Series 4, Episode 19 - Beneath the Edelweiss by Elizabeth Noel

We're going up.

What is Beneath the Edelweiss about?

Okay, so Beneath the Edelweiss is the first of two books that explores what happened in the World War II period in Carinthia.

Carinthia brought Nazism into Austria and then in many ways it also delivered it from Nazism as well in this tiny region.

So Beneath the Edelweiss follows that story of Nazism coming in and it tracks it alongside the regions ancient matriarchal herbalism practice.

So my protagonist Mitzi Hausler is an Alpine herbalist in training, and she comes of age during Austria's annexation to Nazi Germany.

Now Mitzi is short-statured, she has a form of dwarfism and this is viewed by the religious superstitious community as an impediment to her ability to actually use herbs to heal.

She does overcome this in many ways but as the veil of Nazism is pulled back And people become increasingly obsessed with who has value and who doesn't.

Mitzi is forced to make some very difficult decisions about the people in her care.

So very broadly, the book is about belonging.

It's also about resistance and survival to tyranny, but also to the lies that we internalize or even that we tell ourselves.

hooked in line and

there you go

nailed it you oh that was fantastic um and yes true to form it this is this book is about so much it's kind of even writing this this part of the of the script down I was like oh there is so much I need to dive into here about yeah about this book it's a dense text it's a book about family about the value of family the moral challenges that come with family outsiders how one perceives that both internally and externally survival as you say it's a story that is a very open about perceptions of disease and disability

but

the things also the things that that those perspectives can give you it's about health the power of healing but it's also i think ultimately the key thing i grabbed for it it's about an examination of self-identity the value of the self especially and the value that you put on it and how much you let that define you and the decision to set that in Corinthia in this period when people are being increasingly corrupted by this growing element that is beginning to show the origins of Nazism.

It gives these themes a fantastic backdrop, I'll just say.

Thank you.

Because...

And the reason why I think it is particularly effective is because...

Us as readers know something that these characters do not.

Correct.

They

know what the rise of Nazism will lead to.

The dark places it will go to in history.