A Work in Progress

March Prompt: Upstairs, Downstairs

It's that time again.  Even if it does not feel like March outside (sigh, won't think about the still subzero weather), it is a new month and time for a new prompt.  Since the weather is wonky, why shouldn't my reading be so as well?  I am still reading my February book, but it is thoroughly enjoyable (and surely I must have more reading time soon).

This month's prompt is Upstairs, Downstairs and it has Downtown Abbey-esque books written all over it.  I could be more creative, though I am not sure how I could interpret it and my brain isn't quite functioning that way right now.  Besides historical fiction and interwar-ish stories appeal.  So here is what I have come up with to choose from:

Habits of the House by Fay Weldon -- I don't think I have ever read any of her books before!  "As the writer of the pilot episode of the original Upstairs, Downstairs―Fay Weldon brings a deserved reputation for magnificent storytelling. With wit and sympathy―and no small measure of mischief―Habits of the House plots the interplay of restraint and desire, manners and morals, reason and instinct."

Land of My Dreams by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles -- I have read the first two books in this series, it's about time to pick up another one. "The Land of my Dreams is the third book in the War at Home series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, author of the much-loved Morland Dynasty novels. Set against the real events of 1916, at home and on the front, this is a richly researched and a wonderfully authentic family drama featuring the Hunter family and their servants."

The Dark Lantern by Gerri Brightwell -- I read this before, but it was so long ago I recall nothing more than I enjoyed it.  "A fascinating portrayal of a vanished England as well as an unconventional mystery, The Dark Lantern exposes the grand “upstairs” of a Victorian home and the darker underbelly of its servants’ quarters. The clash between the classes makes for a suspenseful novel of mistaken identities, intriguing women, and dangerous deceptions."

Conversation Piece by Molly Keane -- I had been reading her novels in the order she wrote them, but sort of fizzled.  It would be a good thing to get back to them!  "When Oliver visits Pullinstown, he is introduced to wild days of hunting and shooting, and to characters like his cousins, with their passion for horses and trickery, and Sir Richard, elderly, but a match for his headstrong offspring."

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh -- I really really really need to get back to read the classics.  "Waugh tells the story of the Marchmain family. Aristocratic, beautiful and charming, the Marchmains are indeed a symbol of England and her decline in this novel of the upper class of the 1920s and the abdication of responsibility in the 1930s."

Girl from the Savoy by Hazel Gaynor -- I have heard good things about her and I suspect this would be an easy entertaining read.  "London, 1923: Welcome to The Savoy hotel, a glittering jewel in London’s social scene, where the lives of the rich, the famous, and the infamous intertwine.  Here, amid the cocktails and the jazz, two women with very different pasts try to forget the devastation of the Great War and forge a new life in a city where those who dare to dream can have it all."

A very respectable pile to choose from.  Just when I think I have decided I look at one of the other books and think, but maybe . . .  Need to make a choice tonight, however.  I am going to try and make this coming weekend a very book filled few days!

Keep the Home Fires Burning, CHE

It's been a while since I first met the Hunter family of Northcote, England, but their story, begun with Goodbye Piccadilly, continues on in Keep the Home Fires Burning.  This is very much an 'upstairs downstairs' family saga.  The Hunters are the main focus of the story, but their servants, their extended family and various members of the Northcote community pass through the pages as well. 

Just as a quick rehash to orient things, the previous book covers the year 1914 and the beginnings of WWI.  The Hunters are an average upper middle class family.  Edward, a banker, and his elegant wife Beatrice have six children, but it's the four eldest children around which most of the drama swirls--David, Diana, Bobby and Sadie.  Both Edward and Beatrice have siblings which play a role in the story, as well as the Hunter servants.  Belowstairs there is Cook and Ada, both working a long time together and for the Hunters as well as housemaid Ethel who has her sights on something better and with an eye for the best man who can take her away from the drudgery of her life.

The Hunters are a likable family, more nouveau riche than aristocratic, but their daughter Diana makes a conquest with the oldest son of the local aristocratic family, the Wroughtons, which ruffles more than a few feathers.  Both Lady Wroughton and Charles's younger brother, Rupert, are sure she is just out to get a title and his money and do everything they can to sabotage the romance.  But everyone knew Diana, whose beauty is the pride of the county would make a good match.  She's not just beautiful but she is a decent person.  It makes for uncomfortable interactions between the more urbane Hunters and the stodgy and always-oh-so-very-correct Wroughtons. 

Sadie has a love of horses and an incorrigible companion in the form of a dog named Nailer who follows her about and gets into touble.  She would much rather be mucking about in the stables than going off to finishing school, which she has worked hard to avoid.  David is the first to go off and sign on to go fight in the war and Bobby remains at University.  For the time being. 

And so, 1915 the year that Keep the Home Fires Burning covers, sees the war becoming mired in Europe and most decidedly not 'over by Christmas'.  The world and especially that of the Hunter family sees sweeping changes and nothing is certain any longer.  While there are a number of battlefield scenes, most of the drama takes place at home.  It's an interesting perspective on the war as their are details I hadn't realized about what WWI meant for life at home in England.

Edward's sister Laura, a smart and determined suffragette, becomes a lady policeman, which mostly entails patrolling the railway stations keeping an eye out for white slavers, giving advice to mothers and children and making sure drunken soldiers get to their trains on time and stay out of trouble.  Needless to say the women are a source of much ridicule, but Laura manages to hold her own and becomes close to one of the other women constables.  Although I knew zeppelins dropped bombs on London during the war I had no idea of the devastation they caused as housemaid Ethel encounters one first hand on one of her days off in the city.  Ethel, a sassy and very independently-minded woman knows how to play coy and attract the men, but she is careful in which ones receive her attentions.  She is with her latest beau, and the one she has been most serious about when the bombs start falling.

Sadie has been doing the thing she loves most, helping train the horses being shipped over to serve in the war effort.  She is most disturbed by the idea of gas being used in battle and the idea that while the soldiers have gas masks (ineffective as they likely were) the horses have nothing.  Sadie is just on the cusp of turning into a proper young woman.  She has always been more of a tomboy than a girl who likes dressing up, but in the previous book she became friends with a young veterinarian who shares her love of animals.  He is called to Europe to serve but she doesn't forget him.  Her sharp edges begin to refine, and when she starts visiting the wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital in Northcote male attentions give her moments of pause.

David is surely the apple of his mother's eye.  He is the favored one even as she knows she should not play favorites.  When he becomes engaged with a pretty young woman, the sister of a good friend, of whom he has been enamored by, Beattie is devastated.  He uses leave time to go visit and ask Sophy for her hand rather than go home to his parents which only saddens and angers her.  While David was still training he met and became friends with a modern young woman of a good family.  They could and did talk about everything and he continues to write to her.  Curiously David doesn't see the attraction Antonia has for him.  When he writes home he doesn't give details to his family so as not to worry them, only tells Sophy how much he loves and misses her, but opens his heart to Antonia and tells her everything he is experiencing.

There is so much that happens in this book, as you can see.  Cynthia Harrod-Eagles has set things up nicely to continue on in 1916 in The Land of My Dreams, which I am eager to start.  So much drama and I was careful not to give spoilers away--keeping in mind this is war and bad things happen, people die, people have affairs . . .  I may have to give more detail next time I write about the continuing story!  I'm not sure how many books are planned, though there is a fourth book now available about 1917.  Perhaps another one after that?  I hope so.

Goodbye Piccadilly, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles knows well how to tell a longstanding, epic family saga!  While I am still stuck in Restoration England with the Morlands, maybe I will do better at keeping up with the Hunter family since I am nearly still getting in on the ground floor, so to speak, of her new War at Home series.  Goodye Piccadilly: War at Home, 1914 is the first of a series of books (not sure how many there are projected to be) set during WWI.  While there are thirty-five Morland books, there are so far only three featuring the Hunter family.  It was the last book I read in 2016, but I hope it will only be the first of a number of CHE books I read this year.

Since Goodbye Piccadilly is the first, where you will meet the Hunters and the other families of the village of Northcote, let me introduce them to you, too.  Hopefully there will be more to come about the family and the War in the coming months.  Northcote is a sleepy village outside London not much known until the railway came through.  The Metropolitan Railway (I wrote about the Metropolitan Line just last year as a matter of fact) made it possible for people to work in London but live in the country.  The Hunters left their Kensington home and made for Northcote taking up residence in The Elms.  Not at all a shabby little place, though nothing to compare really with the other really Great House where the aristocratic Dene family has lived for generations.  It's the Hunters we'll be concerned with, but already a marriage between the two families is on the horizon.

Edward and Beatrice have six children, the four eldest being the main focus of the story this first book out, along with Edward's sister Laura and Beatrice's sister and brother-in-law Adelaide and John.  It all starts with Diana and Sadie.  Diana is the great beauty of the family, the one who is expected to marry well and is pretty enough to pull it off.  Sadie, by turn, a bit horse mad (more than a bit really), not especially (at sixteen-ish) all the interested so far in boys, can marry who she likes, as she reflects in those opening pages.  Although Diana has a coterie of suitors, it's all just fun and flirtation more or less.  She knows what is expected and what she can might 'accomplish' so when Charles Wroughton, Lord Dene, takes an interest in her, she's more than happy to nurture the relationship. 

Charles is shy and awkward.  He loves Dene Park and is loyal to family and tradition, but really he is something of a misfit.  He is stodgy and appears very much a bore.  He would rather talk of horses and hunting and country life.  It's his younger brother who is the savvy, attractive son who finds social situations easy, but he isn't the one who will inherit.  The Denes are terrible snobs and Rupert is entirely of that mold.  He's actually pretty nasty and thinks he knows what Diana is up to, she being nouveau riche and in his thinking, most likely just a gold digger.  And he's happy to let her know what he suspects.  Diana is actually an entirely likable young woman, and while her intentions are for the good, I think she's about to make a big mistake (likely to play itself out in later books).  The Denes and Hunters are further associated as Edward, a London banker, happens to be the the Dene family banker.  But you know how it goes--trade and all.  Blue bloods don't make it a habit to marry into banking families.  So very below them.

I can already tell Sadie is going to be my favorite character.  Did I already say she loves horses.  Yes, I suspect I did.  She spends as much time as she can with Mrs. Cuthbert who houses horses and is as crushed as her neighbor when the Army calls in all the horses for the war effort.  Eventually a surplus of horses will trail through the village of Northcote to be trained and prepared for the battlefield, and just barely her father allows Sadie to stay at home and help with the management of them rather than being shipped off to finishing school somewhere abroad, the idea of which Sadie loathes. 

If Sadie happens by, she is likely be be in the company of (well who is in whose company is questionable really) of the family dog, Nailer.  He is surely the naughtiest,  and hungriest dog in all of the village.  He has a knack for showing up in the story where he shouldn't.  A chance run in with a motor car almost ends his days.  The car is driven by a young veterinarian--not so very much older than Sadie and with whom I foresee (or hope anyway) the frequent crossing of paths.  John Courcy has not yet been called up to fight, but helps with the care of the animals while he waits.  Of course Sadie is still young, so even as he says she is easy to talk to, she thinks of him as an adult rather than an equal.

David, the elder Hunter son decides to join up as soon as war is declared dropping out of university with his best friend much to the chagrin of his mother who can barely contain her anger and the feeling of helplessness at the thought of possibly losing her favorite.  Bobby, not quite of proper age is ready to go as well but is talked out of joining, for his mother's sake.  For now.  But it is early days in the war when most people still believe it will all be over with by year's end, which is where the story ends.  

The war is always present in the story, yet it is not always at the fore of the storytelling.  It affects everyone's lives from the elder son to Diana's relationship with Charles down to the parlour-maid, Ethel's, many flirtations with the village lads.  Edwards sister, Laura, is another favorite of mine.  She is an unmarried working woman (as much as a middle class woman can be an independent working woman in 1914 England) who decides to learn to drive in order to do her part (to say nothing of asserting her independence).   So much drama between the Denes and Hunters, and then there is the village vicar's moralizing wife who has a finger in every pot.  

As you can see there is a lot going on and a full cast of characters with a wide variety of plotlines to keep it all interesting.  It reminds me of Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles, but a WWI version of the same sort of family drama where the lives of the characters change, in come cases irrevocably, by war.  A perfect companion read, or reads, since there are five Cazalet books.  It was a thoroughly engrossing and enjoyable story and I can't wait to pick up the next book, Keep the Home Fires Burning, which takes place in 1915.  I don't plan to leave it too long as the story and characters are still all fresh in my mind.  And  maybe, too, this will give me a little nudge nudge to return to those Morlands and Restoration England. 

1914: A Novel by Jean Echenoz

Is it possible to come out of a war maimed yet consider that a 'good war'?  The fact that Anthime comes out of the 1918 War alive surely must mean he has a good war when so many others don't come home at all.  Jean Echenoz's 1914: A Novel (originally published in France as 14 and translated into English by Linda Coverdale) is quite an interesting story.  Perhaps strangely for a war story, it felt feathery light and quite intimate.  I mentioned before that the author has been called a miniaturist and now I see why.  The story reminds me of one of my favorite paintings that hangs in a local museum.  The subject matter is a rainy day as shown in a street scene and the place is France.  It is a very small painting, Impressionistic in style, and to get a true sense of it you have to stand close and take in all the small details.  But looking at it, being so close you do get the sense of being just outside the canvas and looking in at the people.  That's what reading this story felt like. 

As war stories go, it felt quite tame, or else I was simply steeling myself to something really awful.  There were awful things that happened actually, but only momentarily intense and then the story moves on to the next scene.  This is a story you can read fairly superficially and still get a sense of what the war was like, but Echenoz weights it all down by the meanings behind or in between all the details.  Another story written in an economy of style--this one just over 110 pages or so--but I think there is nothing accidental or not carefully chosen, word by word, scene by scene, image by image.  And if you are lucky to know just a little more French history (or avail yourself to the helpful notes in the back of the book offered by the translator) you'll get a real sense how history builds one action on the next.  And for a character to read a particular book, or play a game or for a battle to take place in a particular place means something just a little bit more if you know the history behind it all.

It's not really obvious from the start that Anthime and Charles are brothers.  They neither much like the other and are not in the least like each other.  One holds the heart of a local woman, Blanche, in his hands and the other only wishes to.  They both go off to war and one wishes for an easy war, away from the fighting and bloodshed, yet it is the other that has an easy war for exactly thanks to the fighting and bloodshed.  Echenoz is nothing if not ironic with his characters.  And that is a little understated too, until you start pondering it all.

I don't want to give away the story, this love triangle is at the heart of it, but I won't spoil it for anyone.  But as a miniaturist whose beauty in writing is in all the little (actually some are quite grand considering) details and meanings, there are some other things to share.  Things I know peripherally but when you stop and think of them are so shocking by today's standards (how far we've come in learning how to wage war).

"At that point, there was nothing for it, they had to advance on the double while behind them, a group of about twenty men gathered in a circle as calmly as you please without seeming to take any notice of the shelling.  It was the regimental band, whose conductor, white baton in hand, brought it down to conjure up 'La Marseillaise,' aiming to provide valiant commentary on the assault."

And then . . .

"The band had suffered further casualties: one of the clarinetists had been sent tumbling by a bullet through his cheek, and the second flutist had lost half a hand."

When did camouflage com into use?  Apparently it was not widely used in WWI.

" . . . when Anthime's company had moved back toward the northeastern province of Champagne, that this skullcap was replaced by a helmet meant to provide more serious protection, yet initially painted a bright blue.  Putting them on, the men found it funny not to recognize one another, for the helmets obscured much of their faces.  When everyone stopped laughing and realized that sunlight reflecting off this fetching blue made them all attractive targets, they slathered the helmets with mud they way they did with the mess tins the year before."

I'm sure it's not just the French or just WWI, but it's still illuminating how a little Dutch courage is used to send men out to meet their destiny in the battlefield. 

"Wine was no longer a problem, since it was now widely distributed by the quartermaster corps along with brandy, for the high command was increasingly convinced that inebriating its soldiers helped bolster their courage and, above all, reduce their awareness of their condition."

Echenoz does not shy away from presenting the uglier side of war and or of showing those most devastating battles with the losses of life so overwhelming that almost an entire generation of young men was wiped out.  He paints a broad canvas in many ways, yet this very much does feel like a story in miniature, too.  Like seeing a scene through the lens of a camera--you see only the main scene in detail and capture just that one frame.  And this story is made up of many frames, snapshots from just before the war to the time just after.  Maybe due to its slightness I appreciate the beauty of what Echenoz created, but despite its intimacy I am not sure that I ever got quite as close to the characters as I might have liked.  Still, there is much to like and I am glad I have found a new author to explore.

Make sure you click on over to read Caroline's thoughts on the book.  This is the second book in her Literature and War Readalong.  Next up is James Salter's The Hunters published in 1956 about the Korean War, which I am greatly looking forward to reading.  Do consider reading along as there is plenty of time.  Discussion is not until the end of May!

Teaser Tuesday: 1914

I am at a good moment in my reading.  While I may not be finishing things (and that goes for other things in my life right now--books, needlework, letter writing, emails . . .) as quickly as I like, I am very much happy at 'being in the moment' when it comes to the stories that I am spending time with.  I knew I wanted to do a teaser today, but the problem is--which book do I pick when there are several close at hand that I am enjoying so much and would sharing something of the story from them with you.

So I've decided on one that I am finding surprisingly enjoyable, 1914: A Novel by Jean Echenoz.  Echenoz is an award winning French author who has a list of books to his name, a half dozen of which have been translated into English.  Until I started reading 1914 I wasn't at all familiar with Echenoz except knowing that I had wanted to read this novel when it first came out.  I never did manage it as I think with the anniversary of the start of WWI a couple of years ago I became a little 'war weary'.  I am very much drawn to reading about this era and normally I do not shy away from war books, but I do think it's possible to overdo a particular type of story.  I've barely started reading so maybe there will still be harrowing battlefield scenes, but so far I feel as though the author is easing me into it.  I think I won't even mind so much as am I finding the writing style and characterization so well done.  And at just over 100 pages surely I can manage anything Echenoz sends my way.  I was a little trepidatious when I started reading, thinking I might have to force myself to pick it up and read a bit each day in order to finish by the end of the month (this is the second book for Caroline's Literature and War readalong), but I started and found I didn't want to put it down--always a good sign.

My first impression just a few chapters in is the attention to detail.  There really is a precision to the way the story is being told, there is an economy of style.  Even as there is a lushness to the writing, it feels like not a word is being wasted.  And there is a weight to the choices, too.  The book has a half dozen or so pages of notes made by the translator, Linda Coverdale.  While I think it is entirely possible to read the story without flipping to the back and filling in the details, I do go back every so often and read the notes, which are very helpful in fleshing out the meaning. 

The story begins on a radiant August day.  The weather is so inviting that Anthime, one of the young men who this story is about, is taking a big book out on his bicycle to find a "rewarding" view in which to settle down and read his book.  He does not get that far, however, as the village's bells ring out announcing that war is on the horizon and the men must mobilize.  It's almost just a precaution as this is a war that will be over quickly.  Anthime returns to the village and in the square he crosses paths with another young man named Charles.  Two very different men who both will go to war and they leave behind one young woman, Blanche.

The next day, Sunday, Blanche is getting dressed and preparing to go out, and it is the description of her desk that I want to share as a teaser.  Not exactly anything really having to do with a war, but then again, maybe having quite a lot to do with the war, or rather the men fighting in it.

"As she left her bedroom she passed the writing desk, which had played no part in this morning's activity, the desk is used to this, serving simply as a repository for the letters Charles and Anthime each regularly sends separately to Blanche and which lie bound by ribbons of contrasting colors in two different drawers."

I'm not sure why, but so many things in this story are striking me and I make a little pencil mark next to the details.  In the description of the story on the jacket Echenoz is called a "miniaturist" and I like that.  He seems such an interesting author and from what little I have read about him I think he must be highly regarded in France and have a very particular style, so I shall see how this goes and then perhaps move on to some of his other books. 

I've read a really paltry number of books translated from other languages so far this year.  Only three and two of them were originally published in French.  Now I have two books on the go also translated from French, so maybe this will be my year of French/French-Canadian literature.  I'm also reading Patrick Modiano and on the merits of the first fifty or so pages I have ordered another of his books (another must read all his works authors, I think) and plan on picking up more.  (And an aside, April's NYRB subscription book is by another French author!).  I'd call that a sign, wouldn't you?!

The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon

If I could inhabit the pages of a book, or better yet walk right inside a story and be at the very least an observer, I would happily do so with with Katharine McMahon's The Crimson Rooms.  It was a pitch perfect read the first time around a few years ago and it held up beautifully to a reread this year.  While it is undeniably a comfort read for me (and a reliable reread now), there is something about it that bumps it up from a nice simple entertainment to something a bit more.  An engaging story, a page turner really, interesting characters that are nicely developed-yes, tick all those boxes easily.  But the plotting is spot on and how McMahon weaves the story together with its really intriguing storylines is quite exceptional.  It is the sort of historical fiction that I love, and it all came alive, so while I was racing to the end to find out what happened (okay, it was a reread so I knew more or less what was going to happen, but it didn't matter), I didn't want to get there too soon even knowing I was revisiting the story in anticipation of finally reading the sequel, The Woman in the Picture.

So what makes this a step above your ordinary entertaining historical novel, for me anyway, is a protagonist who is not so easily definable.  She's smart and independent yet tethered to a family of, now all females (thank WWI for their situation-what you might call genteel poverty--or at least 'barely making it').  She is haunted by the death of her beloved brother who was killed in the War and by the suicide of her father.  She does her best to do her duty as a daughter to her mother, grandmother and aunt yet she forges ahead in her desire to be a lawyer.  An opportunity only available to her through her brother's death.  He was the one meant to be a solicitor and follow in their father's footsteps, not Evelyn the daughter of the family.  A waste of an education on a mere female, so she gets it only by default.

Evelyn is plagued by self-doubt that she can achieve what she has dreamed of and set out so tenaciously to do, and few are on her side and willing to help her.  She sees only her shortcomings and it is an unconventional lawyer (specializing in lost causes--just to prove the Establishment wrong--so Evelyn is right up his alley), Daniel Breen, who will give her her chance.  Being one of the first women lawyers, the odds are against her both in work and in love.  As if being a bluestocking weren't enough of a challenge against succeeding, the odds against her finding a potential partner in love are severely stacked against her (one of the War's surplus women).  And to make life even more complicated, one night a young woman with a small boy in tow arrive on the Gifford's doorstep claiming to be the wife and son of her brother.  All the way from Canada.  Meredith was James's nurse and apparently something more.

Meredith and Edmund will throw the Gifford household into an upheaval and blow new life into Evelyn's life at the same time.  Meredith is a whirlwind. Beautiful and talented she hopes to start a new life in London and study art, and she expects the Giffords to take her in and support her and James's son.  Not everyone in the Gifford family is welcoming to the strangers, yet Evelyn is drawn to both as being the closest link left to her brother, whose death is still painfully raw for her.

It's against this backdrop of uncertainties--this woman and her son filled with hope and secrets and the palpable antipathy of nearly everyone in the legal world (men and women--judges, solicitors and even secretaries) that Evelyn defends her first client and is drawn into a murder investigation Daniel Breen takes on.  It's her moment to soar, but of course it's not easy, and twice as hard thanks to being a woman.  Meredith admires and encourages her and then shares things about James that tarnish Evelyn's happy memories.  And a seemingly mutual attraction to a fellow solicitor, a man engaged to someone else, will create a happy and equally agonizing distraction.

What I love about this book, what sets it apart from being that simple entertainment, is the unpredictability of the characters, especially Evelyn.  Not everyone behaves as you expect them to in a historical novel.  Even the bit of romance in the story is turned on its head in a way you don't exactly see coming and made me admire Evelyn all the more.  No one is wholly good or bad and those gray areas feel very real and lifelike to me.  They are conflicted characters and you find yourself getting so very wrapped up in their lives.  And this isn't a typical story of happy endings, yet that said, it is an entirely satisfying ending, which I admire all the more.  Thankfully the story continues on and I am once again finding myself getting lost in the pages of The Girl in the Picture as well. 

Katharine McMahon is one of my 'must read everything she's written' authors and I think I have nearly all her books. I've read several and happily have several more unread and waiting for me.  I see an untitled novel slated for fall publication and I hope it is not simply wishful thinking.  I have no idea what the book will be--something new?  I think I could happily read more about Evelyn or Meredith, but then maybe the book I am reading now will have a finality to it.  Even so, there will be more stories to explore.  And as you see, she is an author I will also happily reread.

Somewhere in France, Jennifer Robson

Jennifer Robson's Somewhere in France is an 'all's well that ends well' though with its share of heartache along the way sort of novel, and if there were a few categories of stories I was hoping to fill this year, it fits a few of them quite nicely.  It is very much in the comfort realm of storytelling, definitely romance-ish and while a little predictable, sometimes that's okay depending on what you're looking for in a particular read.  And especially if you know you are hoping for a happy outcome, too.  I already know I am going to read all her books now.  She reminds me of her fellow Canadians, Susanna Kearsley and Simone St. James and I want to (and have been doing so) read all their books, too.  Each author does her own thing while at the same time being very similar in style.  I suspect if you like one, you may well like the others. 

Jennifer Robson's Somewhere in France is a WWI novel with an aristocratic protagonist, young in age and in experience, but willing to shrug it all off to help the war effort and of course, live for and make her own happiness.  I suspect Robson's novels all have a strong love story running through them.  Simone St. James sets her novels in the same era--mostly post-WWI, though her stories have a supernatural/paranormal/ghost story slant to them.  Also with a strong love story.  Susanna Kearsley is a little more varied.  Her novels move around in time, are largely set in England or Scotland, may be historical novels and she does the time-slip thing really well.  Hers almost always have that parallel storylines format.  Yes, there is always a dash of romance to them as well.  You know where you stand with each author, you know that in the end it will be a satisfying read.  Oftentimes these are my favored comfort reads and it is always nice to have a reliable author you know you can pick up and are likely to enjoy.

Lilly Ashford is Lady Elizabeth Ashford who wishes she had more opportunities but as a younger sister to a much-loved brother and the daughter of extremely conventional (read that as very snobbish and unbendable) parents she is tutored at home as proper young ladies are and will be married off as soon as possible and with as best of a match as possible as proper young ladies are raised to do.  It's not what she wants but it's what is expected and she might well have gone along with it all had she not been re-introduced to her brother's best friend Robbie Fraser.  The first time they met she was little more than a schoolgirl and he paid her not the least attention, or at least as much attention as any young man who's best friend has a younger sister still in knee socks and plaited hair is likely to do. 

But seven years later and in long gown, kid gloves and tiara (remember she is a Lady) she catches Robbie's eye and the favor is returned.  Sadly for Lilly and Robbie, regardless of those sparks that fly, her mama has other plans (and other suitors) in mind.  Her brother Edward is getting betrothed and while not the Belle of the Ball, Lilly is no longer a schoolgirl.  Unfortunately Robbie, who knows Edward from Oxford it matters not that he is a newly minted doctor, a surgeon even.  He comes from the wrong side of the Glaswegian tracks.  Besides weren't doctors looked down on at the time by aristocrats?  Mama firmly pushes a wedge between the two potential lovers, and that's that.

And then war breaks out.  Both men enlist or are called to serve each in their own capacity--officer and doctor.  And Lilly knows this might well be her opportunity to do something more with her life and so begins to learn to drive hoping she might join the FANYs or some other war organization.  It's Robbie who puts her on to the idea.  The two had been corresponding just as friends initially, but you know how wartime romances start.  When Lilly is caught out not just learning to drive but writing to an unsuitable young man it causes an irrevocable break and she leaves with nothing but her title and that counts for little in this uncertain new world.

I expect you know the drill from here on out.  Lilly goes to France and paths cross and it's all going to be love and hearbreak.  This is a gentle sort of read, easy on the mind and spirit.  And for visualization purposes . . . do you recall in the summer I was watching the PBS drama The Crimson Field and mentioned a particular doctor of Scottish extraction in the show and lamenting how I never manage to run across blue-eyed Scotsmen (click on link and scroll down if you are curious who I am talking about)?  That particular character fit quite nicely in my mind as Robbie Fraser.  Definitely an entertaining read.  I bought an inexpensive ebook copy of Robson's After the War is Over.  It will make a perfect gym read.  And she has a new book coming out soon, too, Moonlight Over Paris. 

Teaser Tuesday: Letters from a Lost Generation

The last book of Caroline's Literature and War Readalong for 2014 is a nonfiction book of correspondence.  When she first posted her list of selections I was quite pleased to see it on the list and ordered it without a second thought to have it safely tucked away until the end of the year.  Then life got busy and I've done poorly when it comes to reading along in general, so I considered just letting it go like so many other books I have let go of of late.  But when we chatted a bit about it and I heard how good it was and how accessible--easy to pick up and set down since it is a collection of letters I decided maybe it was worth attempting to squeeze it in after all, even if I don't finish it in time to add to this year's list of books (or in time for the forthcoming discussion).

While I'm unsure whether I will indeed finish it this year (am trying to keep my plans and expectations for my winter work break low--I never manage half of what I hope to do during breaks), I am so glad I picked it up and decided to read it after all.  I'm only a fourth of the way in and I know what's coming so am reading it with a heavy heart, but it is an amazing book.  Letters from a Lost Generation, edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge is a collection of letters (only a selection of them have been included) between Vera Brittain, her fiancé, brother and two other school friends written just before and during WWI. 

I'll be playing catch up for the remaining days of the year, trying to get in a few last posts about books I read and didn't write about, so today seemed a perfect day to share a few teasers of what I have been reading.  I have always meant to read Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (as well, I have a biography of Brittain, one of her novels and a biography she wrote about her friend Winifred Holtby) and am very tempted to begin a little reading project about her life and times.  Something to carry over into 2015 and a reading path I am quite happy to follow now.

I suspect you are already quite familiar with Vera Brittain's story--she lost all four men she corresponded with in this book in World War I.  If you want an honest and accurate picture of what the world was like then, I think you couldn't do much better than to read a book like this.  Roland Leighton, a school friend of her younger brother, was her fiancé.  Edward Brittain was her brother, and Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow were close friends of the young men.  The letters contained in this volume give an interesting view of the war and of Britain at the time.  The letters give a varied look at things--from both male and female perspectives  as well as from the battlefield, military hospitals, as well as the homefront as the introduction notes.

Reading these letters, what strikes me is the honor of the men fighting.  It's a common theme in the war literature I have read, that young men chose, they wanted to go off and fight for the honor of their country and themselves.  I think it has become quite a cliché to say that the best and the brightest of young men were lost in this war (though the editors do note that that isn't entirely true--certainly the letters show that it was the case to some extent).  But you do get a sense in reading these letters that it was understood the chances the young men were taking, but time and again the feeling was there that no matter what they couldn't let their country down.

The book is broken into eight sections, and I am in the midst of the third.  The letters begin in 1913 just when Vera meets Roland.  He and her brother were friends--Roland had won a place at Oxford already, Edward was hoping to go, and Vera decided to make a try for it as well.  She did earn a place as well, and just as the group were set to go, thinking they would be students at the same time, war breaks out and the young men almost immediately want to volunteer.

These first sections show primarily Vera and Roland's growing friendship and blossoming romance.  The other thing that strikes me in reading these letters is the quality of the writing.  Letter writing truly was an art, though the editors note that Roland's letters "are the most self-consciously literary of the collection."  Truly they are almost like little work's of art--how he will be sitting in the middle of a war zone and reflecting on nature.  The letters are both beautiful and horrible, as I know what's coming.  The latter half of the book concentrates on Vera's correspondence with her brother, Victor and Geoffrey.

My teaser's are a few excerpts from the letters themselves to give you a flavor of the correspondence and the quality of the writing and sentiments (though there is nothing sentimental about the letters either).

Vera to Roland (8-23-14)--"You are constantly apologising for your letters being egotistical.  Please do not.  Any letters worth having are always so; one does not trouble to correspond with people unless one is interested in them personally ". 

"I do hope you will be able to go to Oxford just the same.  But it seems impossible to expect anything from the future just now; life is so indefinite & one has to wait each day to know what to do next.  That is a great source of depression to a person life me, who am always working in the present for what I hope from the future."

* * *

Roland to Vera (9-29-14)--"In fact if I do not get to Oxford at all, as seems possible, I shall not much regret it,--except perhaps in that I shall miss the incidental pleasure of seeing you there.  Of course, all being well, I could go up after everything is over.  I feel, however, that I am meant to take some active part in this war.  It is to me a very fascinating thing--something, if often horrible, yet very ennobling and very beautiful, something whose elemental reality raises it above the reach of all cold theorising.  You will call me a militarist.  You may be right."

* * *

Roland to Vera (2/15/15)--"I am writing this in front of an open casement window overlooking the sea.  The sky is cloudless, and the russet sails of the fishing smacks flame in the sun.  It is summer--but it is not war; and I dare not look at it.  It only makes me angry, angry with myself for being here, and with the others for being content to be here [he was at home in Britain--at a hotel in Lowestoft].  When men whom I have once despised for being effeminate are sent back wounded from the front, when nearly everyone I know is either going or has gone, can I think of this with anything but rage and shame?"

* * *

Vera to Roland (4/17/15)--"Kingsley's idea that 'Men must work & women must weep', however untrue it ought to be, seems in one sense fairly correct just at present.  I certainly try to do as much as possible of the former, & very rarely have an inclination towards the latter--but I do feel like it as little when you tell me you have been kissing my photograph; it is more fortunate than its original.  She never seems quite to have got past your reserve or been able to know you properly.  I suppose it is the nearness of death which breaks down the reserves & conventions which in the midst of elemental things are sen to matter so little after all."

"I never thought I should ever say to anyone the sort of things I write to you.  At ordinary times one little knows how deeply one can be moved."

These letters are utterly compelling to read and hard to put down even knowing what is going to happen.  If I manage to finish reading the book this year it will surely end up on my best reads list.  And indeed, I think I will be reading more in the same vein.  Certainly more by and about Vera Brittain.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, Louisa Young

Thinking about Louisa Young's superlative WWI novel, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, two things strike me about the book and the story.  First the story--a novel set during WWI needn't have battlefield scenes in order for it to be harrowing.  There are a number of things that Young does in this story to make it both touching and painful and she does them so eloquently.  The other--whoever designed the book chose a perfect cover illustration.  It might look a little odd if you know nothing about the story other than it's about a war.  It even verges on appearing to be a romance, and while it is about relationships and how the bitterest of times can drive a vicious wedge between families and lovers, there is so much more at play here.

There are aspects of this story that feel quite typical.  After reading so many WWI novels (yet still barely touching the tip of the iceberg on the literature now out there), you begin to see many common themes running through them.  Similar storylines and tragedies even similar solutions.  But Young takes her story in slightly different directions, or maybe she just knows how to transform the typical into something feels fresh and new.  And her prose is really, really good.

In My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, four lives intersect in compelling ways.  The aristocratic and the working class.  The officer and the enlisted man.  The Bohemian and the Society girl.  This is, I suppose, the typical.  This is mostly Riley Purefoy's story, the son of working class parents who falls in by chance with the very Bohemian Waveney family.  It all starts with a snowball--flung in excitement but causing this smaller boy to gasp after it smacks him on the face.  A face that a decade later will be mangled by war.  The Waveney children take him home dry him out and fill him with hot chocolate.  His bright eyes and curly hair catch the eye of the children's tutor, a painter of some renown, who asks to paint him.  Not being bashful Riley returns and a friendship begins with the family and the artist, particularly with young Nadine Waveney.  

Of course you know what society ca. 1915 is like.  How can someone of Riley's class possibly think of a romantic liaison with someone posh like Nadine.  The thing is, Nadine's family may be posh but they are Bohemian posh.  Her mother is unsurprisingly conservative and conventional, but there are sparks that cannot be ignored.  When war breaks out and Nadine's family has all but made the two cut ties, he storms off.  What else can he do, and in anger and frustration tells the Waveneys and Sir Alfred, who has become his mentor as well as teacher, that maybe he'll perish and they won't need to worry about Riley seducing Nadine in any case.

Riley begins as an enlisted man but seems to have a knack at army life--courage under fire and discipline and a rapport with the other men--all the qualities that catch the eyes of those up above.  He is soon, thanks to so many officers getting killed off, moving up the ranks.  He finds common ground and begins a friendship with Peter Locke, his superior by rank and class, but not in other ways.  Maybe it's thanks to his years as part of the Waveney clan, but Riley knows how to interact with high and low.  He has a natural curiosity and ability to learn things easily and a keen intellect. 

Whereas Riley remains faithful to Nadine with whom he has begun a relationship despite the misgivings of her family (and mostly unbeknownst to them), Peter Locke can't seem to reconcile his life in France with his home life.  He feels adrift and cut off from his beautiful wife.  He has affairs, doesn't answer her letters.  Julia wants to be helpful to the war effort but she's mostly useless (but never in a smug way).  Only a pretty face and too elegant to do anything really important.  She's spent her life being a pretty face and is treated as someone without a whit ability.  Her entire self-image is wrapped up in how the world sees her, or rather how she thinks the world sees her.  She wants only to be the perfect wife and the perfect mother and anything less is failure. 

How fitting then is it, that when Riley is wounded and must contend with having his face partially reconstructed that his efforts are juxtaposed with those of Julia's as she tries to stave off the effects of time and despair on her face.  And how Young treats this situation is the not so typical.  Riley is subsumed with anger and anguish and self-loathing, at least initially, doing everything he can to keep the doctor's and their 'helpful' surgeries at bay.  And Julia tries anything and everything to make sure she does not change and keeps her beauty for her returning husband.  So curious and interesting that a war story, so ugly in itself, concerns itself with things of beauty. 

This is such a surprising novel.  I had heard it was good, but it was good in ways I didn't expect.  So much going on under the surface.  And as I mentioned it was harrowing in ways I didn't expect either.  There are scenes of war, but the scenes most uncomfortable for me were those of what Riley had to endure as he 'recovered' from the facial wounds he received.  No one in this story is perfect, and they are sometimes frustrating (but only in the most human of ways), but they were always likable--even with their flaws, their worries and fears and shortcomings.  They felt very flesh and blood realistic.

As for the cover illustration.  My first impression was--oh, a war story, a love story.  But now after having lived (in my mind anyway) with these characters and seen their flaws and misapprehensions, their fears and even in some cases their triumphs, it really seems a fitting choice.  That dark sepia is just the right tone for the dark days of war, and the turned back, the woman's hands--you cannot see their faces.  Riley is perfect from almost every angle, save for part of his face.  He's loved by a woman who would give up almost anything to be with him.  And just the same with Julia and Peter who have left so many things unsaid and think at cross purposes.  Julia is always thought of and treated as someone superficial, and she relies on her face, her looks to get by and be loved and fears that without her youth and beauty she will lose everything.  So fitting then for the lover's faces to be concealed and for the two to be wholly consumed by each other.

This is a story that is quite nicely done.  Definitely some harrowing moments, but everything fit together in just the right way.  Young continues the story in The Heroes' Welcome (not yet published in the US), which I'm afraid I had to have.  My copy is winging its way to me now and soon I hope to find out what happens to Riley and Nadine, Peter and Julia. 

A Very Good (Sarah Waters) Mail Day

Look what I found in my mailbox last night when I came home from work!  A good mail day, indeed!  I ordered this back in June--when September seemed so far away.  One of the few reasons I am happy the weeks have flown by.  The Paying Guests by Sarah Water is a nice, hefty tome of over 500 pages.  Normally I might balk a little at that, but this is Sarah Waters--so I don't mind a bit.  Can you guess what I am going to be doing tonight?

It begins:

"The Barbers had said they would arrive by three.  It was like waiting to begin a journey, Frances thought.  She and her mother had spent the morning watching the clock, unable to relax.  At half-past two she had gone wistfully over the rooms for what she'd supposed was the final time; after that there had been a nerving-up, giving a steady deflation, and now, at almost five, here she was again, listening to the echo of her own footsteps, feeling no sort of fondness for the sparsely furnished spaces, impatient simply for the couple to arrive, move in, get it over with."