I read this novel (in letters) last week and was absolutely delighted. I loved every word!
Did any of you read it too and with the same delight?
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
"nolite te bastardes carborundorum".
I'll try to do it without spoilers for potential reader.
I do like the genre, a novel in letters. When it is well done, it is a delight to read, if every "author" of the letters has a voice of his own, if the style and the perspective are different, if the letters sound differently - I think it is quite a challenge for a writer and in this novel it is well done.
The main character - Juliet Ashtone - one day in january 1946 receives a letter from an unkown man who has by chance inherited one of her books in which her adress was written. He thus decides to get in contact with her with different requests. He writes from Guernsey, which has been under German occupation between 1940 and 1945 and is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Juliet will then receive several letters from this man and other members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which mainly deal with life under the German occupation and the powerful help offered by reading - and good company to talk about the books. But that is not all...
I really liked that book because it is so alive. I also loved the fact that the authors manage to create not only one, but two positive female heroins, each being a model (Juliet and Elizabeth) and each introduced in a very different manner.
I also liked the story behind the book: the author Mary Ann Shaffer, born 1934, has been a story-teller all her life, as it seems. But it took her long years to actually write a novel - and when she finally did, she leanerd soon after that she was terminally ill and the editing work on the manuscript has been done with her niece, Annie Barrows. Both of her names appear on the cover. Mary Ann Shaffer died before her book came out, but knowing it would be published. She did not see it succeed in a spectucular way.
The book has its weaknesses: some terrible chlichés and a second part which is a lot weaker than the first, sometimes a bit "too much" - but it is all in all a real delight and although it is sentimental, it is not kitsch.
Finally, I also liked the portrait of the Germans, the vilains, the occupying force, but also humans, whom you could like, with whom you had to live, whom you could love...
I do like the genre, a novel in letters. When it is well done, it is a delight to read, if every "author" of the letters has a voice of his own, if the style and the perspective are different, if the letters sound differently - I think it is quite a challenge for a writer and in this novel it is well done.
The main character - Juliet Ashtone - one day in january 1946 receives a letter from an unkown man who has by chance inherited one of her books in which her adress was written. He thus decides to get in contact with her with different requests. He writes from Guernsey, which has been under German occupation between 1940 and 1945 and is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Juliet will then receive several letters from this man and other members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which mainly deal with life under the German occupation and the powerful help offered by reading - and good company to talk about the books. But that is not all...
I really liked that book because it is so alive. I also loved the fact that the authors manage to create not only one, but two positive female heroins, each being a model (Juliet and Elizabeth) and each introduced in a very different manner.
I also liked the story behind the book: the author Mary Ann Shaffer, born 1934, has been a story-teller all her life, as it seems. But it took her long years to actually write a novel - and when she finally did, she leanerd soon after that she was terminally ill and the editing work on the manuscript has been done with her niece, Annie Barrows. Both of her names appear on the cover. Mary Ann Shaffer died before her book came out, but knowing it would be published. She did not see it succeed in a spectucular way.
The book has its weaknesses: some terrible chlichés and a second part which is a lot weaker than the first, sometimes a bit "too much" - but it is all in all a real delight and although it is sentimental, it is not kitsch.
Finally, I also liked the portrait of the Germans, the vilains, the occupying force, but also humans, whom you could like, with whom you had to live, whom you could love...
"nolite te bastardes carborundorum".