96. Sophie's Choice - Why I won't Re-read it.

It all started because I watched Friends. There’s an episode where Phoebe is asked to be a surrogate for her estranged brother. She needs to decide and her mom (step mom, birth mom, mom’s friend?) gives her a puppy to look after. She then comes to take the puppy away to show Phoebe how hard it is to give up something you love. Phoebe gets all upset “don’t hurt the puppy!” and Rachel says, “this is just like Sophie’s Choice.” “Oh I never saw that!” Exclaims Phoebe. “Oh, it was only okay.” Replies Rachel.

What was this “Sophie’s Choice”? And WHY was it only okay? I had to know.

It was a long time ago and I think that I actually watched the movie first, not realising it was a book. And I think that, while the movie really was ‘only ok’ I was so compelled by it that I had to read the book too. My thought probably was – they’ve changed stuff for the movie to make it more shocking, that’s not really in the book.

So I read the book.

The book is set, if memory serves, in post WWII New York. A young man moves to New York to become a writer and in his rooming house he meets Sophie and her boyfriend. Sophie is Polish and she managed to live through the war, just.  Sophie is manic, she dances, she sings, she dresses in flamboyant clothes when the mood strikes, but at times she is moody, dark and completely unapproachable.

During the course of the book the young man discovers more and more about the life Sophie led in Poland and what happened to her and her family during the war. And then comes the choice.

Like The Sheltering Sky , Sophie’s Choice has an unexpected twist. It comes at the hands of the Nazis in Poland. Yet in comparison, Sophie’s Choice is vulgar and sensational to the uncontrolled tragedy in The Sheltering Sky.  It demands for you to be shocked and it works.

The choice that Sophie is forced to make exposes the deeply personal horrors that Polish people experienced under the Nazi’s.  Sophie is Christian something she points out to the Nazi’s as she’s taken to the concentration camp. Not that it matters – she’s Polish and the Polish people were ‘expendable’. 

When I read the part about her choice I was completely unprepared for it.  I don’t recall the writing to be a moving at The Shelter Sky, but I was nevertheless stunned by what occurred. Thinking back on it now, the matter of fact way in which the choice was presented could have been the most disturbing part about it. I expect that was done on purpose.  

I get very emotionally invested in books – good books create images and thoughts I can’t always shake. Sophie’s Choice hit very close to home for me and I haven’t been able to shake it. It’s been more than ten  years, at least, since I’ve read the book; so long ago now I can’t even remember for sure when I read it. Yet, I am still haunted by the events of this book.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not rereading this book because I didn’t like it or I think it’s a bad book.

I can’t read it again.

I cannot fathom picking it up again with the knowledge that I have about it. Just seeing the cover causes my heart to pound and I feel fear.

Of all the books on this list that I have previously read this is the only one I will not reread. As mentioned, I will read the others because most of them I read 10+ years ago and I’m sure that my perspective, opinion and feelings about then have changed and I want to explore that when I get to them.

However I cannot do that with Sophie’s Choice, it will rip me apart.