The Flight Portfolio

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Acțiunea romanului "Portofoliul fugii" este plasată în Marsilia anului 1940 și ni-l prezintă pe Varian Fry, un jurnalist american care preia conducerea "Energency Rescue Committee", organizație al cărei scop este să scoată din Franța Republicii de la Vichy elita culturală europeană urmărită de naziști (pictori și scriitori). Lista celor pe care trebuie să-i caute și să-i salveze este deja redactată, dar cei care au nevoie de ajutor sunt mult mai mulți, Varian fiind pus astfel în situația îngrozitoare de a alege, într-un fel și altul, cine trăiește și cine moare. Întrucât fondurile financiare sunt precare, el va crea "Portofoliul fugii", o selecție de lucrări realizate și donate de cei aflați în pericol, aceasta urmând să fie trimisă, expusă și licitată în SUA. Planul pare a fi unul fără cusur, dar totul va fi dat peste cap în momentul în care își va face apariția Elliott Grant, un bărbat cu care Varian a avut o legătură foarte puternică în urmă cu 12 ani și pe care îl credea mort. There are so many issues in this story: who is worth saving and why; how far would you go to save your child; what are you willing to risk to live your life authentically; how many forms can love take, and what will you do to keep it; what are you willing to risk to save others. ORRINGER:That was the element of Varian Fry’s experience that I was most fascinated by as a novelist. How does a person make those impossible moral decisions? Given an unlimited number of potential clients and limited time and funds, how do you prioritize? The mandate of Fry’s organization was to save Europe’s most brilliant writers and artists — but how to determine artistic merit among hundreds of refugees, all of them desperate for help? Goldbart, Max (22 March 2023). " 'Unorthodox' & 'Deutschland 83' Creator Anna Winger Says Her Netflix War Drama 'Transatlantic' Was Inspired By Comedy In 'Casablanca' ". Deadline . Retrieved 23 March 2023. One could argue that anyone that gets saved is a victory, but the question of worthiness remains. Varian Fry has good intentions and in the novel, when someone from the French government accused him of assisting Jews, anti-Nazis, degenerate Negroid artists and sexual inverts, Fry says, “If I don’t help them, no one will.”

Set during the Holocaust and World War II, Julie Orringer’s novel The Flight Portfolio (2019) retells the true story of Varian Fry, an editor and journalist who moved to Marseilles, France to join the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC). The ERC embarked on a multinational rescue mission, finding Jewish and political dissident artists and intellectuals all over Europe and moving them outside Hitler’s grasp. Notable individuals saved under Fry’s brave leadership included Jewish political scientist Hannah Arendt, Jewish artist Marc Chagall, Surrealist pioneers Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and Max Ernst. To add realistic dialogue and intrigue to the limited records that exist of Fry’s life, Orringer focuses on his friendship with a fictional college friend Elliott Grant, who appears in Marseille in the midst of Fry’s valiant attempt to stave off the artistic destruction of Hitler’s regime. The novel has been praised for its compelling mixture of fiction and fact, illuminating their dual role in transmitting historical truth. The American painter and sculptor Miriam Davenport and the wealthy socialite Mary Jayne Gold were part of Fry’s small rescue team. Among the people they helped smuggle out of Europe and save from the Nazis include the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, the artist Marc Chagall, artist & poet Max Ernst, writer Hannah Arendtand Nobel Prize winner, Otto Meyerhof. Vichy της Γαλλίας το 1941 για να σώσει τις ζωές Εβραίων καλλιτεχνών, φιλοσόφων, πολιτικών κ.λπ., οι οποίοι πιθανότατα θα είχαν πεθάνει στα χέρια των Ναζί κατά την περίοδο που οι στρατιές του Χίτλερ κατακτούσαν την Ευρώπη. Η συγγραφέας τον σκιαγραφεί ως άνθρωπο, γεμάτο αμφιβολίες για τον εαυτό του, που δεν αισθάνεται εντελώς άνετα με την αποστολή του (επιλέγοντας ποιους να σώσει με βάση το status τους ως "θησαυρούς" του ευρωπαϊκού πολιτισμού) και, παρόλο που αγαπά τη γυναίκα του, έχει εμμονή με τον παλιό του συμφοιτητή,τον Γκράντ. Βρίσκεται ξαφνικά να ακροβατεί ανάμεσα στην παλιά του συμβατική ζωή και σε μια νέα προοπτική απελευθέρωσης και εκπλήρωσης των απωθημένων του. Η απουσία του Γκραντ πλήγωσε τον Βάρι��ν σαν χρόνια ασθένεια και τώρα που διασταυρώθηκαν οι δρόμοι τους είναι ικανός να τον εγκαταλείψει ξανά; The book provides insight into what it was like to be a homosexual in the 1940s. During this period, the Nazis were sending homosexuals to concentration camps! In America, it was also totally unacceptable to be a homosexual. Most lived as hetrosexuals to cover up their real sexual preference. As the reader -I was already so involved with the dialogue- feelings and thoughts that Varian had for Grant ( some envious feelings - some distrust- and complex feelings ).

Inspired by an astonishing true story from World War II, a young woman with a talent for forgery helps hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis in this unforgettable historical novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the "epic and heart-wrenching World War II tale" (Alyson Noel, #1 New York Times bestselling author) The Winemaker's ... Passionate and thoroughgoing. . . . [ The Flight Portfolio] brings to light a truly inspiring episode in history.”— The Wall Street Journal Extraordinary. . . . Orringer has delivered a story with a splendid cast of characters and an intoxicating portrait of a time and place. . . . There’s suspense and tragedy, unexpected twists and deliverance.”— The Seattle Times And because the situation is a mixture of the real and fictional, a construction purposely engineered to invite those questions, it neatly evades the real complexities of life at war, in which most choices do not clearly pit your heart’s desire against the cultural future of the Jewish people, and possibly the world. Giving Fry such a choice makes “The Flight Portfolio” a more engrossing read, but robs it of some value. Orringer is clearly aware of that. At key points, various characters pop up to usefully remind Fry that his entire quest is based on a questionable qualitative measure of the worth of human lives, and is, therefore, perhaps less than fully heroic. But those challenges serve only to accent Fry’s story; they push his personal plot forward, but never meaningfully inform it. If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.

Sepinwall, Alan (7 April 2023). " 'Transatlantic': The Daring Rescue of Jews From Nazi-Occupied France". Rolling Stone. I have always been interested in learning more about Varian Fry and his impressive efforts to get so many artists out of the reach of the Nazis and their minions. Of course I knew that this book is fiction, but I had the preconception that the fiction characterization would be necessary to assign thoughts and feelings to Fry that couldn’t be verified through historical records. It turns out there is a lot more fiction than that in this book. Police raids and deportation are constant threats, but there is still joy – and absurdity – to be found in daily life, especially thanks to Breton and the other Surrealists who soon share Varian’s new headquarters at Villa Air-Bel (which you can tour virtually here). They host dinner parties – one in the nude – based around games and spectacles, even when wartime food shortages mean there’s little besides foraged snails or the goldfish from the pond to eat. Orringer has done a great deal of research and gives us the details of Fry’s work, which is challenging, frustrating, dangerous and inspiring. She also gives us insight into Fry’s humanity and the doubts he sometimes has about many aspects of his mission and about himself. She’s an elegant writer and her descriptions of France, especially Marseilles, are beautiful and evocative. These things are obviously all to the good.Julie’s writing is rich, poignant- suspenseful- emotionally felt with indelible characters so vivid and human - that she totally restored my passion for Historical Fiction. Orringer’s fictional portfolio differs in several key respects. First, it is generated in the novel’s narrative present, in wartime France, rather than 25 years later in New York. Next, the novel’s portfolio is credited not to Fry’s inspiration, but instead to that of a (fictional) Jewish artist-refugee: About halfway through the book, Fry sees the first drawings that “Zilberman” has taken it upon himself to collect (including one that was “unmistakably Chagall’s”): It’s no small matter to cross an ocean,” Chagall said. “More can be lost than canvas and paint. An artist must bear witness, Monsieur Fry. He cannot turn away, even if he wishes to.”

Magnificent… As in 2010’s superb The Invisible Bridge, Orringer seamlessly combines compelling inventions with complex fact… Brilliantly conceived, impeccably crafted, and showcasing Orringer’s extraordinary gifts, this is destined to become a classic.” Let me speak to my friend at the consulate,” Varian said. “Ask him to start a file for you, at least. If you do decide to leave, it might take months.” Focusing on the era that informed her first novel, The Invisible Bridge (2010), Orringer opens with an encounter in which Marc Chagall, one of the most beloved of modern artists, figures. He is living in Vichy France, convinced that because it is France he will be kept safe from the Nazis—"These things happened in Germany." he says. "They won't happen here. Not to us." His interlocutor is Varian Fry, who, under the auspices of the Emergency Rescue Committee, is combing the country for a couple of hundred "artists, writers, and intellectuals," most of them Jewish or politically suspect, who similarly imagined themselves to be safe in France even as the Holocaust begins to unfold and the Gestapo arrest lists lengthen. Fry has allowed himself a month to get those 200 sure victims to safety, and in doing so, as his old friend—and more—Elliott Grant, a shadowy figure of many connections, warns him, he is proving "inconvenient to the American diplomatic mission in France." The cloak-and-dagger element of Orringer's story is effective, though it runs somewhat long. Woven into the action is the slow reconciliation between Fry and Grant, whose friendship is deep but at first tentative, finally heating. Orringer nicely captures two worlds, the fraught one of refugee rescue and the more genteel but still complicated one of intellectuals in orbit, with the likes of Peggy Guggenheim, Max Ernst, and Victor Serge among the cast of characters. The central point of intrigue, providing a fine plot twist, is also expertly handled, evidence of an accomplished storyteller at work. In addition to telling the story of how Fry & his team managed to save so many Jewish artists, the book also delves into Fry’s personal life. Fry was in fact a closet homosexual. In the book, you will read about Fry’s love affair with another man. Fry was in fact ‘happily’ married to a woman in the States.From award-winning author Julie Orringer: a gripping, emotionally powerful narrative that, like her first novel, The Invisible Bridge, brilliantly juxtaposes the sweep of history with the fate of the individual. Flam, Charna (8 February 2023). " 'Transatlantic': Netflix Reveals First Images of Upcoming Limited Series (TV News Roundup)". Variety . Retrieved 10 February 2023. Author Julie Orringer’s “The Flight Portfolio” is rooted in history. The novel tells the story of Harvard graduate Varian Fry ’30, a journalist and editor who was sometimes referred to as the “American Schindler.” While working for the Emergency Rescue Committee in France during World War II, Fry helped save Jewish members of Europe’s cultural elite, including artists, writers, and musicians, from Nazi concentration camps. Orringer worked on the book when she was the Lisa Goldberg Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2013–14. The Gazette spoke with her about the book and how her time on campus helped her shape it. Q&A Julie Orringer As time goes by, Fry and his group become more skilled in organizing false papers and finding escape routes for getting the artists & intellectuals safely off the continent. However, the list of artists needing to get out is endless & the ERC becomes frantically more desperate to save as many lives as possible. From Varian Fry’s Letter to His Wife, Ellen, Written in 1941 The US Government Had No Interest In Saving Jews