Author: whatcathyreadnext

#BookReview So Much Life Left Over by Louis De Bernières

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So Much Life Left OverAbout the Book

A sweeping, heartbreaking novel following Daniel in his troubled marriage with Rosie as they navigate the unsettled time between the World Wars.

Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage.

Back in England, Rosie’s three sisters are dealing with different challenges in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Germany he witnesses events taking a dark and forbidding turn.

By turns humorous and tragic, gripping and touching, So Much Life Left Over follows a cast of unique and captivating characters as they navigate the extraordinary inter-war years both in England and abroad.

Format: Hardcover (288 pages)  Publisher: Harvill Secker
Publication date: 5th July 2018  Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

When I picked up this book, I didn’t realise it was the second book in a planned trilogy that started with The Dust That Falls From Dreams. Although it works perfectly well as a standalone, the book description makes me feel I would have enjoyed following the characters through the events of the earlier book first.

In So Much Life Left Over all the characters find themselves dissatisfied to a certain extent with what their lives have become. They are looking for direction, fulfilment, a challenge, a chance to contribute or pondering the ‘road not taken’. For example, Rosie’s sister, Sophie, is looking for something to replace the feeling of being valued she got from her war work. Her other sister, Christabel, is realising some opportunities only come along once in a lifetime. As she observes, ‘When I’m on my deathbed, I don’t want to be lying there thinking about all the things I never did.’

For some, like Daniel, the simple fact they have survived the war is unexpected leaving them, to quote the book’s title, with so much life left over. Their war experiences also make the boring, unimportant details of everyday life difficult to bear. ‘There is a kind of man who, having been at war, finds peacetime intolerable, because he cannot develop the civilian’s talent for becoming obsessed with irrelevant details and procedure. He hates the delays and haverings, the tedious diplomacy, the terrible lack of energy and discipline, and, above all, he hates the feeling that what he is doing is not important.’ As the humorously named Oily Wragge remarks, ‘War makes everything simple. There’s a tunnel in front of you and you put your head down, and you struggle forward for the light at the end of it one bloody impossible step at a time, and that frees you up somehow…’

Although I enjoyed the book, I wasn’t sure about the number of different points of view and the occasional switches between first and third person. Some of the narrators introduced felt as if they were there purely for the author to show off his (considerable) skill in creating distinct voices. Having said that, there were some great touches of humour and some memorable characters such as Mrs McCash who opines on subjects as diverse as when it’s appropriate to use the second best teapot and individuals who (horror!) conclude a sentence with a preposition and start a sentence with a conjunction. And you may chuckle like me at her response to the surprise contained in Mr McCash’s will, namely that he was ‘always a man for two birds with one stone’.

So Much Life Left Over is a beautifully told story of love and loss that certainly left me eager to find out what happens next. The final book in the trilogy, The Autumn of the Ace, is due to be published in November 2020.

In three words: Moving, intimate, assured

Try something similar: The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie

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IMG_6488printAbout the Author

Louis de Bernières is the bestselling author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are The Dust That Falls From Dreams, Birds Without Wings and A Partisan’s Daughter, a collection of stories, Notwithstanding, and two collections of poetry, Imagining Alexandria and Of Love and Desire. (Photo credit: author website)

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Yet More Tales From My TBR Pile

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bookshelf
Today I’m once again directing the spotlight on a particular section of my To Be Read Pile – review copies I’ve received from authors. I’m currently closed to review requests but, before I pulled up the drawbridge so to speak, I’d already amassed quite a few books sent to me for review by authors.

I’ll confess I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked and some of the books have been languishing there for quite some time. Therefore, in highlighting a few of the books in my author review pile, I’m hoping to assuage my guilt at the length of time they’ve been there, reassure their lovely authors that I haven’t forgotten my promise to read and review them, and perhaps tempt other readers into adding them to their own TBR piles.

The Artist and the SoldierThe Artist and the Soldier by Angelle Petta

Two young men come of age and fall in love against the backdrop of true events in World War II.

It’s 1938. Bastian Fisher and Max Amsel meet at a Nazi-American summer camp, Siegfried. Neither boy has any idea what to do with their blooming, confusing feelings for one another. Before they can begin to understand, the pair is yanked back into reality and forced in opposite directions.

Five years later, during the heart of World War II, Bastian’s American army platoon has landed in Salerno, Italy. Max is in Nazi-occupied Rome where he has negotiated a plan to hire Jews as ‘extras’ in a movie—an elaborate ruse to escape the Nazis. Brought together by circumstance and war Bastian and Max find one another again in Rome.

Exploring the true stories of Camp Siegfried, a Nazi-American summer camp in New York and the making of the film, La Porta del Cielo, which saved hundreds of lives, The Artist and the Soldier is intense, fast moving, and sheds light on largely untouched stories in American and Italian history.

DiscontentsDiscontents: The Disappearance of a Young Radical by James Wallace Birch

Fame as a social activist and graffiti artist brings Emory, a jobless millennial, the wrong kind of attention. He’s wanted by the police. And he’s tricked his beautiful but emotionally-fragile girlfriend, Carolyn, into thinking he’s just a normal guy.

When Emory meets Fletcher, a rich baby boomer, he and Fletcher embark on a plan to cause mayhem. But soon, Emory suspects someone is trying to destroy him, Fletcher, and their plan. Unsure of who to trust, can Emory betray his ideals to save himself? And can he pull it off while keeping Carolyn in the dark?

Artist Soldier Lover MuseArtist, Soldier, Lover, Muse by Arthur D. Hittner

Freshly graduated from Yale in 1935, Henry J. Kapler parlays his talent, determination, and creative energy into a burgeoning art career in New York under the wing of artists such as Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh. The young artist first gains notoriety when his depiction of a symbolic, interracial handshake between ballplayers is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

Yet even as his art star rises, his personal life turns precarious–and perilous–when his love for Fiona, a young WPA muralist, collides with his growing attraction to the exquisitely beautiful Alice, an ex-chorus girl who becomes his model and muse. Alice is the girlfriend of Fiona’s cousin, Jake Powell, the hotheaded, hard-drinking outfielder for the New York Yankees whose jealousy explodes into abuse and rage, endangering the lives of all three.

While Henry wrestles with his complicated love life, he also struggles mightily to reconcile his pacifism with the rabid patriotism of his Jewish-Russian emigre father. As war draws near, Henry faces two difficult choices, one of which could cost him his life.