So, 101 years ago today, World War I finished. It was a horrendous war, with a lot of deaths, and afterwards there was the Spanish Flu epidemic, with plenty more deaths.
I thought, as this is a book blog, I’d mention some books on the theme of what was then known as the Great War, the war to end war.
I’ll start off off with Aussie novelist Pamela Rushby’s YA novel Flora’s War, published in 2013 by Ford Street Publishing. I reviewed it on this web site when it first came out, and enjoyed it very much.
The heroine, Australian girl Flora Wentworth, is an archaeologist’s daughter who has been coming to Egypt for the digging season for years. She knows her way around and is more comfortable with the Egyptians than are other Westerners. But the year is 1915 and Cairo is being flooded with wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli campaign. Not really the best time to be thinking about archaeological digs! Time, perhaps, for Flora to volunteer her help...
Despite the cover art of a nurse, Flora has a different job, learning to drive and ferrying the wounded soldiers to hospital. This novel doesn’t play around; war is hell.
Aussie children’s and YA novelist Jackie French has also written a series of adult books in a series beginning with Miss Lily’s Lovely Ladies, also reviewed on this site. This, along with With Love From Miss Lily, a Christmas Story, is set before and during the Great War - the others continue the story afterwards. The heroine, Sophie, is a wealthy Australian girl whose father runs a profitable business. When she wants to get married at eighteen, her father feels - rightly - that she is too young and sends her off to England, to stay with the mysterious Miss Lily and a group of girls of her own age at an Earl’s estate. There, Sophie and her new friends learn a lot, before the war begins. Sophie uses her understanding of business and her father’s goods to help soldiers living through its horrors. She eventually discovers something unexpected about who Miss Lily really is.
This novel is set in the same universe as this author’s A Rose For The Anzac Boys, in which a group of girls set up a canteen in France, to feed passing wounded soldiers. These girls turn up in this book and the next, The Lily And The Rose.
Finally, in this overview of a few Australian books set in this era is Kerry Greenwood’s Murder In Montparnasse.
Murder In Montparnasse is in the Phryne Fisher series. You probably know about this 1920s Melbourne sleuth already. In this novel, we learn something about Phryne’s past, from the time when she had returned from the war to live in Paris as an artist’s model. Phryne ran away from home to France and became an ambulance driver on the battlefields. Now, ten years later, her friends Bert and Cec come to her to ask for her help, when the friends with whom they had a good time one day in Montparnasse, just after the war, have been getting killed off one after another, something to do with a murder they may have witnessed on that day...
I enjoyed it very much, as I did all the Phryne Fisher novels, although I have to say there were some oddities about the chronology that made no sense - you really have to read it to know what I mean, but never mind, do read it anyway. I suspect that by the time this one was published the editors were not saying “Hang on, this doesn’t make sense...” any more. Fans like me would enjoy it whatever. There are long flashbacks to Phryne’s experiences post war in Paris, which are relevant to the solving of the mystery.
They did film it for Season 1 of the TV series, but it was not very good. I do suggest reading the book, because if you’ve only seen the episode, you don’t know this story!
So, what favourite Great War stories can you suggest?
9 comments:
I too have been focusing on The Great War this week, in both tv documentaries and books. You note that the Australian heroine was an archaeologist’s daughter who'd been to Egypt for the digging season for years. But the year was 2015 (1915?), the worst time in ANZAC military history. Being flooded with wounded soldiers from Gallipoli, I imagine that the Army needed every nurse, ambulance driver, cook and clerk they could assemble.
Tomorrow morning, a review of the book "The Lost Boys: The untold stories of the under-age soldiers who fought in the First World War" will appear. Gallipoli will again be central.
Whoops! Thanks, fixed. And yes, the novel does make it clear that all hands were needed.
The one you mention sounds interesting - I heard it being discussed on Radio National the other day. There was Boy Soldier by Anthony Hill, about Jim Martin, the youngest Anzac, who got killed. I guess this one is a more general story, about the kids who ran away to war. Must check it out!
It is hard to believe that it has been so long since this conflict. A terribly dark book that came out of The Great War was Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. I need to get around to reading All Quiet on the Western Front. I have never read that.
Dalton Trumbo wrote a book? Wow! I only know him as a screenplay writer. Must chase this up. I haven’t read All Quiet either. Perhaps time to do it.
We're so lucky living in Canberra that we get to go to the War Memorial so easily. We do visit quite often, as we read everything and there is so much to absorb there. I'm not sure if you are aware, but at the last post they feature one Aussie who gave their life at any time for Australia. The family of the digger is there and there is a story about them read out. It's moving and beautiful.
I’ve been to the War Memorial a few times, mainly to see it as a museum, but once I was there on Anzac Day for the dawn service, very impressive, so it doesn’t surprise me they can do an amazing Remembrance Day as well. The Shrine here is pretty good too, and I once took a friend from England, who said it was the best war memorial she had ever seen.
Some interesting books to add to my TBR list, especially Pamela Rushby’s YA novel Flora’s War. I've been reading books set on the Soviet side in WW2, but I have some WWI on my pile - including All Quiet on the Western Front, as others have.
Hi Roland! You might need to get Flora’s War in ebook, as it’s not available outside of Australia in print book. Ford Street is a small press and when the overseas distributors let him down, the publisher, Paul,Collins, decided he really didn’t have time to keep an eye on them. I have seen it on Apple Books and on the Baen web sites, which distributes Ford Street ebooks, including mine. I think Baen does mobi as well as ePub, if that’s what you want.
I will 'dig' for it.
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