Tag: World War II

From The City, From The Plough – Alexander Baron (1948)

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Anyone who wishes to commemorate in some way the 80 year anniversary of the D-Day Landings on 6th June may like to consider reading this book as a way of marking tribute.  This author was one I selected as a pick from Christopher Fowler’s “Book Of Forgotten Authors” (2017) and he took part as a member of the Pioneer Corps in this campaign writing this fictional account soon after the end of the war in late night shifts following on from his job at a theatre company.  When published in 1948 it was popular and met with strong critical acclaim but has faded from view over the years.  I read a 2019 edition published by the Imperial War Museum.

Considering battle-grounds it’s the First World War which gets the greater focus in fiction.  The futility, the use of humans as bait, the courage, the fear and the mud, blood and blisters were equally as present 30 years later.  The second half of the book offers a realistic, visceral record from one who experienced it.  Reading this, it is amazing that anyone survived.

A significant chunk of the novel is about waiting, the preparations, the awareness that something big was going to happen but nobody seemed sure when.  We focus on the fictional Fifth Battalion of The Wessex Regiment.  It’s an ensemble piece with scenes which flit through the ranks capturing the activities and feelings of the men from raw recruit Alfie Bradley, who finds love at a dance; Tom Smith whose real love is farm work and who helps out on one after a full day’s training; Charlie Venables, so popular with the men that he can flout regulations and Colonel Pothecary whose concern for his son joining the Navy filters over to his attitudes towards the soldiers.  It is a very visual approach, the change of focus occurs frequently and it is no wonder that the author later focused on screenplays for film and television.

This was the first of a trilogy of war novels.  Alexander Baron (1917-99) later wrote London-based fiction, one of which, “King Dido”, Christopher Fowler describes as “one of the greatest and least read novels about London ever written”.  So that’s one to seek out.

This debut novel is gritty, written from the heart with the latter battle sections based on the Fifth Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (thinly disguised here) and their encounter at Mont Pincon alongside the author’s own experiences with which he must have lived with every day of his life after that but was able to use these for an unflinchingly realistic and unsentimental account.  Certainly worth reading.

From The City, From The Plough was first published in 1948.  I read the 2019 Imperial War Museum publication.

Quint – Robert Lautner (Borough Press 2024)

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The main reason why I re-read Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” (1974) recently was because I was aware of this novel on the horizon which is a memoir of main character Quint.  Now, I’m not totally convinced that the shark fisherman is the most resonant character in the book but it is the portrayal by Robert Shaw in the movie that made the deepest impression on this author and fifty years on from Benchley’s publication it is fascinating to see this character from another perspective.

Everything that takes place here is pre-Jaws.  It’s a document found after Quint’s death which was written in the late 60s and looks back focusing on two events, his wartime experience on board the Indianapolis and a memorable fishing experience nine years later.  So, what we have here is a sea-drenched historical novel with flashes of Melville’s “Moby Dick”, a touch of what I’d imagine Hemingway to be like (it’s been many years since I read him) and perhaps more unpredictably, “Pinocchio” with quotes from the children’s classic by Carlo Collidi running throughout.

What gives this novel greater depth is that Quint was on board the Indianapolis, which was the last American battleship to be sunk in World War II on the way back from carrying the atomic bomb which would destroy Hiroshima by a Japanese sub.  The crew entered the water and because of the nature of their mission no-one knew they were there as they fought for survival for five days.  It wasn’t long before man-eating sharks came circling.

In the most powerful section of the book what happened in the sea then runs alongside a solo fishing trip with Quint, nine years later, newly arrived in Amity and trying to prove himself. With these two narratives running alongside one another we get an intense, visceral read which works so well.

Before this the narrator delves into his background to explore what makes Quint who he is and it’s a decidedly macho tale of a loner with fights, booze and contests to prove himself.  He’s never likeable but that actually doesn’t matter here as it’s the larger story- a naval history disaster pitched against man’s battles with the deep and what comes up from it which exerts a significant punch.

Robert Lautner is the pen name of a British author and this is his third novel with another “Rabbit Moon” (2019) written under his own name, Mark Keating.  He is a new author to me although his 2017 novel “The Draughtsman” was longlisted for the Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize.  Here his combination of a character most will have some awareness of, the historical tragedy and a vividly created man vs sea adventure sequence produces a valid tribute to Benchley’s Quint.  I enjoyed this just as much as “Jaws”.

Quint is published on 1st February 2024 by The Borough Press.  Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Flame Of Resistance – Damien Lewis (2022)

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Damien Lewis is the celebrated author, documentary film-maker and historian who is most famous for writing a number of best-selling non-fiction books (as well as a couple of fictional thrillers) about the SAS.  I haven’t read any of his books prior to this and it was his subject matter here which got me interested- the extraordinary performer Josephine Baker.  This book is titled “Agent Josephine” in the US and I wonder why the UK has gone with this less satisfactory title- I hope it wasn’t a commercial decision in case it put off what is probably a large male readership for this author’s work.  In both editions the same subtitle adds a little more information – “American Beauty. French Hero. British Spy.”

Josephine Baker (1906-75) is a twentieth century great.  Born in St. Louis, Missouri where her talent for performing helped her escape a life of poverty.  Her career limited by racism she moved to France where she became a sensation, her vibrancy, often risqué costumes, dancing and singing talent as well as her beauty led to her becoming one of the most famous and most photographed women in 1920s/30s Europe.  Her love for her adopted homeland and its acceptance of her was compromised by the rise of the Nazis and the fall of France.

After World War II Josephine was awarded, amongst other acknowledgements, the Legion D’Honneur, France’s highest service medal.  In succeeding years it has gradually been publicly recognised that hers was a vital role in supporting the Allies through Secret Service work.  On researching her life the author has uncovered just how important this work was, how long she managed to escape enemy attention and how team, partnered and solo missions had a significant impact on events of the war years.

Before war broke out her pilot’s licence saw her flying in aid and support and when Paris fell she refused to perform in Nazi occupied France but demand for her unique brand of morale boosting celebrity elsewhere enabled her to smuggle intelligence, information and documents within the trappings of costumes, music scores etc.  In the early years she was often accompanied by her menagerie of adored animals which added more chaos to her travels and actually helped her to carry out intelligence undertakings in plain sight.

Damien Lewis does well to bring the story alive of this extraordinary woman and her colleagues but even so, the secret nature of this work suggests that perhaps there is much more that she achieved which will never be uncovered.  His focus is very much on her war work and I think I do need to read a general biography to flesh out her many other achievements and to provide a greater context for these activities.  Recognition of just how unique this woman was, as a performer, as a member of the Resistance and as a British spy has begun to build up slowly over the decades.  In 2021 she became the 6th woman and 4th person of colour accepted for interment in the crypt of the Pantheon, alongside French greats such as Marie Curie, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo.  I’m not convinced that she has gained the level of recognition her achievements demanded in her homeland and in the UK but hopefully this book will shine a light on this woman whose glamorous depiction of celebrity masked sheer bravery, determination and adherence to her beliefs.  Hers is a tale of extraordinary missions, invisible ink, microdots, secreted documents alongside her desire for peace and uncompromising insistence on equality.  This is a trail-blazer whose story demands to be known.

The Flame Of Resistance was published in the UK in 2022 by Quercus.

My Father’s House – Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker 2023)

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I am shamefacedly admitting I knew nothing about the inspiration for Irish writer Joseph O’Connor’s new novel – Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, a Priest based at the Vatican at the time of Rome’s takeover by the Nazis who was responsible for the saving of some 6,500 lives through the Escape Line, which ran from the neutral Vatican City, housing and hiding soldiers, escaped Prisoners Of War, Jews and others the Nazi regime took against.

This is a fictional account which leads up to a mission, known as a Rendimento, planned for Christmas Eve 1943.  O’Flaherty was supported by a group who met on the pretext of choral singing and some of these are interviewed in the early 1960s and their accounts of what happened runs alongside a third person narrative.  O’Connor writes beautifully with multi-sensory descriptions being layered to build a picture of events and the tale he tells here is involving and often thrilling.  He seems more at pains to ensure we know we are reading fiction than the average historical novelist.  I might be wrong here but from a quick glance at the true events online I think he has changed the identity of the main threat to the mission, a German officer who viewed O’Flaherty as his nemesis.  If this is so, this fictional creation allows the author greater freedom in portraying the evil within this man.

Monsignor O’Flaherty is the lifeblood of this novel but I think I might have appreciated further fleshing out of some of the supporting characters within the choir.  From their interviews I wasn’t always clear who was talking and this narrative structure removed them slightly from the action although I do acknowledge that anonymity at this time was a prerequisite for survival.

I was impressed by this strong novel but I must admit that it didn’t quite get me the way the author’s evocative recreation of a Victorian theatrical world inhabited by Bram Stoker in 2019’s “Shadowplay” did which made it into my Top 5 Books of that year.

My Father’s House will be published on 26th January by Harvill Secker.  Many thanks  to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Village That Died For England -Patrick Wright (1995)

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December 1943- The sleepy coastal Dorset village, Tyneham, is taken over by the British Military for use as a firing range, incorporating it into neighbouring areas such as Lulworth and Bovington, already being used for manoeuvres and tanks.  The village, which included a school, church and post office is emptied of its residents who are relocated to other parts of Dorset.  They are told they can come back when the war is over.  They never return.

These are the bare bones.  It’s certainly not as simple as this idyllic bit of lost England being subsumed by officialdom suggests and Patrick Wright is on hand to tell this story which feels as British as an Ealing film comedy.

Having recently moved to Dorset after only ever holidaying here decades ago I’m finding myself stirred by long distant memories and back in the early 1980s I could recall a visit to a lost, abandoned village.  I hadn’t thought about it for years but moving here I began to wonder about it, I couldn’t even recall its name.  I saw this in Dorchester’s Waterstones and realised this was just the book to fill in the memory gaps.

I read the 1995 hardback edition from the library but it was reissued in paperback in 2021 by Repeater Books with a new introduction which brings the story up to date.

This is an unusual non-fiction choice for me and I wasn’t totally at ease with the author’s style, initially.  I found it slightly wandering to begin with and he didn’t bring me in  as a newcomer to his subject- I felt he assumed I’d know things I didn’t and with the passage of time there will be fewer of us who remember the national controversy over Tyneham which simmered from the war years onwards so a new edition would seem a good idea.

It is far less about the good, dislocated people of Tyneham than the reasons for the decisions made for them and the development of this part of the Dorset coast in National Defence.  There’s some memorable characters who made their home in this area before the war, including Rolf Gardiner, who promoted youth work camps and of whom there’s quite a bit here; the literary set of the Powys family as well as the writer Sylvia Townsend Warner and her same-sex partner Valentine Ackland; the fiery squire of the Lulworth Castle who may or may not have been tainted by the Curse of Tutankhamun and who sat and watched  his castle burn down in 1929 (I’ve just found out it was restored and is now an English Heritage site).  In his bringing these people back to life Wright’s account shines brightest.

There’s some mileage to be had in the rival associations aiming to repopulate Tyneham in the late 1960s-70s where hippy idealism both works with and clashes against the established order with young firebrand Rodney Legg taking central stage.

It is more than a story of lost England as within Tyneham’s takeover and the decades spent in trying to get it back for the residents there’s really a pocket guide to the shifts in values and priorities of the nation.  Class, unsubstantiated fears and prejudices and relationships with authority all play their fascinating part in this tale which is equally complex and straightforward.  A measure of the success of this type of book is whether it makes me want to read more about the subject and although I feel that most of the texts would be bucolic reminiscences from those who lived thereabouts at the time Wright has certainly piqued my interest.  I also think a visit to Tyneham might be on the cards.

I read the Jonathan Cape 1995 hardback edition but it would probably be easier to find the 2021 Repeater paperback reissue.

The Whalebone Theatre- Joanna Quinn (Penguin 2022)

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Dorset author Joanna Quinn has produced a very strong debut here.  Her depiction of the Seagrave family between 1919 and 1945 is full of wonderful moments.  The manor house at Chilcombe, a village which actually exists 10 miles from Dorchester (last estimated population in 2013 was 10!) is lovingly created and provides the central focus although the action splinters to other locations during the war years this house is the lifeblood for this novel.

A great favourite of mine is Dodie Smith’s “I Capture The Castle” (1949) and I am regularly tempted by works which aim to get the feel of that novel, with its memorable characters, excellent set-pieces and its superb balance of being heart-warming, funny and poignant within a family setting.  Get this balance slightly off and it shows and I tend to end up not really responding positively but Joanna Quinn, whether this is an explicit aim or not, gets the feel of this type of novel beautifully and the first half was a thing of sheer of joy which I loved reading.  At the mid-way point I thought I’d got a strong contender for my Book of The Year.  From the outbreak of war, when the characters inevitably leave to play their part, I felt it slipped into more standard fare, which I still very much enjoyed but for me the real magic of the first half was not sustained.

Playing a part is an important theme of this novel.  Fish out of water Christabel is a toddler when her father arrives at Chilcombe with a new wife and the family dynamics further change in time leaving Christabel very much an outsider.  Her life changes when the corpse of an errant whale washes up on the beach.  With younger siblings and others originally encountered on the beach where the whale lies dead Christabel develops a theatre on Seagrave land using the whale bones in its construction.  The theatre where friends and family all have a part to play brings Christabel into the fold.  This “Swish Of The Curtain” aspect gives this novel  a vitality and the notion of the theatre simmers away in Christabel’s heart when war takes her far away from Chilcombe.

The war sees these memorable characters involved at home and overseas- some slip away at this point and have little part to play in future proceedings but others develop a stronger focus. Looking at my review of “I Capture The Castle” I also say that it is a book of two halves, with the first half more captivating for me than the second.  I’d actually forgotten about that when I read “The Whalebone Theatre” and even when I began writing this review but it’s interesting (for me anyway) that I felt the same way about a book I just can’t help comparing this to.

It is a splendid debut and this was enriched for me by the Dorset location, as a newcomer to the County myself I loved the references to places I have so recently visited and the mentions of my new home town in an earlier part of its history.  This book will charm and thrill many readers and could be a very pleasing commercial as well as critical success.

The Whalebone Theatre is published in the UK by Penguin on June 9th. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

The Broken House- Horst Kruger (Bodley Head 2021)

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This is the first English translation of a German memoir originally published in 1966 as “Das Zerbrochene Haus” and subtitled “Growing Up Under Hitler”.  In the Afterword the author (who died in 1999) reflects that it was a book which was developed backwards, in a way.  As a journalist in 1964 he was invited to attend the Auschwitz trials.  This forms the closing section of the book and is the most powerful and it was his attendance which caused Kruger to look back on his life.  In the 1960s he was stunned by how perpetrators of unthinkable crimes at the concentration camp had assimilated into society before having to answer for their actions at the trials.  I think if this book had been written more recently this central moment would have been the starting point but back in 1966 Kruger chose to employ a chronological approach which leads from his childhood outside Berlin, in Eichkamp, in an apolitical family where his environment would have made the rise of Adolf Hitler seem even more extraordinary.  Alongside this are the family dramas, the suicide of his oldest sister in 1939 and his own dallying with resistance and its repercussions.

There is a sense of detachment throughout which may feasibly be from the translation but I would imagine it is from the original text which does affect the flow and holds the reader at arm’s length.  There is little of Kruger’s own participation in the hostilities, it jumps to the end of his war, and indeed, this is acknowledged by the author in the Afterword which was written in 1975 and reflects back on the work, but this absence of this part of his life does seem a little odd.

In parts, it is magnificent, especially the second half of the book where Kruger feels to be on more certain ground, the actual growing up under Hitler sections in Eichkamp can feel a little tentative but there admittedly would have been so much that the town’s inhabitants would have been unsure about at the time.  It is not quite the masterpiece I had hoped but the author provides many moments that will linger long in my memory.

The English translation of “The Broken House” is by Shaun Whiteside. The book is published on 17th June 2021. The hardback is published by Bodley Head, the e-book by Vintage Digital. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Goodnight Mister Tom – Michelle Magorian (Puffin 1981)

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Puffin have celebrated the 40th anniversary of this enduring children’s classic by issuing it in a new edition which also contains a story of the young Tom and lyrics Magorian wrote for the musical adaptation.  I had always thought I had read this book before but I hadn’t.  I have also never seen the acclaimed TV version which starred John Thaw.  It was one of those books where my vague ideas about it had cemented into what I believed was fact but I was often wrong.  I knew it was a tearjerker but what I had always thought occurred never actually happens.  The twists and turns of the plot were quite a revelation for me.

Will is sent from Deptford, South London, just before the outbreak of World War II, as an evacuee to the rural environment of Little Weirwold where he is allocated to Tom Oakley, an elderly widower who lives a very self-contained life with his dog Sammy.  Will’s arrival disrupts this but the malnourished, poorly treated Londoner wins Tom over from the start and the youngster begins to thrive under his care.

The country scenes have a direct line to earlier children’s classics such as “The Railway Children” where nothing much happens but it is still a ravishing read.  It’s a boy finding his feet amongst a new environment and new friends and the challenges he faces, a common enough theme in junior fiction but it is when the book reverts to London with a grimness which is shocking compared to what we have read before that it is elevated to another level.  Following this, with the war established in both town and country Magorian pulls no punches and conveys the sense of not knowing what is round the corner brilliantly.  As the war disrupts the lives of those in the country there’s a tension between adapting to the new events and wanting their lives to go on as before.

I loved this book.  I loved the characters and the plot.  I enjoyed the short story “Rachel And The Paintbox” which would be a lovely back-story read for long-standing fans of this book.  The song lyrics were inessential but there again would be appreciated by those who have had this book in their lives for decades.

I cannot believe it has taken me this long to get round to it.  My advice to you is to celebrate its special birthday with me by discovering it for yourself, re-reading it or buying a copy for a younger member of the family.  This is a great read.

Originally published by Kestrel in 1981, the first Puffin paperback edition arrived in 1983 and this edition with the additional material was published in the UK on May 6th 2021. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the review copy.

Never Anyone But You – Rupert Thomson (2018)

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I have read one Rupert Thomson novel before, his 2007 publication, the Costa nominated “Death Of A Murderer”, a novelised account featuring an unnamed central character who is Moors Murderer Myra Hindley which to be honest did not do a great deal for me.  This is a much better novel which once again has true life characters as the central protagonists. 

He is helped here by his subject matter.  Two extraordinary women Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe who are true soul mates and adopt the names Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore and in the inter-war years become notable in the literary and artistic worlds of Paris aligning themselves perhaps most closely to the Surrealist movement.  Before war is declared they move to their favourite holiday destination Jersey where, once occupied by Nazis, they begin their own acts of resistance not dissimilar to that in Hans Fallada’s marvellous novel “Alone In Berlin.”

The plot really does come alive in the war years with the continual threat of discovery adding much to the tension but the real strength here is the depiction of the relationship between the two women.  Suzanne narrates a tale which starts off in 1940 where a German attack disrupts her evening swim and then moves back to chronologically depict their lives together in a manner not too far off from established facts about the pair.

Their relationship is beautifully written.  Claude is not always easy to love and has a self-destructive streak which dismays her lover.  Throughout all the drama the tone is one of calm which works extremely well. 

I was seduced by on-cover recommendations from Sarah Waters “…an astonishing accomplishment” and Philip Pullman “..It’s a long time since I read a love story quite as convincing or truthful”, both writers I much admire but it was Thomson’s weaving of the tale and vibrant assured prose which really drew me in.

Never Anyone But You was published in 2018 by Corsair.

London Belongs To Me- Norman Collins (1945)

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collins

This is a book I read as a teenager. I can remember the quite plain but striking blue covers of this British author’s work in the public library of my youth and I either read this just before or after an ITV adaptation from 1977 which featured a very memorable Patricia Hayes and which I loved. There’s also a 1948 film version which stars Alastair Sim and Richard Attenborough which is good but hasn’t lingered as long in my memory as the book and TV series.

These memories were brought to the forefront when I found Norman Collins listed as one of Christopher Fowler’s picks in his “The Book Of Forgotten Authors” (2017). Collins (1907-1982) was a fascinating, very twentieth century character. His writing career saw him working for the Oxford University Press, editor of “The Daily News”, a role which Charles Dickens (quite significantly) had taken before him and deputy chairman of Gollancz publishing firm. Moving to broadcasting in the early 1940s he moved up the ranks in the BBC to being in charge of the Radio Light Programme where he created the immortal “Dick Barton-Special Agent”. Not long after this novel was published he was Controller of the fast-growing world of television and in the early 1950’s helped set up the Independent Television Authority becoming one of the important early figures of ITV. Throughout this time he was publishing with a total of 16 novels and two plays of which the vast majority are now out of print. This book and his London set “Bond Street Story” are the most significant of his works.

Rereading this many years on I think it is excellent. I highlighted the Dickens reference earlier because Collins’ writing style is reminiscent of a mid-twentieth century Dickens, the way he pulls back as narrator, gives us overviews and then focuses back on a set of very memorable characters in this London setting feels appropriately Dickensian. It’s a real warm hug of a book focusing on a group of residents of 10, Dulcimer Street, Kennington over two years from Christmas 1938 to Christmas 1940.

It is a closely observed novel with no real ongoing narrative drive or issues other than the lives of the characters. This gives it a feel of early soap-opera and that again has the feel of Dickens. It doesn’t have the burning social issues of the Victorian novelist but it works beautifully as a commentary on everyday existence. With its focus on ordinary folk at a time of uncertainty making their preparations for war it is first class and its sense of impending doom whilst the everyday continues resonates with our recent events.

And there’s great characters. The kindly, stolid, central Mr Josser, struggling home with a retirement gift clock at the very beginning, the canny canary-loving Miss Coke and the charlatan spiritualist Mr Squales will linger on in the memory. There’s a German spy who pops in for the odd vignette who seems a little out of place and the adenoidal glutton Mr Puddy’s speech patterns might have worked better in its day but he is still a character to be reckoned with. There’s also the unsettled youth Percy Boon whose involvement in a crime is the closest the novel gets to a central thread involving all the characters in some way.

At over 700 pages of quite small print in the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition this is lengthy but it’s a real treat and I felt quite sad coming to the end. If Norman Collins has other books of this quality in his canon (Christopher Fowler’s favourite is “The Governor’s Lady”) then this is a seriously under-rated author due for a revival with this five star twentieth century classic leading the way.

fivestars

London Belongs To Me was first published in 1945. I read the Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition.