The FitzOsbornes at War, and other war stories
"Well, and you collect books."
"I don't collect them, I read them." (She seemed to think reading was some sort of hobby, as opposed to being as necessary as breathing, eating and sleeping.)
-- from The FitzOsbornes at War by Michelle Cooper
A Brief History of Montmaray and The FitzOsbornes in Exile are lovely... but it's hard to say that about a book set during WWII.
Heartbreaking is more appropriate. If I was the sort of person who cried over books, I would have sobbed my way through sections of The FitzOsbornes at War. As it was, I was just numb.
Sophie's journal is evocative; a perfect balance between personal and global, domestic and political, humorous incidents and horrible realities. Her portrayal of war-torn English is vivid and insightful. Her own emotional growth is subtle but convincing; it was lovely to see her grow up into an independent young woman.Veronica is quite wrong when she claims there is no value in reading novels such as Pride and Prejudice. Of course there is. They provide one with the exact words one needs when one is speechless in the face of extreme provocation.
And then there's the growth the rest of her family go through. Because the FitzOsbornes are passionate, unconventional, occasionally infuriating and delightful. They're determined to do all they can for the war... but their wartime experiences drag them in different directions (and generally try to put a damper on the the FitzOsborne wonderful-ness). It is impossible for them to be unchanged and unscathed by their experiences.
However, they haven't forgotten Montmaray...
One of the things which really impressed me is that this is one woman's journal covering years of war, and so it tends to be episodic (Also, as Sophie says: The trouble with keeping a record of the war is that either nothing whatsoever is happening in the world, which makes one's journal entries very boring, or else so much is going on that one doesn't have time to comprehend it, let alone write it down. ) and yet it manages to be, very successfully, the final book of a trilogy.
I heart The FitzOsbornes at War so much and forgive it for breaking my heart.
It's very happy for deep people, really...
* * *
Since I'm not going to discuss The FitzOsbornes at War spoilers (I wouldn't know what to say, even if I wanted to), I relieved my feelings by making a list of some of my favourite novels which deal with WWI or WWII.
Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French. Oh, I had forgotten about this! It's a story-within-a story kind of story - a story of four kids who make up stories to tell each other while waiting for the school bus, and the story Anna tells, about Hitler's daughter.
Recently I was asked what book I thought every school child should read and struggled to think of something I would universally recommend... but I would recommend this.
L.M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside is about Anne (of Green Gables)'s youngest daughter growing up during WWI. It's my favourite of all the Anne books. I love how Rilla's war experiences challenge her and force her to take on responsibility, and she rises to the occasion.
Michael Morpurgo's War Horse offers an interesting perspective on WWI by following the experiences of a (war) horse. And The Butterfly Lion is one of my favourites - a gorgeous story an old woman tells to a runaway school boy about her childhood friend, his pet lion and their experiences during WWI.
But Waiting for Anya, is in another league altogether. It's about a small French community during WWII who smuggle Jews across the border to Spain and deal with the German occupation. It was a whole aspect of the war I knew nothing about, and it made me aware of the complexities of sharing your community with 'the enemy'.
Nina Bawden's Keeping Henry is about delightful tale about family evacuated to a farm during WWII, and their 'pet' squirrel, while Carrie's War is about children evacuated to a mining community in Wales, also during WWII. I adored Carrie's War, although my memories of it now are too nebulous to put into words. I need to reread it.
Iain Lawrence's Lord of the Nutcracker Men, set during 1914, is about a boy who notices eerie similarities between the games he plays with his toy soldiers and what is happening on the western front.
Michelle Magorian is good at writing bleak-but-ultimately-heart-warming stories about children dealing with awful situations and dysfunctional families during WWII and its aftermath. In Goodnight Mister Tom, a young boy escapes his abusive mother when he is evacuated from London and is billeted with a kindly old man.
However, my favourite is A Little Love Song. It's a wonderful coming-of-age novel, about seventeen year old Rose and her older sister who are sent to spend the summer in a small seaside community in 1943. It's a bookish sort of book: Rose gets to know the bookshop owner, Alec, who shares books - and a love of writing - with Rose. She also discovers diaries about a woman's experiences during WWI, and these really help to change Rose's attitudes about the world.
Ruth Elwin Harris' quartet, The Silent Shore, The Beckoning Hills, The Dividing Sea and Beyond the Orchid House, is about four orphaned and artistic sisters during the 1910s. I absolutely LOVE these books, and the way they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. They occupy classic status in my mind.
I felt I had to include All Quiet on the Western Front in this list. It's insightful and well-written (and it's so interesting to see war from the other side, because the English-speaking world is so caught up in telling stories about the English-speaking world's experiences of war!)... and it just really highlights how awful war is. Which made it hard to read.
Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice is strange insofaras it is narrated at a remove by a character who hears about, but isn't involved in, the action. But regardless the first half, about a group of British women and children who are taken prisoner when the Japanese invade Malaya and forced to march from village to village, is utterly compelling. Another aspect of the war I knew nothing about (it's based on the experiences of a group of Dutch women on Sumatra).
There are a lot of things about Paullina Simons' The Bronze Horseman which annoy me, but as a story about Leningrad in the early 1940s, it is fascinating. So is the sequel, The Bridge to Holy Cross.
Eva Ibbotson's The Morning Gift is mostly set just before WWII, so maybe it shouldn't count, but it's another favourite. Twenty year old Ruth manages escape from Austria through a marriage of convenience to a family friend, and finishes her science degree in London.
I know Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear have their flaws, but I don't care. I love their excess of detail and how they are about friendship and teamwork during the London Blitz.
Also, the subplot in Blackout / All Clear about the wealthy girls driving ambulances in 1944? I'm convinced there must be at least one book (fiction) out there which is all about girls driving ambulances and sharing their clothes with each other and going to dances when they're not working. BECAUSE I WANT TO READ IT.
~ Herenya
rereading: A Little Love Song by Michelle Magorian
"I don't collect them, I read them." (She seemed to think reading was some sort of hobby, as opposed to being as necessary as breathing, eating and sleeping.)
-- from The FitzOsbornes at War by Michelle Cooper
A Brief History of Montmaray and The FitzOsbornes in Exile are lovely... but it's hard to say that about a book set during WWII.
Heartbreaking is more appropriate. If I was the sort of person who cried over books, I would have sobbed my way through sections of The FitzOsbornes at War. As it was, I was just numb.
Sophie's journal is evocative; a perfect balance between personal and global, domestic and political, humorous incidents and horrible realities. Her portrayal of war-torn English is vivid and insightful. Her own emotional growth is subtle but convincing; it was lovely to see her grow up into an independent young woman.Veronica is quite wrong when she claims there is no value in reading novels such as Pride and Prejudice. Of course there is. They provide one with the exact words one needs when one is speechless in the face of extreme provocation.
And then there's the growth the rest of her family go through. Because the FitzOsbornes are passionate, unconventional, occasionally infuriating and delightful. They're determined to do all they can for the war... but their wartime experiences drag them in different directions (and generally try to put a damper on the the FitzOsborne wonderful-ness). It is impossible for them to be unchanged and unscathed by their experiences.
However, they haven't forgotten Montmaray...
One of the things which really impressed me is that this is one woman's journal covering years of war, and so it tends to be episodic (Also, as Sophie says: The trouble with keeping a record of the war is that either nothing whatsoever is happening in the world, which makes one's journal entries very boring, or else so much is going on that one doesn't have time to comprehend it, let alone write it down. ) and yet it manages to be, very successfully, the final book of a trilogy.
I heart The FitzOsbornes at War so much and forgive it for breaking my heart.
It's very happy for deep people, really...
* * *
Since I'm not going to discuss The FitzOsbornes at War spoilers (I wouldn't know what to say, even if I wanted to), I relieved my feelings by making a list of some of my favourite novels which deal with WWI or WWII.
Hitler's Daughter by Jackie French. Oh, I had forgotten about this! It's a story-within-a story kind of story - a story of four kids who make up stories to tell each other while waiting for the school bus, and the story Anna tells, about Hitler's daughter.
Recently I was asked what book I thought every school child should read and struggled to think of something I would universally recommend... but I would recommend this.
L.M. Montgomery's Rilla of Ingleside is about Anne (of Green Gables)'s youngest daughter growing up during WWI. It's my favourite of all the Anne books. I love how Rilla's war experiences challenge her and force her to take on responsibility, and she rises to the occasion.
Michael Morpurgo's War Horse offers an interesting perspective on WWI by following the experiences of a (war) horse. And The Butterfly Lion is one of my favourites - a gorgeous story an old woman tells to a runaway school boy about her childhood friend, his pet lion and their experiences during WWI.
But Waiting for Anya, is in another league altogether. It's about a small French community during WWII who smuggle Jews across the border to Spain and deal with the German occupation. It was a whole aspect of the war I knew nothing about, and it made me aware of the complexities of sharing your community with 'the enemy'.
Nina Bawden's Keeping Henry is about delightful tale about family evacuated to a farm during WWII, and their 'pet' squirrel, while Carrie's War is about children evacuated to a mining community in Wales, also during WWII. I adored Carrie's War, although my memories of it now are too nebulous to put into words. I need to reread it.
Iain Lawrence's Lord of the Nutcracker Men, set during 1914, is about a boy who notices eerie similarities between the games he plays with his toy soldiers and what is happening on the western front.
Michelle Magorian is good at writing bleak-but-ultimately-heart-warming stories about children dealing with awful situations and dysfunctional families during WWII and its aftermath. In Goodnight Mister Tom, a young boy escapes his abusive mother when he is evacuated from London and is billeted with a kindly old man.
However, my favourite is A Little Love Song. It's a wonderful coming-of-age novel, about seventeen year old Rose and her older sister who are sent to spend the summer in a small seaside community in 1943. It's a bookish sort of book: Rose gets to know the bookshop owner, Alec, who shares books - and a love of writing - with Rose. She also discovers diaries about a woman's experiences during WWI, and these really help to change Rose's attitudes about the world.
Ruth Elwin Harris' quartet, The Silent Shore, The Beckoning Hills, The Dividing Sea and Beyond the Orchid House, is about four orphaned and artistic sisters during the 1910s. I absolutely LOVE these books, and the way they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. They occupy classic status in my mind.
I felt I had to include All Quiet on the Western Front in this list. It's insightful and well-written (and it's so interesting to see war from the other side, because the English-speaking world is so caught up in telling stories about the English-speaking world's experiences of war!)... and it just really highlights how awful war is. Which made it hard to read.
Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice is strange insofaras it is narrated at a remove by a character who hears about, but isn't involved in, the action. But regardless the first half, about a group of British women and children who are taken prisoner when the Japanese invade Malaya and forced to march from village to village, is utterly compelling. Another aspect of the war I knew nothing about (it's based on the experiences of a group of Dutch women on Sumatra).
There are a lot of things about Paullina Simons' The Bronze Horseman which annoy me, but as a story about Leningrad in the early 1940s, it is fascinating. So is the sequel, The Bridge to Holy Cross.
Eva Ibbotson's The Morning Gift is mostly set just before WWII, so maybe it shouldn't count, but it's another favourite. Twenty year old Ruth manages escape from Austria through a marriage of convenience to a family friend, and finishes her science degree in London.
I know Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear have their flaws, but I don't care. I love their excess of detail and how they are about friendship and teamwork during the London Blitz.
Also, the subplot in Blackout / All Clear about the wealthy girls driving ambulances in 1944? I'm convinced there must be at least one book (fiction) out there which is all about girls driving ambulances and sharing their clothes with each other and going to dances when they're not working. BECAUSE I WANT TO READ IT.
~ Herenya
rereading: A Little Love Song by Michelle Magorian