The Two Loves of Sophie Strom, Sam Taylor
The Two Loves of Sophie Strom explores the concept of parallel universes in the context of the Nazis’ rise to power. One night in Vienna in 1933, 13-year-old Max Spiegelman’s life splits in two when his home is attacked by anti-Semitic arsonists. In the first scenario, he escapes with disfiguring burns, is orphaned, and subsequently adopted by a Nazi-sympathizing family who give him the Aryan identity of ‘Hans Schatten’. In the second scenario, Max saves his parents, but later faces terrible danger when Hitler invades Austria. All the boys retain in common is their mutual love for the mysterious girl who visited their father’s music shop on the afternoon of the fire. In time, she will transform both their lives.
Novels about parallel universes are not easy to pull off. Sam Taylor succeeds because his open-ended narrative largely leaves the reader to decide whether the two protagonists really exist in different worlds, whether Hans is Max’s guardian angel (as he comes to believe), or whether he is a mere ‘Jungian shadow’ representing the darker aspects of Max’s personality. Taylor’s split narrative also demonstrates how a single event can transform our lives. Here, Hans’s bitterness at his bereavement leads him to join the Nazi Party, while his more carefree alter ego Max becomes a hero of the French Resistance.
Among the book’s other strengths are intriguing references to Freud, Jung, fairy tales and religious fables. There are also some lovely descriptions: a violin melody like ‘a smooth stream over a pebble bed’; a birch tree’s ‘golden-green dazzle’ in spring. But perhaps the novel’s most successful element is the dual love affair that develops between Sophie and Max/Hans. Their mutual tenderness, their shared delight in books and music, and the bravery that Sophie inspires in both men remind us not only of the joys of mutual love, but also of its redemptive power.
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