This is a fun and fascinating book, as its mixed-up title suggests, full of contrasting elements.
It appeals to me because it's set on Guernsey, a place about which I know little. It has an interesting history. It came to England as a Norman possession with William the Conqueror. When England lost its French territories, it chose to remain with England even those it's quite close to the French coast and closer to it than to England.
Not surprisingly, Churchill felt he could not spare the resources to defend it from the Germans and so it was occupied from the fall of France to the end of the war.
Juliet Ashton is a writer touring England, and tiring of touring, to promote her new book. Her new book is a collection of comic essays she wrote during the war, meant to humorize the hardships and privations of the war years. As she wraps up her tour, she writes to her publisher that she is concerned about what she'll write next. She's looking for ideas. And, she's eager to turn her back on Izzy Bickerstaff, her nom de plume when she wrote her wartime pieces.
Out of the blue, she receives a letter from the island of Guernsey, from a pig farmer no less, who is writing her because he found a book, second-hand, with her name on the flyleaf. He writes her because he wants more books, something of which there's a shortage in Guernsey after the war. In particular, he wants a biography of a writer he's grown to greatly admire, Charles Lamb. Ashton shares his interest in Lamb and is intrigued. She comes to correspond with him and other natives of Guernsey. She soon decides that her next book will be about Guernsey during the war years, and she decides to visit the island.
The novel contains many comic and cozy elements: a close-knit community of eccentrics, a romance, an orphan child being cared for by a community.
It also contains very dark elements: starvation, internment in labor camps, execution.
It is a story told in letters, a form I particularly love. Letters are a particularly fine and economical way to convey comic vignettes, of which there are many in this novel.
The plotting is eventful, if predictable. Predictability, however, is what many readers want. The think the fact that this book has been a big best-seller around the world and is a book club favorite proves that. Winningly, it's not too long, either.
I found the style to be accomplished, but the characterization to be uneven. Somewhere after the one-third mark I found myself enjoying it less.
A word about the literary society: early on in the book, one character talks about his great interest in Charles Lamb. I had not thought about Charles Lamb since taking "Romantic Poets" in school. Lamb's own life story is poignant, and I found it to be an agreeable element in the novel.
This is a good book for folks who like cozy communities, eccentric characters, stories about literature, stories about writers, stories about World War II and stories set in exotic locales.
It appeals to me because it's set on Guernsey, a place about which I know little. It has an interesting history. It came to England as a Norman possession with William the Conqueror. When England lost its French territories, it chose to remain with England even those it's quite close to the French coast and closer to it than to England.
Not surprisingly, Churchill felt he could not spare the resources to defend it from the Germans and so it was occupied from the fall of France to the end of the war.
Juliet Ashton is a writer touring England, and tiring of touring, to promote her new book. Her new book is a collection of comic essays she wrote during the war, meant to humorize the hardships and privations of the war years. As she wraps up her tour, she writes to her publisher that she is concerned about what she'll write next. She's looking for ideas. And, she's eager to turn her back on Izzy Bickerstaff, her nom de plume when she wrote her wartime pieces.
Out of the blue, she receives a letter from the island of Guernsey, from a pig farmer no less, who is writing her because he found a book, second-hand, with her name on the flyleaf. He writes her because he wants more books, something of which there's a shortage in Guernsey after the war. In particular, he wants a biography of a writer he's grown to greatly admire, Charles Lamb. Ashton shares his interest in Lamb and is intrigued. She comes to correspond with him and other natives of Guernsey. She soon decides that her next book will be about Guernsey during the war years, and she decides to visit the island.
The novel contains many comic and cozy elements: a close-knit community of eccentrics, a romance, an orphan child being cared for by a community.
It also contains very dark elements: starvation, internment in labor camps, execution.
It is a story told in letters, a form I particularly love. Letters are a particularly fine and economical way to convey comic vignettes, of which there are many in this novel.
The plotting is eventful, if predictable. Predictability, however, is what many readers want. The think the fact that this book has been a big best-seller around the world and is a book club favorite proves that. Winningly, it's not too long, either.
I found the style to be accomplished, but the characterization to be uneven. Somewhere after the one-third mark I found myself enjoying it less.
A word about the literary society: early on in the book, one character talks about his great interest in Charles Lamb. I had not thought about Charles Lamb since taking "Romantic Poets" in school. Lamb's own life story is poignant, and I found it to be an agreeable element in the novel.
This is a good book for folks who like cozy communities, eccentric characters, stories about literature, stories about writers, stories about World War II and stories set in exotic locales.
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