Those As Are Brothers by Nancy Hale, 1941
The magic trick:
Establishing a setting (time and place) with subtle editorializing
Probably one of the strongest stories I’ve read about the Holocaust and World War II, “Those As Are Brothers” is remarkably (and terribly) prescient. Its empathy would be remarkable even had it been written in 1950 with hindsight’s knowledge of history. That it was published in 1941, before the United States even entered the war, is truly astounding. If only all our citizens could live through their present with such an open-hearted understanding of its events as Nancy Hale.
I was particularly taken by the first paragraph, which actually is just one long sentence. It gives the story its setting perfectly. Immediately, you are very clear about where you are. But the magic here lies in the editorializing. It’s subtle and left open to interpretation. Clearly, though, we are put in a place that is quiet and comfortable, sheltered from the world, moving through the summer as it normally would regardless of any war in Europe. You can judge as you wish. It’s the rest of the story that fills in those judgments and feelings.
And that’s quite a trick on Hale’s part.
The selection:
The long, clear American summer passed slowly, dreaming over the Connecticut valley and the sound square houses under the elms and the broad living fields and over the people there that came and went and lay and sat still, with purpose and without but free, moving in and out of their houses of their own will, free to perceive the passage of the days through the different summer months and the smells and the sun and the rain and the high days and the brooding days, as was their right to do, without fear and without apprehension.
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