Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Nightingale |
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Vianne brings Rachel and her infant son back and hides them in the cellar beneath the carpark.
But the next day Vianne lets Rachel walk around, despite Beck's warning. And sure enough the Nazis take her away to a concentration camp. But before Rachel leaves she gives her infant son Ari to Vianne.
Beck says he wants to help.
He moved closer. "I want to protect you," he said.
He touched her upper arm, almost a caress, and she felt it in every part of her body, like an electrical charge. Unable to help herself, she looked at him.
He was close to her, just a kiss away..... She longed to be soothed, to forget. She leaned the smallest bit forward, enough to smell his breath, feel it on her lips...
Click here to see the rest of this reviewand then she didn't kiss him. But these two lovebirds are doing things like this all the time. They really need to get a room.
After that, Vianne refused to be alone with Beck. Not because she didn't trust him, but she didn't trust herself. She knew she'd be spreading her legs faster than you can say "Eiffel Tower" if she had the chance.
Beck gave her another gift, false papers to show that Rachel's Jewish boy was actually someone else. Again, this seems very unlikely to be something a German officer would do, even one who badly wanted sex with Vianne.
Vianne is so grateful and they have another almost-sex moment.
They give Ari, the Jewish boy, a new name, Daniel, and tell this little three year old boy that his momma is pushin' daisies, and that there's a new Momma in town, Vianne. Oh, and he also has a new name and he is never to use his old name ever again.
In the continuing to be very unlikely department, Isabelle finds a downed flier and by tremendous coincidence he is just outside the village where Vianne lives. So they take the flier to Vianne's house and hide him in the cellar.
Vianne is very unhappy to see Isabelle and feels Isabelle is cock-blocking her and Captain Beck. She tells Isabelle to go away with the pilot as soon as possible. Vianne even threatens to turn Isabelle in if she comes back! She's Beck's woman now!
Beck comes home very upset that he hasn't found the flier. The Gestapo have threatened to kill him if he doesn't find the flier. (Really? Seems very unlikely). Realizing that he has searched every house in town except Vianne's, he goes down to the cellar. Vianne hits him in the head with a shovel just as Isabelle shoots him dead.
Vianne is very upset. Isabelle has been shot too. The resistance takes Beck's body and takes Isabelle to get medical attention.
Vianne is taken in for interrogation. Beck lived in her home and has disappeared. An SS officer, Von Richter, feels her legs and squeezes her breasts. He must like what he feels because he announces he is moving in with her.
After 400 pages of flirting, Isabelle decides it is time to have some v_ginal sex with Gaetan. They copulate constantly like rabbits for the next few days.
More Jews are taken to concentration camps and Vianne picks up another Jewish boy. She takes him to the church and the church lady agrees to give the boy a new identity and hide him. Vianne goes into the Jew collecting business, collecting Jewish kids and bringing them to the church orphanage.
Isabelle has more sex with Gaetan. Dramatically speaking, whenever a character gets an overabundance of sex you know that something really bad is about to happen to him. Or her.
Vianne has hidden 13 Jewish children at the orphanage.
Meanwhile, Isabelle has rescued 87 downed fliers. Then she gets captured by the Nazis. Remember what I told you about all that sex she had just two paragraphs ago? It was perfect foreshadowing. Isabelle has been warned repeatedly that the Nazis are looking for her. She has been warned repeatedly that they are infiltrating Nazis pretending to be downed American fliers. And yet Isabelle does the same routine, rescuing fliers and taking them out the same route, over and over, as if she never expected to be caught. Very dumb.
Well, she gets caught, but they are not sure if she is the Nightingale, the leader of the effort. She is tortured. They take off her clothes and put her in a fridge. There is no food in the fridge, incidentally.
Meanwhile, Von Richter threatens to deport Daniel/Ari unless Vianne has v_ginal sex with him. She complies. He slips off her shirt and squeezes her nipples. Then he rips off the rest of her clothes. Von Richter orders Vianne to look at him during sex. He says if she looks at him during sex, that Daniel can stay. She agrees.
Meanwhile, Isabelle and Vianne's dad turns himself over to the Germans and announces he is the Nightingale so they won't think Isabelle, who they have captured, is the Nightingale. They believe him. This is totally unbelievable. If the Germans had half a brain they would realize the Nightingale would never simply surrender. They would never believe him unless he told them the names of all his associates. The scene where Isabelle's Dad meets her in prison and announces he is the Nightingale is emotional, because it shows the Dad making the ultimate sacrifices for his daughter (he is executed), but it is also entirely unbelievable.
So Isabelle is not executed. However, she is sent to a concentration camp where she is repeatedly tortured and almost dies. Isabelle meets a priestess who knew her Dad and tells him that World War I "broke him like a cigarette" which is why he became drunk and mean.
Meanwhile, Von Richter the SS man is having a lot of sex with Vianne. Sophie doesn't like that Vianne is doing this but Vianne tells her to put a sock in it.
