house in a primarily Jewish neighborhood, he is a bit out of his element. However, it’s not long before he’s wholly caught up in the sexually charged atmosphere of two of his fellow boarders, the bright but volatile Nathan Landau, and the beautiful and tragic Sophie Zawistowski.

"… I encountered Sophie in the flesh for the first time and fell, if not instantaneously, then swiftly and fathomlessly in love with her. It was a love which, as time wore on that summer, I realized had many reasons for laying claim to my existence.”

What I loved best about this novel were the moments we spent with Stingo, Nathan and Sophie in the here and now. There is something very satisfying to me as a reader about a magnetic story of unrequited love, a passionate love affair, a genuine friendship, and compelling dialogue. This is what I found between this trio. As Sophie becomes comfortable in Stingo’s company, she unveils another strand of the plot. We hear about her past as she relates it to him. Of course, like many narratives, we, like Stingo, don’t get the whole truth at once. Her time spent in Auschwitz is revealed to us, but on her own terms. It’s a painful story and one that will not be fully confessed until you reach the finish line.

“… it is now clear to me that a hideous sense of guilt always chiefly governed the reassessments she was forced to make of her past. I also came to see that she tended to view her own recent history through a filter of self-loathing—apparently not a rare phenomenon among those who had undergone her particular ordeal.”

The plot alternates then between the present day and a series of flashbacks. While important and necessary to Sophie’s story and her frame of mind, I found the flashbacks to be less compelling than the whole. They were drawn out to the point I felt taken out of the story and had to set it aside and read something else. It’s not often I can say that about Holocaust fiction. I wish these sections had been edited a bit more; I suspect the impact would have been even greater. Furthermore, I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but what I came to realize by the end was that I felt slightly manipulated by the author. I know this is likely an unpopular opinion, but I started to recall the agony of reading a completely different novel – A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. And while I’m whining a bit, I might as well add one more complaint here and get it over with. I was not a fan of the author’s voice coming through Stingo. Yep, I said it. At the beginning it was just a little irritant in the back of my mind, but by the last few pages of the book I was oddly provoked! From what I understand, this novel is partially autobiographical and once discovered I couldn’t separate Stingo from Styron.

Having said all that, I’m simply trying to explain why what I thought initially would be a five star novel moved down a notch into 4 star territory. Regardless, it’s a book I would highly recommend to anyone. It’s exceptional and unforgettable. I am once again left reflecting on the nature of humankind. I thought about the ordinariness of both the perpetrators and the victims of the pure evil that was the Holocaust. No one person is completely demonized or glorified. Sophie is not painted as a noble innocent yet we are wholly drawn to her and can more easily empathize with her as a result. Her pain and her joy are palpable throughout. How does one make it from one day to the next when all faith is lost?

“The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response. The query: ‘At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?’ And the answer: ‘Where was man?’” ...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Basma Parkar rated it liked it

Mind-blowing in parts and boring in others, Sophie’s Choice is a roller-coaster ride through the past and present. I was riveted by Sophie’s story, but found Stingo’s narration of his sex-starved life irrelevant and rambling.

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