Word: maspero
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...news of Antoine. He has grown more cynical. All around him, he sees the self-serving, the spineless--those who supported the Occupation in hope of getting extra butter rations, who are now covering up their guilt as hastily as they cover up the traces of the lost deportees. Maspero examines how people compromise their principles during a crisis. He invites the reader to consider questions of personal ethics, when the safety of the individual is at stake...
PERHAPS THE BEST parts of the novel are its action scenes. His style deft and spare, Maspero tells how Cat and Antoine try to steal food stamps one rainy night. Cat drops the stamps in the mud just as the brothers notice that lanterns are approaching, swinging ominously through the dark...
DESPITE ITS energetic style, however, Cat's Grin has some problems of structure and voice. Perhaps because of his background as a journalist, Maspero feels compelled to tell all. Jarringly, he departs from Cat's limited point of view to give the reader information which the thirteen-year-old could not possibly perceive...
...traces Cat's every moment--the sparsely narrated action scenes of the book are interrupted by long sections during which Maspero has Cat meditate on what he has learned and who he has become. None of these sections quite rings true--they are too pat and preachy, as in Cat's huffy rejection of the pallid values of his aunt and uncle...
...Maspero introduces the book with a quotation from Alice in Wonderland, in which the Cheshire Cat vanishes except for his grin. In the same way, Cat grins on, even as his hope for his family dwindles and he remains alone and cynical, keeping up the empty pretense of being a child...