Tasa’s Song
Many novels about the war ─ any war ─ involve survival; Tasa’s Song is no exception, but it has a difference in that the overall theme is about a young woman and her music. The story is set in Poland and is about a Jewish family surviving World War II and love versus hate, courage versus evil, strength versus weakness. The reader becomes bound up in the characters and is there, with them, experiencing what they are experiencing day after day, week after week.
Tasa ─ Anastasia ─ Rosinski is a gifted violinist who finds solace and hope in her music, her talent helping to endure the horrors of the world and the war that surrounds her. Through family and friendship, and her violin, life caught between the Nazis and the Russians is endured and Linda Kass writes a most poignant and moving story that is detailed and well researched. Her characters are believably real, especially Tasa herself: you can almost hear her playing a haunting melody in the background while reading, especially towards the latter half.
The novel opens with drama but changes to backstory and Tasa’s childhood, then proceeds through the war years which slowed the pace. Some of the descriptive scenes were a little slow, even slightly tedious. Even so, this was a moving debut novel, worth reading.
