Code Name Verity : in which the reader engages with the story and creates something unpredictable.

[bunn]

I kept seeing people recommending this Second World War novel, about a British agent (Scottish!) and her English pilot in occupied France. Eventually, I buckled to the power of suggestion and came by a copy. Then it sat on my 'to read' shelf for ages without quite managing to pull me in. Yesterday, I finally got around to it - and got sucked in

Comments

[bunn]

Well, I hope I could have risen above it and still enjoyed the story if I'd realised it was just a narrative device, but believing it to be part of the mechanism of the story definitely added a spice!

I try not to get too discombobulated by historical hiccups that I notice, as a general principle - because after all, probably there are lots of hiccups I don't notice, not being from 1942, and in a period that I've not researched thoroughly, I think it's important to keep in mind that very likely I am wrong and not the author anyway!

I did wish that she'd done something slightly different with Maddie's part of the story though - that's not a history thing, it's a character thing. It makes Maddie look like SUCH an idiot to be writing everything down and not even using code names, while *sleeping in a Gestapo member's bedroom!* and really, I don't see why that bit couldn't have been written as a retrospective when she was back in Britain.

I was really expecting Maddie to be caught and her diary to be the downfall of the whole Resistance network, and although it was a relief when this didn't happen, it still felt a bit ... odd.

[hedgebird]

Heh. When reading epistolary fiction I usually shut up the part of my brain that says "nobody writes letters or diaries like this," but with this book, the circumstances of Queenie's writing are so important it does seem a letdown that Maddie's bit is poorly justified. To be honest, I think I did mentally edit/fanwank that never mind, she wrote it afterwards to accompany Queenie's manuscript. Gah, I think I'm going to go reread it now.