My copy of Nevil Shute's classic 1950 novel, A Town Like Alice, is a beat up old mass market paperback that I have owned for so long I can't even remember when or where I bought it. The pages are all yellowed now and the cover brittle, but I have always loved the cover illustration (a delicate watercolor of a couple standing with hands held looking out over a vast vista) even if the print is tiny and covers each page from edge to gutter (my excuse as to why it took so long for me to finish reading it). It's one of those books I have long wanted to read, since one of the blurbs calls it a "very satisfying war romance", but then further reflection of the "death march" that must be got through first always made me put the book back on the pile for later. There are books you tell yourself that you 'have to be in the right mood for' and how can there be romance in a novel about WWII with POWs and death marches? Better, that one, for later.
Sometimes it's those books that have those difficult moments that earn the highest regard after all is said and down. There may be bittersweet moments in books like this, but they can still end with a sense of deep satisfaction. I will say that there were indeed uphill moments while reading A Town Like Alice, but I can see why this is a classic that has endured. And as Joe Harman is oft heard replying in his conversations--a slow Australian drawl, "oh my word", this one really is a good one.
The novel is actually narrated by Jean Paget's solicitor and the trustee to a fair bit of wealth she came into without ever really knowing her rich relative who bestowed it to her. I think Noel Strachan, conservative as solicitors are known to be, falls in love a little bit with Jean despite the wide gulf of years between them. She is a sensible, intelligent young woman who has managed to endure the worst privations a woman can face in war. The money should have gone to her brother, but he died in the war, both siblings having been living in Malaya when the fighting began. The story opens several years after the war in London where Jean is a secretary in a factory making leather goods. She gets notice of the money she has inherited, but she cannot touch yet for many years. Her brother, being a man could have inherited outright, but a single woman is surely in need of guidance, so she becomes wealthy without being able to actually touch most of the money.
So begins the story of Jean and her years in Malaya. The novel is bookended by Noel Strachan's scenes, as well he turns up occasionally in the middle of the telling. Soon after they meet Jean tells Noel of her experiences during the war. She had been living and working in Malaya when the Japanese invaded and this ragtag group of women and children were to be sent to a clean internment camp to serve out their time until the end of the war. Only such an internment camp never seemed to exist and the women were marched from one place to another under the leadership of a Japanese soldier--no one quite knowing what to do with the women. It is Jean's ability to speak the language and her willingness to simply adapt to the environment and live and dress as the women of the country that enables her to survive when so many others in the group perish.
During their long marches, which were at times as terrible as you might imagine, the women come across a small group of Australian soldiers who are POWs made to serve as lorry drivers for the Japanese. By this time the women who have managed to stay alive look much like the native women in their dress but are all the worse for wear having been walking endlessly. They are in need of food and medicines, and Joe Harman, one of the soldiers, being the generous soul he is, steals or otherwise obtains the small items the women need. He goes so far as to bring them live chickens to cook and eat and for his sins, since he is caught in the act, is punished severely by the Japanese.
I won't go into any more detail of the story, but only admit that at this point I was perplexed and disappointed since you can imagine what the punishment of POWs for this kind of behavior might be. How can this story possibly be a love story? The war does end and Jean does return to England, where we find her at the start of the story working and finding out she has come into money. At this point she knows she wants to do something for the people in Malaya, in the tiny village where the women finally came to stay and finish out the war. Jean decides to return there and give them a well for water so the women need not spend hours of their day in carrying water back and forth.
And here we are not even halfway through the book, but it is what comes after that makes this such a remarkable and lovely story. I was always curious what the title of the book meant, but to explain it would give away some of the best details, so I'll leave off telling anymore. And there is so very much more to tell. I am so glad I finally read the book, it is such a wonderful story. It has been adapted to the big and small screen and made into a radio broadcast as well. If I can get my hands on any of them I would love to experience the story visually. Apparently the novel was published under the title The Legacy, which I am guessing refers to the money Jean inherits, but A Town Like Alice really does capture the essence of the story. If, like me, you've put off reading it in fear of those war scenes, they are manageable knowing the rest of the story is so very satisfying. I hope to read more of Nevil Shute's work now, too.