Had the honor of interviewing Paula McLean she is a gem and so is the book

Skylark, Paula McLain, author; Paula McLain, Alexa Davalos, Michiel Huisman, narrators
The more things change, the more they remain the same. This is a story about elitism, oppression, and brutality. It is about being trapped and trying to escape. Though there are two stories separated by centuries, all people seem to suffer similar indignities, indignities that can only be tolerated if there are insufferable people willing to stand by and watch because they are not the victims. Perhaps their behavior makes them the perpetrators. In this book, man’s inhumanity to man is on display as a lifestyle, not as an anomaly. Those born to privilege are in a class by themselves. All others are subservient to the whims and rules they make up. They are powerless to fight back. Has anything truly changed?
Although the book begins in 2019 with the discovery of a beautiful, blue-colored shard of glass, in the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral, after a tragic deliberately set fire, it is the only connection to that event and the stories in the book. What follows are two competing stories separated by three centuries. They share the threads of history and the brutality we must remember and try to stop. For me, as I read the stories, I was reminded that man is still capable of gross injustice and barbaric violence. We are witnessing it, again, with the re-emergence of a kind of antisemitism that is so virulent, it surprises most people of the Jewish faith, but oddly, not the rest of the world that seems to support it. Jewish people thought it would never return, but they were wrong. The metamorphosis of antisemitism has gone in the wrong direction.
In 1664, Alouette, which translates to skylark, lives with her father. Her mother abandoned them several years before. She simply disappeared. Her mother had been a healer with the plants that Alouette loved for the colors that her father produced with them. He was a master dyer, and his recipes were treasured, but they were not his. They belonged to the Guild that would be his undoing. As a woman, Alouette was thought to be unfit and unable to create the beauty her father created. Still, she worked alongside him, though neither received credit for their effort. Her father had little standing in society and Alouette, as a woman, had even less. Her dream of creating her own dyes was simply that. It was an impossibility. When Alouette met Etienne, also low-born, a stonemason who worked in the quarries that tunnel underneath Paris, he gave her hope for a future. They both dared to dream of escaping their situations. Alouette must save her father first. He had been arrested for keeping some of his recipes for his dyes a secret from them. Did he hope to escape one day, as well? Etienne could not abandon his cousin’s children. He was responsible for their care. So, they were unable to run away together, yet. They were just dreaming about it. After Alouette was arrested as she tried to gather evidence to prove her father’s innocence, she was sentenced to serve her time in an institution for the mentally disturbed. It is a terrible place where women are routinely abused, and the psychiatric treatments are sadistic and barbaric. Will she escape her unfair incarceration? Will anyone pay for the real crimes against the women who were imprisoned there, many for imaginary illnesses and crimes?
Three centuries later, it is 1939. The story continues. Innocent people are once again being oppressed, Adolf Hitler has risen to power and the Jews are being slowly erased and confined to places where heinous crimes are committed against them. Sasha was once a happy teenager. Her parents had already experienced antisemitism, and so they had all fled to Paris to find safety. It turned out to be unsafe. As the virulent antisemitism became the accepted way of life, as the rights of Jews were slowly diminished, the world watched in silence. As they disappeared, the world made implausible excuses. Kristof was a psychiatrist in an asylum for the mentally ill, which connects this story to Alouette who has been imprisoned in an asylum like it, centuries before. Brutal treatment was still occurring, even over his objections. His bravery impacts Sasha’s life and highlights the goodness of the rare few who could not abide the cruelty or the injustice of Hitler’s world. The quarries where Etienne had worked became a series of underground tunnels providing a way out for those trapped in enemy territory, years later. The Underground truly went underground.
In both stories there were men and women of courage that tried to fight back. Often, they were helpless, but still, they tried. Some made the ultimate sacrifice in that effort. In both stories, there was grave injustice. In both stories, the powerful held sway over those they deemed weaker. In both stories there were those who were entrapped and yearned to escape like a bird, to fly to freedom. From today’s society, we now know that this battle is still raging. There are those who are still trying to escape unfair conditions created by the more powerful. Power does corrupt absolutely. While the stories highlight the brave who do defy the odds, at great risk to themselves, today, we are witnessing little of that kind of courage. The world, once again, stands by as the innocent are oppressed by those with a louder voice, a bigger microphone. The indifference, acceptance of, or promotion of the behavior of the oppressors seems to be more of the norm, though it defies common sense and morality. Our world seems to have turned on its head so that although we have great freedom, we are at risk of losing it, because the evil of man’s inhumanity to each other has become almost the acceptable lifestyle.
I do not think that is the message the book will impart, as interpretation is also dependent on one’s own philosophy, which today seems to have run amok as it promotes insane behavior. Still, I hope it wakes up some people to the upside-down morality of today. In the book, Alouette’s only crime is her desire to be independent. She longs to travel to a place where she can earn respect for her skill. Sasha’s crime is being born Jewish, and that is not a crime, as well. Sasha longs to preserve memories because even at her young age, she already realizes how much there is to lose that history will not remember if she does not save it. She does not want to be erased. She is memorizing Ovid’s Metamorphosis because it inspires the idea that change can happen and can produce happier and more positive results. The question is, what results has memory actually produced? The two stories highlighted the horrors of oppression, the systematic removal of the unwanted, the “unwashed” of society, deemed unworthy and undeserving. It also highlighted the power of courage to inspire change, though we witness little. Both stories are intense as they tell the tale of injustice. Has it really abated though centuries have passed, and the horrors live on in our memories?