Finding Ida
This is a structurally surprising book, but it works beautifully. The narrative begins in Singapore in 1955, where Luiza, settled into a happy marriage and preparing for the birth of her third child, receives a letter which promises to either revive or destroy her hope of finding her sister, who disappeared in the turmoil of wartime Europe. Now, the story leaps back to 1927 Poland and follows Luiza through her childhood and young adult years.
This, for me, was the surprising part; although the pivotal point of the book is Luiza’s quest to find Ida, that quest is deferred until the final chapters. Instead, I found myself wholly and richly absorbed – throughout the book – in Luiza’s experience of a world sliding into war.
Told with the realism and insight of a child growing into a woman, the story explores Luiza’s relationships with her family, particularly her adored father, a German with liberal and socialist leanings, who has taken Polish citizenship. A spectrum of well-realized and colourful secondary characters bears candid witness to the art, music, literature, fashions, politics and religion of the time – and the impossible moral and ethical decisions that are forced upon the population by the war.
The story plummets, briefly but shockingly, into the post-war years, into a landscape drained of colour, affection and vitality, where a returning Luiza observes that ‘the whole of Poland has been consumed by the relentless and joyless Soviet enterprise.’
There is a satisfying resolution to this bright, warm and thought-provoking book, but the most delightful surprise of all is the short but uplifting epilogue which tells the story of the story, drawing Luiza out of history and onto the fringes of our own era through the voice of her daughter, the author.
