Lumen [Broché]

Mixing elements of a psychological thriller and an existential meditation, Pastor's debut follows a German army captain and a Chicago priest as they investigate the death of a nun in Nazi-occupied Poland. Mother Kazimierza's alleged power to see the future has brought her a devoted following; her motto, "Lumen Christi Adiuva Nos" ("light of Christ, succor us"), gives the novel its title. In October 1939, Captain Martin Bora discovers the abbess shot dead in her convent garden. Father Malecki has come to Cracow at the pope's bidding, to investigate Mother Kazimierza's powers. Now the Vatican orders him to stay and assist in the inquiry into her killing. Meanwhile, the Germans are consolidating their hold on their Polish territory, dispossessing farmers, beating civilians and forcing Jews into labor gangs. Though stunned by the violence of the occupation and by the ideology of his colleagues, Bora never deviates from his Prussian duty. After three months, two suicides, much detective work and some speculation about Catholicism and faith, choice and chance, good and evil, Bora and Malecki discover the true story of the abbess's death, which implicates Bora's fellow army officers. Pastor's examination of Bora and his colleagues illuminates the many contradictions of life in the service of a criminal state. The narrative's explications of Catholic belief and theology defy readers to reconcile faith, or inner light (lumen) of any kind, with the realities of the Nazi regime. Pastor's plot is well crafted, her prose sharp, but her novel is meant to be more than light entertainment. She raises again the questions recently posed by Bernhard Schlink's The Reader: how can art explore the human side of a victimizer without seeming to forgive the unforgivable? Pastor's disturbing mix of detection and reflection is a provocative though not definitive answer. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Dans la Pologne que l'année allemande envahit durement en 1939. l'assassinat de la mère Kazimierza, religieuse connue pour ses dons de prophétie, pourrait mettre le feu aux poudres. Un duo improbable enquête : Martin Bora, officier du renseignement allemand et le père Malecki, américain, prêtre à Chicago, envoyé par le Vatican. Deux hommes honnêtes dans une période de l'histoire où le mépris de l'individu est de rigueur. Confronté avec horreur au comportement assassin des troupes de son pays, Martin Bora est coincé entre la loyauté et un idéal humaniste, qui l'amène à apprécier la discussion, pas toujours facile, avec le père Malecki. Le couvent abrite-t-il des résistants, les soeurs leur apportent-elles de l'aide ? Les prophéties gênaient-elles l'occupant dans sa propagande ? Et la belle actrice Ewa Kowalska, qui ne laisse pas indifférent un Martin Bora éloigné de son épouse et dont le couple bat de l'aile, quel jeu joue-t-elle exactement ? " Lumen Christi adjuva nos " plus que jamais la devise de la mère Kazimierza est de mise. Intrigue politique, thriller psychologique et mystère religieux tout à la fois, ce premier volet des enquêtes de Martin Bora dans les années troubles de la Seconde Guerre mondiale est une réussite incontestable.

Equal parts wartime political intrigue, detective story, psychological thriller and religious mystery, Ben Pastor's debut is a literary page-turner of the first rank. Brilliantly crafted as a narrative puzzle, unflinching in its investigation of the warring impulses of the human character, Lumen resembles a jewel catching a magnifying light with each of its perfectly chiseled facets. The result is a novel of dazzling luminosity and profound darkness. Pastor's German Army captain and the deadly riddles that propel him through occupied 1939 Poland are as real to me now as any pages from history. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"Lumen is a work of promise and fulfillment. A mystery, it rivets the reader until the end and beyond, with its twist of historical realities. A historical piece, it faithfully reproduces the grim canvas of war. A character study, it captures the thoughts and actions of real people, not stereotypes. The novel's fulfillment is itself; the promise is of works to come. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In 1939 German-occupied Poland, an American priest and a German officer are brought together by the assassination of Mother Kazimierza, an nun with the gift of prophecy. Father Malecki, a tough Chicagoan, finds himself forced to collaborate with Captain Martin Bora, the young intelligence officer leading the murder investigation. Despite their difference in age, upbringing and beliefs, the men share an idealistic, burning desire for justice.

Malecki's fearlessness leads him into dangerous political waters, while Bora's sense of moral outrage is stoked by the genocidal actions of his compatriots. Separated from his attractive, egotistical wife, he is also at risk of losing his self-control to actress Ewa Kowalska and her beautiful daughter Helenka. An intellectual friendship develops between Malecki and Bora. Together, they will eventually not only solve the crime that threatens to cause a revolt in Poland, but also the unexpected, mysterious death of Bora's womanizing roommate. Will Father Malecki's soul-saving mission succeed in a land already bloodied by the Holocaust? --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Ben Pastor: de son vrai none Maria Verbena Volpi, est née à Rome mais vit depuis trente ans aux USA, mariée et bénéficiant de la double nationalité. Elle enseigne les sciences sociales au Vermont College. Ecrits en anglais, ses romans ont été publiés dans plusieurs pays.

Ben Pastor is an associate professor of graduate studies at Norwich University, Vermont. She authored numerous short stories, among others in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, The Strand and Ellery Queen's. Lumen is her first novel. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

From Chapter 1: Bora knew he'd have trouble parking in front of the convent. He'd barely stopped by the curb to let Hofer out, when a growing din of steel chains and engines filled the opposite end of the street. With the car still running in idle, he craned his neck out of the window to see.

Tanks. Could anyone be as dim-witted as to do this? There was no room in this narrow street for tanks to operate. Still, jangling and rumbling on cobblestones, panzers blundered toward him from the curve ahead, where the front steps of a Jesuit church further reduced the pavement. Dinosaur-like, they emerged in a stench of fuel, rattling lamp posts and windows and the rearview mirror in Bora's car. Whatever asinine thinking had made them choose this route, on they came, blind and dumb as all machines appear when their drivers are invisible, seemingly unaware that the sharp corner facing them would pose an obstacle.

Judiciously Bora drove the car onto the sidewalk, and for the next five minutes he was as much part of the deafening maneuvering, backing up and squeezing past as the tanks themselves.

The last cumbersome vehicle was still churning the corner with its mammoth flank when Hofer unexpectedly stumbled out of the convent door. Seeing him stagger on the sidewalk caused Bora to rush from the car, sure of a partisan attack. By the time the gray-faced Hofer made some frantic gesture for help, Bora was already by him. Pistol in hand, he straddled in a protective stance, turned to the street as if the unseen danger should come from there.

"Inside -- inside!" Hofer's choked voice found a way out of the cavern of his mouth. He rudely pushed the younger man ahead of himself into the dark vestibule. For a moment it seemed to Bora that flimsy ghosts were milling around him, gowned and wailing. Then he recognized it was the nuns, whispering and sobbing in their incomprehensible language.

Hofer kept pushing him, and they hastily crossed plain rooms, past black crosses, long tables, starched linen, chairs, a hallway, steps, and then a green burst of light and the odor of watered dirt.

They were standing at the edge of the cloister. A perfectly square overcast sky opened above, and the different greens of small trees and potted plants crowded the view on all sides.

"Look, Bora!"

Mother Kazimierza lay face down by the well at the paved center of the garden, arms spread to the sides, face turned away from the viewer. Part of her wimple showed white. That, and the black robe gathered around her legs made her look like a strange, overgrown swallow, felled from a great height.

From under her tall body a thread-like red line had come snaking in the grout between the bricks, to the edge of the paved area. The long, sinuous ribbon seemed to reach out for the men and women standing at a distance. Past the edge of bricks, it had been absorbed by the moist dirt, like a river that disappears into porous soil.

Bora lowered his gun.

To his left, pressing both hands on her mouth, one of the young novices began to shake convulsively, but would not weep. When a breath of unseasonably cold wind swept over the cloister, round yellow leaves, no larger than coins, rained in from the trees outside. No coherent sounds came from the staring group until Hofer stammered to himself, glassy-eyed.

"She's dead, she's dead -- the saint is dead."

With his eyes, Bora followed the trail of blood nearly to his feet. The dirt had drunk it all, but small black ants were racing toward it, and back and forth surveyed the bank of what must be a nourishing, drying river bed to their infinitesimal size. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.