They discovered several statues and paintings in this hidden chapel. After a bombing near the monastery, Sofia and Hugo were surprised when stairs leading to a basement were uncovered.
Because both Sofia and Hugo were art lovers, they mourned the way the Germans had looted the monastery of its sculptures and paintings. Hugo found shelter in the ruins of a monastery that had been bombed by the Allies after the Germans set up a stronghold there. Hugo’s parts of the novel describe how he survived his injury and exposure to the elements with the help of Sofia. A reference to a “beautiful boy” (61) in the letter led Joanna to believe that perhaps Sofia and her father had a child together.
Joanna learned from a letter from Hugo to Sofia, that had been returned unopened to Hugo, that her father wanted to marry Sofia. The novel alternates between December of 1944 when Hugo’s plane was shot down and 1973, the year of his death, when Hugo’s daughter, Joanna, learned that her father had fallen in love with Sofia, an Italian girl during the period of time he was fighting with the Allies. Considered historical fiction because parts of the novel are set during World War II, The Tuscan Child features Hugo Langley, an English aristocrat and bomber pilot shot down over the village of San Salvatore in German-controlled territory, as he tried to survive a serious injury and remain hidden from the enemy, and Sofia Bartoli, the Italian girl who risked her life to help him survive. In The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen, a daughter’s search for the truth about her father’s service in World War II leads to love between herself and the son of her father’s savior as well as the discovery of a priceless piece of art kept safe from the Germans by her father. Lake Union Publishing, February 20, 2018.
The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Bowen, Rhys.
0 kommentar(er)
