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Ignorance
A stunning war-time novel set in France from Booker-shortlisted author Michèle Roberts.
After every war there are stories that are locked away like bluebottles in drawers and kept silent. But sometimes the past can return: in the smell of carbolic soap, in whispers darting through a village after mass, in the colour of an undelivered letter.
Jeanne Nerin and Marie-Angèle Baudry grow up, side by side yet apart, in the village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angèle is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her own piety and rightful place in society. Jeanne's mother washes clothes for a living. She used to be a Jew until this became too dangerous. Jeanne does not think twice about grasping the slender chances life throws at her. Marie-Angèle does not grasp; she aspires to a future of comfort and influence.
When war falls out of the sky, along with it tumbles a new, grown-up world. The village must think on its feet, play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules. Not even the dubious hero with 'business contacts' who sweeps Marie-Angèle off her feet. Not even the reclusive artist living alone with his sensual, red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth is all too easily buried under a pyramid of recriminations.
Michèle Roberts's new novel is a mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgment, bringing to life a people at war in a way that is at once lyrical and shocking.
After every war there are stories that are locked away like bluebottles in drawers and kept silent. But sometimes the past can return: in the smell of carbolic soap, in whispers darting through a village after mass, in the colour of an undelivered letter.
Jeanne Nerin and Marie-Angèle Baudry grow up, side by side yet apart, in the village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angèle is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her own piety and rightful place in society. Jeanne's mother washes clothes for a living. She used to be a Jew until this became too dangerous. Jeanne does not think twice about grasping the slender chances life throws at her. Marie-Angèle does not grasp; she aspires to a future of comfort and influence.
When war falls out of the sky, along with it tumbles a new, grown-up world. The village must think on its feet, play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules. Not even the dubious hero with 'business contacts' who sweeps Marie-Angèle off her feet. Not even the reclusive artist living alone with his sensual, red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth is all too easily buried under a pyramid of recriminations.
Michèle Roberts's new novel is a mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgment, bringing to life a people at war in a way that is at once lyrical and shocking.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
47 people are currently reading
785 people want to read
About the author
Michèle Roberts
85 books111 followersMichèle Brigitte Roberts is the author of fifteen novels, including Ignorance which was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction and Daughters of the House which won the W.H. Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her memoir Paper Houses was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in June 2007. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love. Half-English and half-French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
December 24, 2012
Note: Although I have not put true plot spoilers in this review, it is more detailed than some might prefer to read. For that reason, I have marked it as containing spoilers.
Two girls from a French village during World War II are reluctant friends when they briefly become the only two boarding students at the local convent. Jeanne Nérin's widowed mother, an impoverished cleaner and washerwoman, is a convert from Judaism, but she remains a Jew in the eyes of the villagers, and Jeanne is treated suspiciously by the nuns and most of the neighbors.
Marie-Angèle Baudry's father is a grocer, and her mother puts the petty in petit bourgeois. Madame Baudry congratulates herself on her generosity, but criticizes and gossips about the objects of her charity, especially Jeanne and her mother. To Marie-Angèle, Mme. Baudry speaks in a stream of cautionary adages as if they will propitiate some angry god.
The story is told largely from the points of view of Jeanne and Marie-Angèle. In flashes, as if through half-closed curtains, we see the girls' paths diverge. Marie-Angèle, sheeplike, follows her mother, grasping for security and possessions. She creates a mythology of rectitude about her life; choosing to believe that her husband, Maurice, is simply an employee at the town hall who earns enough to pay for his elegant cashmere coat and the gifts of gold jewelry he brings to her and her parents.
Jeanne's ancestry and poverty limit her options in an already-difficult wartime economy and she becomes a servant in a brothel in the next town. There, she meets Marie-Angèle's husband, obviously a black marketeer, and learns of the price he exacts on those he claims to help.
"Ignorance" is the perfect title for this tale illustrating many forms of ignorance––including willful ignorance––and the irrevocable harm that can result from it.
The ignorance of young girls about sex, which makes them prey for those who would exploit them; the ignorance and prejudice of the villagers about Jews, which makes it easier for them to ignore what happens to their Jewish neighbors under the Nazi occupation; the villagers turning a blind eye to the real price of luxury items in the World War II black market; and the willful ignorance of a wife about who her husband really is and what he does.
Of course, Michèle Roberts is writing about all of France, not just one village, in this novel. There are no graphically violent scenes in the book, but it is full of brutality and fear. Nobody talks about the neighbors who are disappearing around them. Nearly all are more than willing to compromise everything, including their humanity, for their own material gain. The occupying Germans are little more than an excuse for the residents to become predators.
Roberts's writing style is economical and blunt, yet also sensuous and lyrical. She makes the reader feel the dreariness of the war years: how the cold and wet raise chilblains; the smell of people who go unwashed in the cold, unheated rooms; the combination of revulsion and ravenousness over soup made from moldy potatoes or cabbage; the thrill and shame, pain and pleasure of sex and childbirth. Characters deal with a too-brutal reality by seeing events and themselves in fantastical, fairy-tale terms; flying above themselves and watching from the ceiling, turning into a mythical beast who can lash out and demolish a foe. Roberts's writing sometimes turns from the fantastical to the everyday, but with the same searing effect:
"Eggs inside eggs. Take one mother and one daughter, crack them, separate them, don't let them touch, beat them in their separate bowls, whip them well. Take also one young man and one young woman, add one future mother-in-law, mis well, stir well, season with bitterness and despair, when the mixture curdles add the milk of human kindness, the yeast of doggedness, leave it to rise for as long as necessary, punch it back down, take the resulting story with a good pinch of salt.
Take as many Jews as you like, crack them whip them beat them put into the oven turn on the gas wait until they're well crisped throw into the rubbish pit take another batch start again."
I only wish Roberts had limited her storytellers to Jeanne and Marie-Angèle, rather than having a couple of (short) chapters told by other characters. Those other chapters didn't add much to the book, but more of Jeanne's and Marie-Angèle's stories would have.
This is a difficult and painful book, but the reader is rewarded by the richness of the writing and the flickering, hopeful spark of humanity that persists in spite of everything.
Disclosure: I received a free publisher's review copy, in ebook form.
Two girls from a French village during World War II are reluctant friends when they briefly become the only two boarding students at the local convent. Jeanne Nérin's widowed mother, an impoverished cleaner and washerwoman, is a convert from Judaism, but she remains a Jew in the eyes of the villagers, and Jeanne is treated suspiciously by the nuns and most of the neighbors.
Marie-Angèle Baudry's father is a grocer, and her mother puts the petty in petit bourgeois. Madame Baudry congratulates herself on her generosity, but criticizes and gossips about the objects of her charity, especially Jeanne and her mother. To Marie-Angèle, Mme. Baudry speaks in a stream of cautionary adages as if they will propitiate some angry god.
The story is told largely from the points of view of Jeanne and Marie-Angèle. In flashes, as if through half-closed curtains, we see the girls' paths diverge. Marie-Angèle, sheeplike, follows her mother, grasping for security and possessions. She creates a mythology of rectitude about her life; choosing to believe that her husband, Maurice, is simply an employee at the town hall who earns enough to pay for his elegant cashmere coat and the gifts of gold jewelry he brings to her and her parents.
Jeanne's ancestry and poverty limit her options in an already-difficult wartime economy and she becomes a servant in a brothel in the next town. There, she meets Marie-Angèle's husband, obviously a black marketeer, and learns of the price he exacts on those he claims to help.
"Ignorance" is the perfect title for this tale illustrating many forms of ignorance––including willful ignorance––and the irrevocable harm that can result from it.
The ignorance of young girls about sex, which makes them prey for those who would exploit them; the ignorance and prejudice of the villagers about Jews, which makes it easier for them to ignore what happens to their Jewish neighbors under the Nazi occupation; the villagers turning a blind eye to the real price of luxury items in the World War II black market; and the willful ignorance of a wife about who her husband really is and what he does.
Of course, Michèle Roberts is writing about all of France, not just one village, in this novel. There are no graphically violent scenes in the book, but it is full of brutality and fear. Nobody talks about the neighbors who are disappearing around them. Nearly all are more than willing to compromise everything, including their humanity, for their own material gain. The occupying Germans are little more than an excuse for the residents to become predators.
Roberts's writing style is economical and blunt, yet also sensuous and lyrical. She makes the reader feel the dreariness of the war years: how the cold and wet raise chilblains; the smell of people who go unwashed in the cold, unheated rooms; the combination of revulsion and ravenousness over soup made from moldy potatoes or cabbage; the thrill and shame, pain and pleasure of sex and childbirth. Characters deal with a too-brutal reality by seeing events and themselves in fantastical, fairy-tale terms; flying above themselves and watching from the ceiling, turning into a mythical beast who can lash out and demolish a foe. Roberts's writing sometimes turns from the fantastical to the everyday, but with the same searing effect:
"Eggs inside eggs. Take one mother and one daughter, crack them, separate them, don't let them touch, beat them in their separate bowls, whip them well. Take also one young man and one young woman, add one future mother-in-law, mis well, stir well, season with bitterness and despair, when the mixture curdles add the milk of human kindness, the yeast of doggedness, leave it to rise for as long as necessary, punch it back down, take the resulting story with a good pinch of salt.
Take as many Jews as you like, crack them whip them beat them put into the oven turn on the gas wait until they're well crisped throw into the rubbish pit take another batch start again."
I only wish Roberts had limited her storytellers to Jeanne and Marie-Angèle, rather than having a couple of (short) chapters told by other characters. Those other chapters didn't add much to the book, but more of Jeanne's and Marie-Angèle's stories would have.
This is a difficult and painful book, but the reader is rewarded by the richness of the writing and the flickering, hopeful spark of humanity that persists in spite of everything.
Disclosure: I received a free publisher's review copy, in ebook form.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2012
Didn't even make it to 50 pages.
November 7, 2014
I thought this was a good attempt that didn't quite succeed for me. There were many parts of it where I loved the language, but I found the second half rather confusing.
April 20, 2013
I don’t mind, as a reader, rising to meet the challenge of an author, but there needs to be a payoff, and that’s what’s missing from “Ignorance.”
The book centers on Jeanne and Marie-Angele, who are classmates at Catholic school but not really friends and certainly not peers. Jeanne’s mother does laundry and mending for Marie-Angele’s mother, who runs a grocery with her husband. The disparity between their family situations -- as Jeanne puts it, “she had too much of everything and I didn’t have enough” -- prevents the girls from getting to be close and influences their choices as they grow from schoolgirls into women.
Jeanne’s mother was born Jewish, but changed her surname from Nerinsky to Nerin and poses as Catholic. Roberts gives us this information somewhat matter-of-factly but never explores Madame Nerin’s character. Not that every novel set during World War II has to focus on the treatment of Jews -- and “Ignorance” certainly doesn’t ignore what’s going on, as one character covertly helps people escape and others are turned out of their homes and businesses -- but this seems to be an interesting angle that is brought up and then just dropped.
It would be great to be able to give more of a summary of what the book is about, but there’s not a lot of plot. The book jumps around, back and forth in time and among multiple narrators. We get Jeanne’s point of view first and most often; we also hear from Marie-Angele, Sister Dolly from the school, and Jeanne’s illegitimate daughter. Instead of this giving a fuller picture of events, though, it results in a choppy storyline with large chunks missing, and the ending feels disjointed and too pat.
Roberts’s writing creates vivid images: words “hopped across the pages like toads,” the scent of early spring is “a bitter green perfume sharp as a chisel,” a locked front door “a slap in the face, a slap to the heart.” But ultimately, this novel doesn’t hold together: it’s like flipping through a stack of old pictures -- some beautiful, some horrifying, some simply descriptive -- that are cryptically labeled and out of order.
The book centers on Jeanne and Marie-Angele, who are classmates at Catholic school but not really friends and certainly not peers. Jeanne’s mother does laundry and mending for Marie-Angele’s mother, who runs a grocery with her husband. The disparity between their family situations -- as Jeanne puts it, “she had too much of everything and I didn’t have enough” -- prevents the girls from getting to be close and influences their choices as they grow from schoolgirls into women.
Jeanne’s mother was born Jewish, but changed her surname from Nerinsky to Nerin and poses as Catholic. Roberts gives us this information somewhat matter-of-factly but never explores Madame Nerin’s character. Not that every novel set during World War II has to focus on the treatment of Jews -- and “Ignorance” certainly doesn’t ignore what’s going on, as one character covertly helps people escape and others are turned out of their homes and businesses -- but this seems to be an interesting angle that is brought up and then just dropped.
It would be great to be able to give more of a summary of what the book is about, but there’s not a lot of plot. The book jumps around, back and forth in time and among multiple narrators. We get Jeanne’s point of view first and most often; we also hear from Marie-Angele, Sister Dolly from the school, and Jeanne’s illegitimate daughter. Instead of this giving a fuller picture of events, though, it results in a choppy storyline with large chunks missing, and the ending feels disjointed and too pat.
Roberts’s writing creates vivid images: words “hopped across the pages like toads,” the scent of early spring is “a bitter green perfume sharp as a chisel,” a locked front door “a slap in the face, a slap to the heart.” But ultimately, this novel doesn’t hold together: it’s like flipping through a stack of old pictures -- some beautiful, some horrifying, some simply descriptive -- that are cryptically labeled and out of order.
December 23, 2012
The setting of World War II was almost incidental to the story. The real focus was on the women and girls and their experiences - shaped by the war, but not a war story.
What I loved about this book was the way it showcased how much our perspective on life changes based on where we are in life. One woman's hero can be seen from another angle as a money grubbing jerk. We see the events of the war through Marie-Angèle's eyes first, so we know what the general shape of the war will be. But she is absorbed in her own story, and doesn't question her views of class, religion, or society. Seeing Jeanne's story for herself was so different a story they seem to be living in different realities.
The part that didn't work for me was the vagueness of it all. The narrative doesn't run on story logic but on real life; not everything that is brought up is important, major stories are only hinted at under the surface. It makes for fascinating reading, but can be very frustrating. It also mirrored reality in the ending. Nothing is tied up, there is just suggestions of the direction the future might take. This works with Roberts' writing - it flows and moves in and out of the characters minds and their reality. It flows a little too well - I confess I kept finding my reading flowing with the words and not processing them into a narrative.
Overall this was a beautiful read.
What I loved about this book was the way it showcased how much our perspective on life changes based on where we are in life. One woman's hero can be seen from another angle as a money grubbing jerk. We see the events of the war through Marie-Angèle's eyes first, so we know what the general shape of the war will be. But she is absorbed in her own story, and doesn't question her views of class, religion, or society. Seeing Jeanne's story for herself was so different a story they seem to be living in different realities.
The part that didn't work for me was the vagueness of it all. The narrative doesn't run on story logic but on real life; not everything that is brought up is important, major stories are only hinted at under the surface. It makes for fascinating reading, but can be very frustrating. It also mirrored reality in the ending. Nothing is tied up, there is just suggestions of the direction the future might take. This works with Roberts' writing - it flows and moves in and out of the characters minds and their reality. It flows a little too well - I confess I kept finding my reading flowing with the words and not processing them into a narrative.
Overall this was a beautiful read.
August 20, 2012
This is a tale of the abuses and skewed morality of a community in occupied France for which war brings both winners and losers. Central is the chameleon-like Maurice, the sleek black marketeer who provides Marie-Angele with wealth and bourgeois respectability, but who is also capable of extreme sexual violence against Jeanne. At one point he seems to be about to turn into a kind of Schindler-figure, but later he is seen to be fleecing his desperate Jewish clients of their life savings in return for a chance to drop below the radar. This is a story where everyone is morally compromised to some degree, and the reader who seeks the 'truth' of things must sift through the self-justificatory and conflicting accounts of the different narrators. it is a dispiriting tale, and Marie-Angele in particular is hard to stomach, but Roberts' prose is astonishing in its rich sensuousness and in its ability to evoke the closed worlds of the convent and the brothel with equal ferocity.
January 2, 2013
I kept my review very limited and found I simply didn't like this book. I had difficulties finishing this story as it simply did not flow nor make a whole lot of sense to me. I found myself constantly distracted while trying to read this relatively short novel. As a result, it probably took me 5 times longer to read the book.
June 19, 2013
This is the story of two French girls, one Christian and one part Jewish, who grew up together. Much of it took place during WW 2 during the Occupation. Their lives took very different turns. It was beautifully written, and I recommend it.
September 14, 2025
"Madame Baudry immediately called out, saluting him. 'Bonjour, Monsieur Jaquotet!' She wished him good day, I knew, because she liked to be recognised by everybody, buthe just looked from side to side like a shy kid in the playground. Madame Baudry persisted because she was used to everybody knowing she was there, and that she mattered. Serving in the grocery shop, she wasn't a woman who worked so much as a queenly mother who enjoyed the way people needed her provisions."
"Sometimes I'd sit on the lavatory and read a square or two of newspaper before wiping myself with it. [...] I learned new words. Words about Jews, which hopped across the pages like toads. I wanted to spring up and chase them away. In the school, we had silverfish in the lavatories, and woodlice, and bluebottles, and ants. You had to squash them. Outside, on the garden paths, slugs and snails lounged along. You were supposed to squash them too. The words in my brain could not be squashed. They wriggled and squelched and inched back and forth."
"Sheets of rain fell past my face. I'd forgotten my beret: I put my arms up to shield my head, ran into the square. Wetness hammered my shoulders and nails of rain pierced me. My feet squaleched inside flimsy boots. Water drove down my neck, off my nose, off my eyelashes, soaked through the front of my coat. No separation between me and the weather: I'd dissolved into the rain, become sludge, like melted sugar at the bottom of a cup. Sludge that wanted to dance and go a bit crazy."
"Sometimes I'd sit on the lavatory and read a square or two of newspaper before wiping myself with it. [...] I learned new words. Words about Jews, which hopped across the pages like toads. I wanted to spring up and chase them away. In the school, we had silverfish in the lavatories, and woodlice, and bluebottles, and ants. You had to squash them. Outside, on the garden paths, slugs and snails lounged along. You were supposed to squash them too. The words in my brain could not be squashed. They wriggled and squelched and inched back and forth."
"Sheets of rain fell past my face. I'd forgotten my beret: I put my arms up to shield my head, ran into the square. Wetness hammered my shoulders and nails of rain pierced me. My feet squaleched inside flimsy boots. Water drove down my neck, off my nose, off my eyelashes, soaked through the front of my coat. No separation between me and the weather: I'd dissolved into the rain, become sludge, like melted sugar at the bottom of a cup. Sludge that wanted to dance and go a bit crazy."
July 9, 2018
3.5 stars. I found this book by accident really, I've always enjoyed stories that take place in the early/mid 1900's, especially WWI and WW2. My interest probably stems from the only two history courses I did in university. Anyway, how this hasn't gotten more reviews surprises me. The writing is beautiful, the story harsh. And the name, Ignorance, is perfect. It takes place in France, leading up to, during and just after WW2. We get the characters points of view in the first person, which explains, whether right or wrong, decisions that were made. And how self-righteous people can be, how they jump to conclusions without knowing the whole story. This would've been 5 stars but the story ends with two characters not knowing where the other is, and I needed to know they found each other.
March 26, 2025
This was an interesting book. I had a hard time figuring out if I was liking it or not while reading. On one hand it was an interesting juxtaposition of stories. Then again the two stories felt like they were pushing the morals of not judging others, and looks can be deceiving. There was also the free association writing, which felt a bit poetic at times, but was really hard to figure out what was going on sometimes. If I don't over think the book it was enjoyable, but I got the feeling the book was trying to be thought provoking making it hard.
November 8, 2020
I read this because I'd really liked Negative Capability, her nonfiction tale of coping in a difficult year. The image of the chipped statue of Mary that was mentioned in NC was used in Ignorance. Interesting to see the author's observations come to life in a novel. This was a slightly different take on a WWII novel, how advantageous it was to be Catholic and not other in France at that time. A look at how some people used their wiles to survive.
Birmingham library
Birmingham library
May 28, 2025
It was a hard-to-read book, I got confused and constantly distracted while reading it because of the way it’s written. Sometimes I couldn’t know if I was reading a part of a dialogue or the narrative because there wasn’t a separation between one and another.
The plot is really good, but I felt like everything was mixed and many times it didn’t make sense to me.
The plot is really good, but I felt like everything was mixed and many times it didn’t make sense to me.
February 16, 2013
IGNORANCE by Michele Roberts
SYNOPSIS: From Amazon
Jeanne and Marie-Angèle grow up, side by side yet apart, in the Catholic village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angèle is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her rightful place in society; Jeanne’s mother washes clothes for a living and used to be a Jew. When war arrives, the village must play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules – not the dubious hero who embroils Marie-Angele in the black market, nor the artist living alone with his red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth can be buried under a pyramid of recriminations. A mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgement, Ignorance brings to life a people at war.
OVERVIEW:
Jeanne Nerin,was born to a Jewish woman who converted to a Catholic. She is schooled by the nuns after her father died and her mother became ill. Jeanne's mother works for Madame Baudry as housekeeper and laundress. Marie-Angele Baudry, the daughter of Madame Baudry and Jeanne are the only two full time boarders at the convent school. They are there since Jeanne's mother has been hospitalized, leaving Jeanne with no one. Marie-Angele is there since her mother is pregnant and has no one to do the household work. .
Jeanne is the bad seed who has a relationship with the Hermit, with his strange artist ways. Marie Angele is from the "good" citizen family.
One time the girls went into the Jewish hermit's studio when he wasn't there.. They went through his things but left not understanding what they found. Best not to know Where did the clothing and jewelry given to Marie Angele come from? Best not to know. What about Jeanne's disgrace? Best not to know. Why concern yourself with people who won't be around for long? The Jews were foreign. The women were whores. Jews brought about Communism. People only cared about themselves. Why care about the ones who were different?
REVIEW:
Michele Roberts wrote a fast-paced book. The setting is a mixture of religion, strange and unusual characters, morality and so much more. The story revolves around the French countryside between 1931 and 1945.
Ignorance is sometimes hateful, extremely painful, selfish and always there. If you don't know or profess not to know then how can you be blamed for anything? They say "ignorance is bliss" but it truly isn't. There is the type of ignorance where a person has never learned about things and there is ignorance of our own making. Knowing, but turning our heads the other way ad professing not to know.
Girls grew up in an ignorance of sex. Girls only needed a small amount of education. Too much was dangerous and wasn't what their culture required from women. There were two episodes that formed Jeanne's idea of what it is to be a woman. Marie-Angele watches as Jeanne is told to disrobe herself to a priest who is looking for sexual gratification. The Hermit, who is into pornography draws Jeanne sometimes nude.
The girls have grown and left the convent by the time of the second World War. The main story focuses on their lives and the people in their lives. Meets a Frenchman and gives birth to a daughter. She named her Andree. Maurice, who is a black marketer, does business with Marie-Angele's parents.. He seduces and marries a pregnant Marie-Angele.Marie-Angèle's , While he is married, Maurice meets Jeanne who is a cleaning lady at a bordello.
The author writes a magnificent story of humiliation, disgust, fear and ignorance. That just barely touches the surface of the descriptions that the author relays to the reader. She feels and knows of these emotions.
She writes in a way that you almost can feel these emotions yourself and they are painful, but so real. This novel is about hatred and brutality towards the "unimportant" lives. The hopes and dreams that gradually fade away because of the realization they will never happen. It's about children whose worst fears are sometimes reality. As children they tell of people they never saw again, of parents who didn't care, but as adults, this becomes another reality, as Jewish children are taken to death camps. Ignorance comes to play once again as the upper class preferred "I didn't know" to "We've got to do something."
This was a horrific time in our history. Can the ignorance be faced even after decades of time? Maybe more time will tell. I just believe the heads will always turn the other way and ignorance will remain.
AUTHOR:
Michele Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House, which won the WH Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Half English and half French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and was recently made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government.
I give this book 5 STARS.
I received a complimentary copy of this book, IGNORANCE by Michele Roberts, from Net Galley for this unbiased review.
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SYNOPSIS: From Amazon
Jeanne and Marie-Angèle grow up, side by side yet apart, in the Catholic village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angèle is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her rightful place in society; Jeanne’s mother washes clothes for a living and used to be a Jew. When war arrives, the village must play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules – not the dubious hero who embroils Marie-Angele in the black market, nor the artist living alone with his red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth can be buried under a pyramid of recriminations. A mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgement, Ignorance brings to life a people at war.
OVERVIEW:
Jeanne Nerin,was born to a Jewish woman who converted to a Catholic. She is schooled by the nuns after her father died and her mother became ill. Jeanne's mother works for Madame Baudry as housekeeper and laundress. Marie-Angele Baudry, the daughter of Madame Baudry and Jeanne are the only two full time boarders at the convent school. They are there since Jeanne's mother has been hospitalized, leaving Jeanne with no one. Marie-Angele is there since her mother is pregnant and has no one to do the household work. .
Jeanne is the bad seed who has a relationship with the Hermit, with his strange artist ways. Marie Angele is from the "good" citizen family.
One time the girls went into the Jewish hermit's studio when he wasn't there.. They went through his things but left not understanding what they found. Best not to know Where did the clothing and jewelry given to Marie Angele come from? Best not to know. What about Jeanne's disgrace? Best not to know. Why concern yourself with people who won't be around for long? The Jews were foreign. The women were whores. Jews brought about Communism. People only cared about themselves. Why care about the ones who were different?
REVIEW:
Michele Roberts wrote a fast-paced book. The setting is a mixture of religion, strange and unusual characters, morality and so much more. The story revolves around the French countryside between 1931 and 1945.
Ignorance is sometimes hateful, extremely painful, selfish and always there. If you don't know or profess not to know then how can you be blamed for anything? They say "ignorance is bliss" but it truly isn't. There is the type of ignorance where a person has never learned about things and there is ignorance of our own making. Knowing, but turning our heads the other way ad professing not to know.
Girls grew up in an ignorance of sex. Girls only needed a small amount of education. Too much was dangerous and wasn't what their culture required from women. There were two episodes that formed Jeanne's idea of what it is to be a woman. Marie-Angele watches as Jeanne is told to disrobe herself to a priest who is looking for sexual gratification. The Hermit, who is into pornography draws Jeanne sometimes nude.
The girls have grown and left the convent by the time of the second World War. The main story focuses on their lives and the people in their lives. Meets a Frenchman and gives birth to a daughter. She named her Andree. Maurice, who is a black marketer, does business with Marie-Angele's parents.. He seduces and marries a pregnant Marie-Angele.Marie-Angèle's , While he is married, Maurice meets Jeanne who is a cleaning lady at a bordello.
The author writes a magnificent story of humiliation, disgust, fear and ignorance. That just barely touches the surface of the descriptions that the author relays to the reader. She feels and knows of these emotions.
She writes in a way that you almost can feel these emotions yourself and they are painful, but so real. This novel is about hatred and brutality towards the "unimportant" lives. The hopes and dreams that gradually fade away because of the realization they will never happen. It's about children whose worst fears are sometimes reality. As children they tell of people they never saw again, of parents who didn't care, but as adults, this becomes another reality, as Jewish children are taken to death camps. Ignorance comes to play once again as the upper class preferred "I didn't know" to "We've got to do something."
This was a horrific time in our history. Can the ignorance be faced even after decades of time? Maybe more time will tell. I just believe the heads will always turn the other way and ignorance will remain.
AUTHOR:
Michele Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House, which won the WH Smith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Half English and half French, Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and was recently made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French government.
I give this book 5 STARS.
I received a complimentary copy of this book, IGNORANCE by Michele Roberts, from Net Galley for this unbiased review.
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June 27, 2017
This book is well written, it's just not my thing. I picked it up at the library as a mystery book style thing, and while the story was sad and the characters well fleshed out it just didn't do a lot for me, personally.
February 15, 2021
I almost put this down so many times; but kept thinking there has to be a point to it and kept reading. It was so difficult to understand and I never found the point. There too much sex, including from what I understood a child being molested at least once. Would not recommend.
July 30, 2025
I loved the writing style here, but it did feel slightly surface-level. Then again, I suppose the fragmentation does help with the story Roberts is clearly trying to tell about ignorance, memory, loss, and complicity.
March 24, 2017
2.5/5, although there were some great parts, it was too disjointed.
December 13, 2017
Somewhat underwhelming, some of it read like an academic exercise - rather formulaic in the prose.
October 6, 2018
Couldn't get passed the first chapter.
Not for me I'm afraid.
Not for me I'm afraid.
October 19, 2024
2.5 stars.
August 25, 2017
I found the strange descriptions annoying and decided not to finish the book.
December 8, 2012
Jeanne Nerin and Marie-Angèle Boudry may have been thrown together when they were young, but it's an accident more than anything else. Jeanne Nerin is a converted into Catholic Jew, the daughter of a washerwoman who has seen better days. Marie-Angèle is the grocer's daughter, a Catholic, and a girl of relative privilege. Marie-Angèle's mother takes it upon herself to "improve" the lot of her washerwoman, and sponsors Jeanne into the same convent Marie-Angèle is sent to. The two play together, dare each other into doing forbidden things, such as visiting the reclusive Jew who lives in the house next door to the convent. Something bad happens, and there their connection ends. Marie-Angèle grows up into respectability, gets swept off her feet by the glamorous, rich and outwardly charming Maurice Blanchard. It helps too that there's a war on and Blanchard is making the most of it by running a taxi service for fleeing Jews. Jeanne, on the other hand, gets employed by the "tart" house, is seen consorting with the Germans, and when the war is done, gets paraded in front of the whole town as a traitor to France. But, every story has at least one other side, and this book contrives to show all perspectives of common incidents.
I cannot make up my mind about this book. On the one hand, the main characters - Marie-Angèle, Jeanne, Maurice and the reclusive Jew Jacquotet are very well drawn. The prose is lyrical, even when describing mostly squalid goings on. And, no mistake, the glories of war do not reach this little shockingly anti-Semitic town, only the squalor and the greed and the profiteering. Roberts both contrasts and does not contrast Jeanne's life within two opposite surroundings - the convent and the whorehouse - she has equally traumatic episodes in both. She examines the hypocrisy and the judgmental nature of the town - everyone is doing their best to get through the war, and in some way are complicit with what was going on during German occupation - but the ones punished for it are the ladies of the tart house, who were also doing the best the could to survive. The ending,
On the other hand, the book rapidly shifts gears, timelines and perspectives, sometimes not giving enough time for the reader to assimilate what is written. The central character is Jeanne, but her perspective is interspersed with that of her nemesis Marie-Angèle, her daughter Andrèe and a nun in the convent, Sister Dolly. Marie-Angèle is the best of the other perspectives, and it makes sense in the context of the contrast. Jeanne's daughter Andrèe on the other hand is introduced as the second Jeanne - a product of Marie Angèle's hypocritical charity - and just as she gets interesting we leave her in the middle of nowhere with someone we haven't been introduced to before, and we never see her again in the book. The inclusion of Sister Dolly just makes no sense. I wish Roberts did not feel the need to clutter the book so, and had stuck to two protagonists, however unlikeable they may be. There's also a difference in the prose used for each of these characters, but not enough of it to actually sound realistic. If I had not known I was reading Andrée's account, I would have mistaken it for Jeanne. Similarly Marie-Angèle and Sister Dolly. I also wanted to know more about a few other characters. Maurice, painted as a blackguard, is dropped off rather unexpectedly midway through the book.
In sum, I liked the book, but not as much as I wanted to or would have expected to when I picked it up. The beautiful language in Jeanne's accounts make up for the vagueness, but only just. 3 stars.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley
I cannot make up my mind about this book. On the one hand, the main characters - Marie-Angèle, Jeanne, Maurice and the reclusive Jew Jacquotet are very well drawn. The prose is lyrical, even when describing mostly squalid goings on. And, no mistake, the glories of war do not reach this little shockingly anti-Semitic town, only the squalor and the greed and the profiteering. Roberts both contrasts and does not contrast Jeanne's life within two opposite surroundings - the convent and the whorehouse - she has equally traumatic episodes in both. She examines the hypocrisy and the judgmental nature of the town - everyone is doing their best to get through the war, and in some way are complicit with what was going on during German occupation - but the ones punished for it are the ladies of the tart house, who were also doing the best the could to survive. The ending,
On the other hand, the book rapidly shifts gears, timelines and perspectives, sometimes not giving enough time for the reader to assimilate what is written. The central character is Jeanne, but her perspective is interspersed with that of her nemesis Marie-Angèle, her daughter Andrèe and a nun in the convent, Sister Dolly. Marie-Angèle is the best of the other perspectives, and it makes sense in the context of the contrast. Jeanne's daughter Andrèe on the other hand is introduced as the second Jeanne - a product of Marie Angèle's hypocritical charity - and just as she gets interesting we leave her in the middle of nowhere with someone we haven't been introduced to before, and we never see her again in the book. The inclusion of Sister Dolly just makes no sense. I wish Roberts did not feel the need to clutter the book so, and had stuck to two protagonists, however unlikeable they may be. There's also a difference in the prose used for each of these characters, but not enough of it to actually sound realistic. If I had not known I was reading Andrée's account, I would have mistaken it for Jeanne. Similarly Marie-Angèle and Sister Dolly. I also wanted to know more about a few other characters. Maurice, painted as a blackguard, is dropped off rather unexpectedly midway through the book.
In sum, I liked the book, but not as much as I wanted to or would have expected to when I picked it up. The beautiful language in Jeanne's accounts make up for the vagueness, but only just. 3 stars.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 11, 2015
You know, sometimes the GR synopsis can be very misleading. This was the case here and probably explains the low overall rating. It is historical fiction being mostly set during WW2, but this is also very much a work of literary fiction, very sexually explicit and at times very unsettling with some Lolita-esque moments. So be warned.
We initially meet Jeanne and her friend Marie-Angele as two nine year old girls boarding at a village convent school. They are friends but it is an imbalanced friendship. Jeanne's mother is an impoverished widow and a woman in bad health. She is a recent convert from Judaism to the perceived safety of Christianity who works as a laundress, partly for Marie-Angele's relatively prosperous Catholic family who run the village grocery shop. When war comes to France in 1939 the girls have ceased to be friends and by 1942, when the girls are fifteen, they have both tried to make a life for themselves out of their differing circumstances partially by understanding that they can sometimes get what they want through use of their blossoming sexuality. For Marie-Angele this seems to be from choice in order to gain the more elevated social status she feels is her right, but for Jeanne who has lost the innocence of her childhood in rather disquieting circumstances, it eventually becomes of complete and utter necessity. Connecting these two girls is Maurice, who is a slick and often odious black marketeer come collaborator, but one who also arranges the escape of some of the Jews of the village though this is only done in return for payment of some kind.
The story is told from the viewpoint of several narrators at varying points in time, with Jeanne being the main voice and it is mainly her account of what happened. Part of the problem with this is that Jeanne's telling of the story often flits between reality and imagination and far too often this is an imperceptible shift that leaves you grasping for the narrative flow. I did enjoy it but it cannot be described as a comfortable or easy read.
We initially meet Jeanne and her friend Marie-Angele as two nine year old girls boarding at a village convent school. They are friends but it is an imbalanced friendship. Jeanne's mother is an impoverished widow and a woman in bad health. She is a recent convert from Judaism to the perceived safety of Christianity who works as a laundress, partly for Marie-Angele's relatively prosperous Catholic family who run the village grocery shop. When war comes to France in 1939 the girls have ceased to be friends and by 1942, when the girls are fifteen, they have both tried to make a life for themselves out of their differing circumstances partially by understanding that they can sometimes get what they want through use of their blossoming sexuality. For Marie-Angele this seems to be from choice in order to gain the more elevated social status she feels is her right, but for Jeanne who has lost the innocence of her childhood in rather disquieting circumstances, it eventually becomes of complete and utter necessity. Connecting these two girls is Maurice, who is a slick and often odious black marketeer come collaborator, but one who also arranges the escape of some of the Jews of the village though this is only done in return for payment of some kind.
The story is told from the viewpoint of several narrators at varying points in time, with Jeanne being the main voice and it is mainly her account of what happened. Part of the problem with this is that Jeanne's telling of the story often flits between reality and imagination and far too often this is an imperceptible shift that leaves you grasping for the narrative flow. I did enjoy it but it cannot be described as a comfortable or easy read.
December 19, 2013
When people are deprived of something, particularly food, they cannot stop thinking about it. It haunts them. Scents of cooking follow them. They zone in on it at the expense of other things. While Roberts' novel is not about starvation, it is about deprivation, not only of food, but also of beauty and love. Hence, when Jeanne Nerin is lucky enough to obtain any one of these things, they loom larger than life in her narrative. The cheese sandwich that Bernie offers her aboard the ferry to London is likely the first bite of cheese that Jeanne has had in some time. We, too, can taste that sandwich, with its "thick yellow slice of cheese, yellowish bread" that she bites into and devours before doing the same to the second sandwich that Bernie proffers. When Jeanne turned thirteen earlier in the novel, her mother insisted on a meager celebration, and after consulting the sole cookbook (itself later described as a bible), _I Want to Cook_ by Brigitte Marisot, Jeanne and her mother decide on _Delicieuses_, as her mother had managed that day to procure two hen's eggs. "Snowy beaten egg whites folded with grated Gruyere and quickly deep-fried to become fat puffs" that Jeanne ate greedily: "Salt and hot oil on my lips, the billowy cushion of egg white melting to wateriness on my tongue," she recalls.
While other voices make up this novel, it is Jeanne's that is most important. Her ability to focus on those things that are often denied her and make them larger than life when she fortunately happens upon them or contrives to get a hold of them, help hold off the bleak, frightening realities of surviving as a Jew in Occupied France. Along with making much of food, Jeanne makes much of color, in part because her friend and one-time lover, Monsieur Jacquotet not only draws and paints the young Jeanne, but teaches her to draw as well, allowing her a way to express her fear, sorrows, pining, sacrifices, risks, and never-ending hunger.
While other voices make up this novel, it is Jeanne's that is most important. Her ability to focus on those things that are often denied her and make them larger than life when she fortunately happens upon them or contrives to get a hold of them, help hold off the bleak, frightening realities of surviving as a Jew in Occupied France. Along with making much of food, Jeanne makes much of color, in part because her friend and one-time lover, Monsieur Jacquotet not only draws and paints the young Jeanne, but teaches her to draw as well, allowing her a way to express her fear, sorrows, pining, sacrifices, risks, and never-ending hunger.
July 22, 2014
The synopsis on amazon is rather different to the one which I read on netgalley, and I feel it represents the book much better. I went into the story expecting a story which looked back on war times, and something which had been hidden within that time, some great secret. What I got was the story of two women, childhood friends who had started on a similar path but ended up going in completely different directions.
The war was somewhat of an important factor in the story, however it was only significant in that a major storyline would not have happened outside of the war- there was never any real sense that it was war-time.
Marie-Angèle ended up going to an (arguably) better place, she still seemed to have some care for her old friend, however it came across as charity, or a duty. Marie-Angèle didn’t seem to actually care for Jeanne so much as to want to be seen to be caring for her. Jeanne in her turn actually seemed to dislike Marie-Angèle, and I didn’t blame her.
You see I didn’t like Marie-Angèle the whole way through this book, and that made her chapters a little difficult to read. I found her snobby, fake, and rather conniving. The nearest I can say I came to liking her was that I understood sometimes why she might think what she was doing was right, although she seemed to value her own opinion as being much above others.
Jeanne I ended up liking. We never really know what became of Jeanne, but I hope her life got better.
There were some elements to the story which I didn’t really understand the inclusion of. They added little to the plot, apart from fulfilling the promised secret which was not significant to the rest of the story.
The war was somewhat of an important factor in the story, however it was only significant in that a major storyline would not have happened outside of the war- there was never any real sense that it was war-time.
Marie-Angèle ended up going to an (arguably) better place, she still seemed to have some care for her old friend, however it came across as charity, or a duty. Marie-Angèle didn’t seem to actually care for Jeanne so much as to want to be seen to be caring for her. Jeanne in her turn actually seemed to dislike Marie-Angèle, and I didn’t blame her.
You see I didn’t like Marie-Angèle the whole way through this book, and that made her chapters a little difficult to read. I found her snobby, fake, and rather conniving. The nearest I can say I came to liking her was that I understood sometimes why she might think what she was doing was right, although she seemed to value her own opinion as being much above others.
Jeanne I ended up liking. We never really know what became of Jeanne, but I hope her life got better.
There were some elements to the story which I didn’t really understand the inclusion of. They added little to the plot, apart from fulfilling the promised secret which was not significant to the rest of the story.
May 10, 2013
This focuses on two girls from a French village around the time of WWII, they are reluctant friends for a brief while and then their paths diverge. Jeanne is the daughter of an impoverished cleaner and washerwoman, who is a convert from Judaism, but remains a Jew in the eyes of the villagers. Marie-Angèle is firmly of the bourgeoisie her father is a grocer, and her mother is that gossiping stereotype who congratulates herself on her generosity, but criticizes and gossips about the objects of her charity, especially Jeanne and her mother. Marie-Angèle wants security and possessions and ignores and reframes what she knows to fit this need; choosing to believe that her husband, Maurice, is simply a civil servant who earns enough to pay for a cashmere coat and gifts of jewelry. She casts Jeanne as a prostitute and models her mothers attitudes and hypocrisy.
Jeanne becomes a servant in a brothel in the next town. Where she meets Marie-Angèle's husband, who is obviously a black marketeer, and learns of the price he exacts on those he claims to help.
Jeanne is the main narrator, but Marie-Angele also narrates some sections and so we get two views of events, the chronology is not linear, shifting backwards and forwards. Both women are effectively victims of their childhood and circumstances, what is interesting is to see how they deal with life. For Jeanne honesty is the route, for Marie-Angele, honesty is superfluous, she can retell events to hide her complicity and preserve her worldview.
Jeanne becomes a servant in a brothel in the next town. Where she meets Marie-Angèle's husband, who is obviously a black marketeer, and learns of the price he exacts on those he claims to help.
Jeanne is the main narrator, but Marie-Angele also narrates some sections and so we get two views of events, the chronology is not linear, shifting backwards and forwards. Both women are effectively victims of their childhood and circumstances, what is interesting is to see how they deal with life. For Jeanne honesty is the route, for Marie-Angele, honesty is superfluous, she can retell events to hide her complicity and preserve her worldview.
February 16, 2017
No real story and definitely not a proper ending.
April 22, 2013
This book was selected for the long list for the Orange Prize. It illustrated a very interesting cross section of lives affected by WW2, namely two women who start out as friends. Taking place in a small French village during the time of Nazi occupation, the book follows a few different narrators and spans from right before the Nazi takeover to a good 10 years after. I enjoyed the setting of the cozy little French village and the felt that the descriptions and tough characters really embodied and represented what a horrible time it was. Lots of steamy seduction however its marred by some horrific consequences and the morality of most of the people of the village. I think most of all I enjoyed the narrative technique here. You had the same story, told by a few different characters, so it was really cool to see how something first interpreted one way is totally different through the eyes of someone, say, on the other side of the tracks. Also - enjoyed it's length. Got to love books that come in at just under 200 pages. Woop! Recommended!
April 18, 2015
A couple of childhood friends at a Catholic boarding school grow up to lead vastly different lives during the Nazi occupation of their village in wartime France. Each does whatever she has to do to survive in the face of wartime deprivation and political oppression. One marries a black marketeer and family friend who provides her with jewlery and furs while the other subsists on boiled potatoes and the meager wages of a mother who takes in washing to support her family. There are no heroes or villains in this story. Nobody comes out of this experience with clean hands---certainly not Maurice, the double-agent, and certainly not the Nazi occupiers---but if I had to pick the worst of the bunch, it would be Marie-Angele, whose overbearing treatment and betrayal of her childhood friend is inexcusable, even in wartime. But even Jeanne makes a decision that could have tragic consequences for others. If I had to pick a "hero' in this story it would be Jeanne's daughter Andree, who is the only character who seemed willing or able to boldly condemn the woman who had betrayed her mother.
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