I think the biggest success of 33 Place Bruggman is how almost exhaustively the author created a little microcosm of the war-afflicted human world within 33 Brugmann Place. That she could cover nearly all aspects of humankind from the kind, compassionate ones to the cruel selfish warmongers and the layers in between, even those who undergo positive changes, in a 350+-word novel is highly, highly commendable. Alice Austen goes right into my list of top authors to look out for when her next book comes out.

I don’t think I didn’t like any of the characters in the book including the negative shaded ones. I believe the credit for this goes to the author who went deep into everyone’s psyche to understand them well before portraying their feelings and thoughts. That it is historical fiction makes it even more delightful as we get nuggets of golden information from that era seamlessly woven into the narrative.

I loved the interesting tidbit about Cadbury’s changing their formula because of war rationing and how the character in question changes from being a typical Belgian chocolate snob to embracing what the company was willing to offer in the name of chocolate! A happy smile despite the grim situation.

Another incident that touched my heart was when one of the characters was a prisoner of war and made friends with the enemy guard because of their shared love for books and reading. Such instances are irrefutable proof that the human heart can always overcome war even if the consequences are horrible and inhuman. We learn to overcome the consequences too.

Descriptions of the smells of burning flesh of amputated infected body parts in incinerators were gut-wrenching yet not overly dramatic. It was magically matter-of-fact!

Another interesting aspect of men that sort of startled me was when a character said “The point of marriage is to have children,” and like the lady in question, I too thought, “Even in the midst of war, men (unsure if this still holds now) want progeny to take their genes forward! Again, the writing wasn’t judgmental, merely stating the facts through another character.

Such and more episodes, ideas, dialogues, and thought processes in the book made me a huge fan of Alice Austen, and as I said before, she is going right on top of my to-be-read author list!

I thought the ending was also great. It told me friends meet, lovers marry, unfulfilled love continues to be so, children are born, people die, war happens, artists create, art is lost sometimes saved, and yet life goes on as seemingly unremarkable as ever. It’s only when we stop to think we see that ordinary human life is filled with literary greatness warmly beckoning writers like Alice Austen!