The Saturday Morning Post (No. 53)

 

One of the sources for my to-be-read list is Wanda's blog, The Next 50 which you can check out here here. She is a very avid reader who reads across a lot of different genre, and when I see a book that interests me, I'll look to see if my local library carries it, preferably as an ebook, as I am rather lazy and driving down to the library and back -- it would take an half hour out of my busy life. (That's a joke, son.) But I am lazy. The book I am reviewing this week is not the book she posted on her site, that was Helen Simonson's The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club - her newest novel, so there's a waiting list for it. However, Simonson's first two novels did not have waiting list for the ebooks, so I picked up both. I started with her second novel, as it was set in England a few months before the First World War, a period of time I have, along with the summer of 1940, an affinity for. So how did I fare?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Summer Before the War  by Helen Simonson  C+

I fear that putting my grade for the book on the title line might, for the eagle-eye readers of these reviews, be a spoiler for those readers who don't like to be spoiled. So I'll cut to the chase and say here, I was somewhat disappointed by this book - perhaps because I had high expectations for it, since it promised all the things I like in a story - a small tale of everyday life set in England in the first half of the last century. It's not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, and I think most people open to a novel set in this time period will likely enjoy it. So why the disappointment? 

I think I can say it simply enough - it was too unfocused for my taste, and too long.

By unfocused I mean that it featured too many characters, four of which were point of view characters whose appearances were scattered throughout the story, so much so that I, as a reader, could not latch on to any one of them. In addition, there were tons of other minor characters. I sometimes laugh when my wife keeps a notebook handy to write down all the characters in a story, but I would've need to do that with this book, if I cared enough.

Along with all the characters there were also a dozen plots going on all at once, with no main one to carry me through the story. And well, they were somewhat predictable as well. For example, in any story set in 1914 England you know that many/most of the young male adults are a liable to be killed. That's a given on account of history, especially if there is any pretense of historical accuracy. The romance came as no surprise. 

Simonson did her research, and had lived in the area, so the setting and historical era seemed authentic, without the dreaded wikipedia info-drops, which was one of its good points. On the flip side, there was, at times, too many details, so much so that they had me skim reading because I wasn't interested in all the minute details. Plus, I knew there wasn't anything happening that I needed to know to follow the story. These, however, contributed to my feeling that the story ran too long, that along with that lack of a central plot and character to drive the story along. 

Despite the title, the story actually covers about a year, and takes the reader to the trenches of WWI, much like that other book I read - whose name name I don't remember or find the post in which I reviewed it. But no matter. I'll just say that it too ended up in the trenches. I was hoping for a story just set in that summer with war building and the lamps going out all over the world. Not so, and really, neither the looming threat of war or the war itself played a large part in the story - at least in the sense of atmosphere. Refugees arrive, and there is talk of war, and the boys go off for it, eventually, but I didn't find the sense of place and time that I was looking for. 

Another factor is that there are two basic types of novels set in the past. The first is novels of contemporary life that were written in the past - think of Molly Clavering, or D E Stevenson. The second is novels written by contemporary novelist set in the past. In general I then to prefer the former, as they usually strike me as more authentic. Contemporary novels, like this one, even when well researched and written, often either seek to educate us about the period in question and/or address contemporary issues by comparing them to the past. This book addressed the role of women in society, homosexuality, and discrimination. I find this looking back through the lens of our age, rather than from within the society of the time tends to draw me out of the time and place of the setting. 

As usual, I've gone on and on about the things that I feel like quibbling with, because they're the most fun talking about. But that does give the wrong impression. I enjoyed this book - it was very well written and (too) full of interesting characters and incidents. If you like this type of story, sagas, it will probably be your jam. It probably deserves a grade of B, but anytime I find myself skim reading parts of a book, I can't give it a B. You probably could.

Oh - the cover I used has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but then, neither did the alternative one.