The novel is unusual because it is written backwards. We first meet the characters when the war is over. It is 1947 and although it should be a time of happiness because of the relative peace after so long at war, every character is troubled for some reason or other.  The author provides enough information that you can start to form a picture of why each person is where they are, but not so much that you can guess at what befell them during the war years. Kay is very much alone, Viv remains loyal to her married lover but shows signs of disillusionment, Duncan is now free from prison, but living with one of his prison wardens and Helen, in love with and living with Julia, is torn apart by her own jealousy and insecurity.

The tragic section of this book is the middle section which covers the events of 1944. It is during this section that we find out the reason for Kay’s sadness, and the roots of Viv’s disillusionment. We discover when Helen fell in love with Julia and the impact that that had on others. And we share prison with Duncan, and begin to learn why he is there. In the final, short section of the book – 1941 – some final answers are provided, causing you to think back over what you have read to put the pieces together and explain the atmosphere which pervades the first part of the book.

I really enjoyed the novel, although I was a little frustrated by the reverse narrative, not because I found it difficult to follow, but because when I had discovered the causes, I wanted to know what happened after 1947 and I kept reminding myself that I wouldn’t know because I had already read that part! I thought the descriptions of the relationships between the characters were very tender and unselfconsciously written, and I really liked that. It isn’t always that you get to read about lesbian relationships with such candour and it helped you to understand just how difficult it would have been during a time where any kind of unorthodox relationship was frowned upon, whether it was same sex, or simply an affair out of wedlock. As a result, every single character experiences something of the forced secrecy which they have to endure as an added stress to the difficulties everyone faced.

I think this was a well written novel which brought to life the Blitz in London. It successfully showed that not everyone who went through it fitted the archetype of the Londoner which you see on the old newsreels or read about in history books. Then, as today, there were ‘outcasts’ – who had to show perhaps greater bravery and strength to make it through.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-1-84408-241-4
Publisher: Virago
Year:2006
Date Finished: 6 November 2009
Pages: 503

I love history. I love finding out about periods of history I know little about, and I really enjoy reading a well written, informative history book that keeps you reading and never goes dry. The problem with so many history books is that they are often so full of names and dates that it is easy to lose track. As a visual reader, I need to be able to picture places, people and events in my head and I can only do that when I can keep track of them.

Bob Wurth’s 1942:Australia’s Greatest Peril falls into that category for me of an accessible history. It covers the events of the title year, when Japan was contemplating invading Australia as a part of its Pacific expansion. There has been much debate as to whether Japan ever intended to invade. Wurth, who is clearly a Japanese speaker, has spent a long time chasing up documents, interviews and quotes to try and settle the debate. The argument in this book suggests that indeed, Japan did contemplate invasion, but due mainly to the fact that the Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy were almost as much at war with one another as Japan was with the USA, the invasion never happened.

The book, however, covers a great deal of the war in the Pacific of 1942 beyond this. It provides excellent context, albeit skipping over certain events like the Battle of Midway and the Battle of the Coral Sea quite quickly. He spends a lot of time talking about the completely futile midget submarine programme which was little more than wasted suicide. And he talks about how close the Japanese did actually come through both the bombing of Darwin and the entry into Sydney Harbour. I was ashamed to say that although this is a part of my own country’s history, I had no idea. I had no idea that the bombing of Darwin was not just a one off incident, but a protracted campaign over the course of a year or more. I had no idea that midget subs made it into Sydney harbour. And I had no idea that Australia had even been considered a target during the war.

The book is written in a pithy, easy to understand manner. Although there are a lot of Japanese names to remember, the author doesn’t give so many that you can’t keep up with them. He also gives each character something of a personality, which also makes visualisation easier. And by keeping the events simple, he creates a chain which provides a good clear explanation as to how far the Japanese got, and why they were eventually defeated.

After finishing 1942 I now want to read more on those incidents I never knew about – The Battle of the Kokoda Trail, MacArthur coming to Australia and the politics behind that, and the Battles of Midway and The Coral Sea. I am glad to finally know something about the period – I have spent so much time reading about the war in Europe that it is good to redress the balance. And perhaps that is the secret of a good history book – it ends, leaving you hankering to learn more and heading back to the library to satiate that feeling.

The official website of the book with more information is quite interesting also.

Rating: 8/10
ISBN: 978-1-4050-3860-7
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 22nd December 2008
Pages: 433

After finishing the previous book, I was really looking forward to a well written story and picking up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was an excellent decision. This book was absolutely delightful. The characters were charming, the story was simply lovely and the format made it both easy to read and acutely personal. My Mum told me she had bought it simply because of the fabulous title, but the rest of the book doesn’t let you down.

It is set just after the Second World War. Juliet, a writer who had written a satirical column during the War finds herself a little lost. Her flat has been bombed, her column is no longer necessary and she still isn’t married. But Juliet has pluck and a fantastically witty and clever personality so none of these ills get her down. The format of the book is a series of letters between Juliet, her publisher and her friend. Suddenly she receives a letter from a gentleman named Dawsey who lives on Guernsey. He found her address inside the cover of a second hand book and decided to write to her. Thus begins a series of correspondences between Juliet, Dawsey and all of the other members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, many of which relate stories of their experiences during the protracted German occupation of their island during the war.

I loved the combination of humour and history which underpinned this book. I never knew that The Channel Islands had been occupied and it was fascinating to read about the experience (albeit in fictional form). Because of the format, you get an intimate view of the personality of each character – something which is more difficult to achieve in a standard third person narrative. It also takes you back to a time when letter writing was the norm and when community mattered over and above everything. I was transported back to 1946 with wonderful clarity.

Perhaps my only criticism is it seemed to end rather suddenly. Maybe it was because I was enjoying the book so much I didn’t want it to end, so the ending felt rather abrupt. Nevertheless, it was a ‘happily ever after’ ending which I took a lot of pleasure in. Sometimes ‘happily ever after’ is just what you need.

The tragic thing about this book is that the author, Mary Ann Shaffer, spent many years writing the book and sadly died before she saw it published. It made the story all the more poignant. Her labour of love was greatly appreciated.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 978-1-74175-168-0
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 19 December 2008
Pages: 268

The story is set in Poland near the beginning of the war. Emma, a young Jewish girl, newly married, finds her life thrown into turmoil when her husband, Jacob, disappears to join the Resistance soon after the Nazis invade. Returning to her parent’s, she discovers that they and her entire community have been rounded up and put into the Ghetto. In despair, she goes to join them, wondering whether she will ever see Jacob again.

In the Ghetto she soon makes contact with more members of the Resistance who manage to get her out. As she is blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she begins to lead a double life as a Catholic girl from Gdansk, staying with Jacob’s Catholic aunt and a little boy who has also been rescued from the Ghetto. However, soon after the beginning of her dangerous double-life, the Kommandant of the town comes to the house she is living in for dinner. He is immediately taken by her and asks her to come and work for him. A romance ensues and Emma, now called Anna, finds herself torn between her love for her husband and her work for the Resistance, and her growing affection for the Nazi.

The story sounds good. Unfortunately the execution of it wasn’t as good. For some reason, I simply didn’t find the characters believable. Emma/Anna was so naive that I wanted to smack her at times. I honestly couldn’t believe that someone in such a situation could be so careless. For instance, she starts work at the Kommandant’s office and the minute she walks in, she is given instructions to open the mail, but to NOT open anything marked Confidential. Within minutes she is thinking ‘this is marked confidential. It might have something in it I can give to the Resistance. Let’s open it’. Sure enough, in walks the Kommandant and his aide just as she is doing it. Honestly, wouldn’t you at least wait until you knew his movements and knew whether it was safe to take such a risk? Clearly not. Similarly, her endless ‘moral battles’ with herself coupled with her apparent lack of regard for caution as she blurts out demands to know about her husband in public places started to get on my nerves. OK, she might have been naive. But under circumstances like that, knowing that your life, the lives of the people you are talking to and the lives of people you love are at stake, wouldn’t you try to exercise a little more discretion?

I found the growing romance between her and the Kommandant slightly odd. Love at first sight, perhaps, but it did seem a little false to me. And the finale was also odd. The kind of back and forth about the feelings of both of the main characters just didn’t ring true to me. It’s not that I thought it couldn’t happen like that. It was more that it felt like it had all been written in for dramatic effect and as a result, the lead characters became like the kind of cariacatures that you get when you read Mills & Boon novels. I have to say I was disappointed. I had expected a lot more from this book and it just didn’t seem to deliver.

Rating: 6/10
ISBN: 978-1-741-16500-5
Publisher: Mira Books
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 17 December 2008
Pages: 395

This is the second book I have read about the plight of women in Afghanistan. This is the second time I have had to read a book in installments, putting it down when my anger and fury grew too great to continue reading. And this is the second time I have come away from a book wondering how, in our supposedly modern world, human beings can still be treated worse than animals for the sake of a tradition, or a religion, or what is in my opinion a clinging to a patriarchal structure which enshrines misogyny.

A Thousand Splendid Suns traces the life of two women – Mariam, whose very birth brought shame, and Laila, who was fortunate enough to have chances, education and love, but thanks to the violence of the past 30 years in Afghanistan, found herself living under the same kind of brutal control as Mariam. The book is riddled with violence, both domestic and national. It oozes with injustice and cruelty. And yet it is filled with so much hope and defiance that when I cried, I wasn’t sure whether I was crying from sadness or from pride in these two women.

Mariam, born out of wedlock finds her childhood shattered in the space of a couple of days when her mother commits suicide, and her estranged father sells her off to be married. Her new husband, Rasheed, very rapidly descends into cruelty and violence when Mariam doesn’t produce the children he wants (and apparently baby-machine or slave were her only two options – apologies for my cynicism here but it still makes me angry to think about it) and she settles into a life which to many women like myself is almost not worth living. No freedom. No choice. Constant beatings. Constant belittlement. No hope. No future.

Laila is born to a neighbour several years after Mariam’s marriage. In contrast, Laila grows up with a loving father and a best friend, Tariq, who is to be her one and only true love. Unfortunately, Laila can’t escape the rockets and bombs which become a way of life to the people of Kabul as their city becomes the violent playground of feuding war lords with very little consideration for the lives of the average people. One by one, the people around her who she loves are slaughtered, and one day she finds herself in the house of Mariam and Rasheed, with little choice but to become Rasheed’s second wife.

From an inital hatred, soon the women become friends, and then grow to love each other. It is this love which carries the rest of the book and provides the continual note of defiance. Despite them both being subjected to such a dreadful life, the fact they have each other keeps them going. The love between them results in their dreams of a better life, and eventually results in the ultimate sacrifice.

I do want to read books such as this, but my anger at the injustice often gets the better of me. What right has a religion or a tradition to destroy the life of so many people, simply because they were born female? How insecure do men have to be to endorse the beating of wives? How long do these women have to struggle beneath these kind of circumstances before they finally get a chance to be free?

Despite the book ending on a positive note, one can’t help but continue to watch the news about the troubles in Afghanistan and hear stories of honour killings, stonings and state sanctioned homicide. It makes me feel so helpless. It makes me feel so lucky to have the life I have. But it also makes me wish there were something I could do to help women such as Laila and Mariam experience the joy of freedom and the pride of being a woman and a human being that I have.

Is that possible? I don’t know. But while books as magnificent as this continue to be written, and the world is made aware of what goes on, then there is still hope.

Rating: 10/10
ISBN: 0747582971
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing plc
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 21st October 2008
Pages: 384

I received The White War as an Early Reviewer on LibraryThing, and it wasn’t a disappointment. I love reading history, particularly when the period is relatively unknown and undocumented as this. As readers of this blog will know, I read Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms and wasn’t particularly enamoured with it, although that was more for the writing style than than the period of history with which it dealt. But Hemingway only provided a very surface discovery of the Italian Front during the First World War. Where the novel missed, Thompson’s thoroughly researched history filled the gaps.

I have read a lot about the Western Front during the Great War, but I was unaware of the carnage which occurred on the Italian Front. The War had been entered by Italy not so much as a defensive exercise, rather as a means of gaining territory which the newly formed Italian state felt it held a right to. What followed was a war of attrition that was so destructive and futile that by the end, the boundaries were almost in exactly the same place they had been before they had started. What had been lost though were million of lives, and the trust towards the Italians from the Allies – an effect that would have repercussions into the following war.

The tragedy of this front though was not just in the destruction meted by the Austrians (although to be fair, they also suffered heavy casualties over the years of fighting). The Italian soldiers were also forced to suffer at the hands of their own superiors. Of course, the shortsightedness and pig headed stubborness to traditional methods exercised by the generals during the First World War was common across all countries involved. However, Cadorna appears to have been far worse than the others – what with his unflinching adherence to decimation (in the true sense of the word, i.e. one in every 10 solider in his own army was shot if any kind of transgression occurred, no matter how small) and his inability to recognise his own failings. In Cadorna’s view, morale of the troops was completely irrelevant. He was more than happy for them to go hungry, undertake futile attacks which led to nothing but slaughter, and disallow any kind of leave or respite, and if the result was loss or failure in battle, he blamed the troops whole heartedly, taking no responsibility whatsoever. If it hadn’t have ended up so tragic, it would have been laughable.

Thompson has captured the period beautifully through a combination of fantastic research, including speaking to some of the last few survivors of the battle, and well written prose. He extends his subject to encompass culture, politics and poetry as well as just dates and names of battles which makes the book a pleasure to read. Unfortunately, as my copy was an uncorrected proof copy, the maps were illegible so I had to resort to finding maps on Google so I had an idea where all of the action was taking place, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

This is a period which needs more written about it. The fact that it is almost forgotten save in fiction is happily addressed by this book. For anyone who is interested in the history of the Great War, this is an essential to fill those gaps in ones knowledge which the Western Front emphasis may have left.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 0571223338
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Date: 2008
Date Finished: 3rd October 2008
Pages: 464pp

I was asked to read and review Copper Fire by Suzanne Woods Fisher as part of her virtual book tour. This book, as I understood, was a sequel to Suzanne’s earlier novel, Copper Star where we were first introduced to Louisa – one time resistance fighter in Germany during the Second World War – now settled with her new husband and his son in Copper Springs, Arizona. Copper Fire finds Louisa content in her new life until she receives word that her cousin, Elisabeth, is currently alone in a Red Cross camp in Germany and Louisa determines to go and fetch her and bring her back to America.

I found the book very compelling. Even without having read the first instalment, Suzanne made a point to re-craft the characters with care and detail so I never once felt I had missed anything. I took to Louisa quickly, liking her strength and determination in a small town where many of the residents simply had no understanding of what had gone on during the war and what people like Louisa had experienced. It was the kind of book that I found myself thinking ‘I wonder what is going to happen next?’ when I was away from it which meant it was easy to go back to. I do tend to finish books very quickly when I get going (it is generally an indicator of how much I am enjoying it), and this one I had finished within two days of starting it.

I was very surprised that the majority of the story occurred in Copper Springs as I had fully expected it to occur in Germany, but it allowed the characters in the town to develop and a real picture of Louisa’s new life (as opposed to her old life) be drawn. I also found the treatment of the Holocaust and the difficulties anyone who had lived through it were bound to suffer was delicate, honest and well researched. It isn’t often that the aftermath of the war is written into a novel and so it was really good to read about it from a different perspective.

I had expected the underlying religious theme to be more prominent but I was pleasantly surprised that Suzanne didn’t labour the point and as a result didn’t alienate non-Christian readers like myself. It can be difficult when a writer has a passion for something and that then dominates their writing which results in making anyone who doesn’t share that passion feel like they shouldn’t be reading the book. I am pleased to say that Suzanne didn’t do that and as a result I felt like she had considered all readers, no matter what their faith.

The only small criticisms I had were related to a couple of events in the book which didn’t seem to go anywhere and didn’t carry the story forward short of developing the characters a little more. I wondered about incidents such as the argument over Louisa’s pregnancy (sorry for the spoiler) and so was surprised when it didn’t really have an impact on the plot. Rather they felt like snapshots of life, which of course have their own merits, but Suzanne’s plot was very good as it was so I wasn’t sure they were so necessary.

The other minor criticism was I was a little disappointed with the ending – for a book which was so beautifully researched and so fantastically believable, it seemed just a little far fetched. However, I wouldn’t want that to detract from the fact that I enjoyed the book throughout and was really honoured to be asked to review it.

ISBN: 978-0-9815592-0-9
Publisher: Vintage Inspirations
Year: 2008
Date Finished: 28 July 2008
Pages: 289
Challenges:

A century ago, the art of letter writing was dominant. Correspondence formed the most effective way to communicate, and people wrote letters with the frequency that people write emails today – but perhaps with more thought, more feeling and more emotion than the technological form into which letter writing has evolved. Letters From a Lost Generation provides a heart-wrenching example of how letters can bring people to life again. As a reader, you feel like you are usurping on some of the most touching, private moments of the writers’ lives. It makes you feel incredibly privileged, but it also ensures that you experience all of the emotions which passed between the correspondents.

This book is a collection of letters between Vera Brittain, a VAD during the First World War, and her fiance, Roland Leighton, her brother Edward Brittain, and two of their friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow. Unlike any of the fictionalised accounts of the Great War, this book was all the more poignant because the words were written whilst the war was raging. Tragically, one by one, all four of the young men are killed. The style of the book means that as a reader, you are acutely aware of when their voices fall silent. It is as if you are seeing it all through Vera’s eyes, and feeling her anguish.

The infant relationship between Vera and Roland is the one I found most tragic. The two were so young and had barely had the chance to get to know one another. I remember feeling a similar feeling of loss when I read Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. It was a sense of anger at the sheer waste. A waste of years, a waste of love and a waste of the future. The first half of this book is dominated by the correspondence between the two, and when Roland is killed, one day before he was due to return home on leave, I had to put the book down in tears.

The book’s themes are pride, loss, maturing and change. All of the key players start out young, idealistic and eager. But as their letters show, this deserts them little by little as the reality of war starts to show. And yet, as public school graduates, officer classes, none fully allow despair to slow them. All of them bravely face their own deaths in their individual ways. Vera acts as their rock and confident, staying with them until their short lives are terminated.

I would be hard pressed to find a more personal account of World War I.

Rating: 9/10
ISBN: 0-349-11152-9
Publisher: Abacus
Year: 1998
Date Finished: 30 April 2008
Pages: 415
Challenges: 5/8 of category 7: Books with WWI as a theme for the 888 Challenge

A Farewell to Arms is an unusual book. The storyline is simple enough, but the style of writing took some time getting used to. This is the first Hemingway novel I had ever read so I wasn’t prepared for it, but after reading the introduction in the edition which I own, the word ‘detachment’ stood out to me. The story began and I felt like I was outside looking in. Despite being written in the first person, you never feel like you have got into the mind of the protagonist. There is a wall there between his feelings and you as a reader which never really comes down even as the story turns into tragedy.

Because of this, I found it one of the strangest love stories I had ever read. The love between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley plays out in an almost childlike way. This impression was heightened by the continual repetition in the dialogue, or the descent of the dialogue into a long rambling paragraph of ‘he said’, ‘I said’ not unlike a child’s journal. It was when I switched from seeing the book as a detached narrative and began seeing it as a story from the heart of a child, that it really began to move me.

Despite their trials, the relationship between Catherine and Frederic is steeped with innocence. The war goes on, but neither character is ever truly a part of it. What they are part of is a strange world filled with the mystery of an overwhelming love for one another, and the war does little more than get in the way of that. Despite danger and risk, both characters continue to talk about the ‘fine time’ they are having or the ‘grand adventure’ that it all is. Nothing sullied can touch them – neither cruelty, injustice, war or death. Because of this, Hemingway’s conclusion is all the more tragic because

[The world] kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry

I enjoyed viewing World War I from a different angle again – this time the battle in Italy against the Austrians which tends not to be the focus of most WWI novels. Henry’s experience during the retreat is poignant – you so want him to escape and return to Catherine. But Hemingway’s intention is not to build anticipation or fear that he won’t. This part of the story simply serves to place a surmountable barrier in the way of Catherine’s and Frederic’s love which makes their reunion all the more wonderful.

There was little true character development of any but the main characters, and even those two were not developed deeply. I get the sense though that characterisation was not his priority. Because this story is semi autobiographical, I get the sense that Hemingway simply needed to ‘get it out’ and in doing so, contemplate his experience, his loss and mortality. In such an exercise, the characters were incidental.

Rating: 8/10
ISSN: 1753-3120
Publisher: Vintage (promotional copy from Paperview UK Ltd)
Year: 2005
Date Finished: 20 March 2008
Pages: 252
Challenges: 4 of category 7: Books with World War I as the theme for the 888 Challenge

I would hail this book as one of the most evocative accounts of the First World War ever written. I was almost speechless when I finished it. There were passages which I found myself reading a second and third time because of their beauty. The story itself is similar to so many others – a young man grows into an old man as he experiences the war. His comrades become his only family and by the end, all hope for a future is lost along with the tens of thousands of lives. The difference with All Quiet on the Western Front is that the young man is from the ‘other side’. He is a ‘Hun’, a German, and yet his experience and suffering is identical. Upon reading this book so close behind A Long Long Way, the futility of the whole event becomes brilliantly clear.

It is little wonder this book was banned by the Nazis in the 1930’s. It does not glorify the war. It does not make the Germans out to be a master race or an invincible war machine. Rather, it shows them up as terrified boys who want nothing more but for the whole thing to end, but who cannot see an end and ultimately do little more than wish for their own. The reflections of the narrator are often bitter. The emphasis is on their living for the moment, enjoying what little they can scrounge, because they know that their mortality is finite and it is usually a matter of luck that they wake to see the sun rise.

One of the most incredible scenes was during the first battle early on in the book where the troops are subjected to the anguished sound of injured horses screaming. The scene consolidated the fact that no matter which side you were on, ultimately everyone suffered.

“You want to get up and run away, anywhere just so as not to hear that screaming any more. And it isn’t men, just horses.”

Every participant is like one of those horses – “…what have they done to deserve that…it is the most despicable thing of all to drag animals into a war” – they are all helpless, all dragged in, all frightened to die.

Once again, this book follows a trajectory downwards. It starts with some hope. There is levity among the group at the beginning. But as the war drags on…

“Our hands are earth, our body mud, and our eyes puddles of rain. We no longer know if we are alive or not.”

They are no longer boys with hopes, dreams, futures or lives. They become the earth which is where they all ultimately fall.

This is an incredible book which should be mandatory reading for anyone who has ever seen war as a positive thing.

Rating: 10/10
ISSN: 1753-3120
Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Date: 1994
Date Finished: 13 March 2008
Pages: 197
Challenges: 3 from category7: Books with World War I as the theme from the 888 Challenge; 1920’s in the 8 Decade challenge.