Alice: Stuck in a Time Warp, or Transcendant?

A Town Like Alice is a classic, well-received when it was published in 1950. Neville Shute created a one-of-a-kind novel that spanned decades and continents.

Which it did — just not as I had expected. It is a product of its time, and while parts of it transcend time, others are stuck firmly in it.

A Town Like Alice begins in the early years of the twentieth century. The elderly Scotsman Mr. Mcfadden asks his solicitor to help him execute his last will and testament to give his money and possessions to his only living relatives upon his death: first, to his married sister; then, if she pre-deceases him, his nephew upon his majority at 21 — and, if fate is unkind, his niece, whose legacy will be tended by the solicitors until she turns 35 (because young, unmarried women cannot manage that much money without protection from a solicitor or a husband).

Noel, the solicitor, thinks nothing of it again until after World War II, upon the death of the client. Noel must locate his next-of-kin — who, due to age and the global war, it turns out to be Jean Paget, his niece (and last in line for the uncle's fortune). The legacy is enough to allow her to live comfortably without working at a job, which Jean appreciates.

Her first decision: build a well in a small Malayan town.

She and her family had lived in Malaya for most of Jean's formative years and all had become fluent in the native language and culture. Jean and her brother had returned to Malaya before the war, and neither were unscarred when the Japanese invaded and occupied the island. Jean was among a group of British women who were taken prisoner by the Japanese and forced to walk to their camp — which never materialized, so they walked between prison camps all over the country for more than a year. During this time, Jean met an Australian prisoner who risked everything to take care of her and her kinswomen (and the children who walked with them). When the Australian is caught in his thievery, Jean's last image of him haunts her for years, and makes her reluctant to speak of her experiences as a prisoner. However, she and her fellow prisoners soon found a home: a small village where they farmed until the war was over and they were released.  It was in this village Jean intended to build the well.

Upon returning to the village, she discovers one can go home again — especially if it's the home of the heart. The East calls her, and she follows that call.

The book has three sections: during the War, after the War, and what happens after Jean constructs "a gift by women, for women."

Frankly, the book seemed tedious in some places. Shute was an aeronautical engineer who is in love with detail, and every detail is affectionately reviewed in minutiae. I can only handle Jean "filing away information" for future use a few times before I wish to remind the author that her noticing it is enough for readers to get the hint that it's an important detail.  It's worth it in the end, but it's not always easy to remember that.

Secondly, the book is a product of its time. The racial slurs are used casually and the sexism is blatant. Jean's brother would have received unfettered control of the principle by the time he was 21, but Jean has to wait until she's 35 because she's a woman? Please. The fact that the women POWs were able to come up with a solution where the men could not is understated, and the irony that a woman who can affect that much change and still not be in charge of her own legacy is absurd. Also understated is the fact that the most "developed" towns are the ones that kill more women than the less-developed and spoiled. The references to the primitive nature of the native dwellers was insulting. Don't even start me on the racism of the Australian Outback of the 1940s (which continues to this day), even if it's expressed a little differently than looking into their seamed, dark skin and making sure they have their own ice cream parlor.

You know, maybe the "understated" parts of the story just didn't warrant the same attention for the author as the "better" stuff. He highlighted the things he knew or that fascinated him, so I will have to guess that smart women and indigenous people didn't.

In the end, it was a fantastic snapshot of life in the early part of the last century. I was surprised that the afterward noted  the storyline of the English women marching around Malaya was fiction — because it was Dutch women in Sumatra who suffered that terrible fate, and the author took the story from a woman who survived it. The language and characters seemed authentic and the story was rather empowering for women, in the end, I think. Plus, the character of Noel was sweet and charming in his own way.

Speaking of characters: if Jean started one more successful business, I was going to choke her. But I liked her: very innovative and brave. Then again, if you lived through a POW camp in Asia, I bet starting your own shoe production company in the middle of the Australian Outback would be easy. And Joe: my heart just broke when he went to England looking for Jean and she wasn't there. Apparently Bryan Brown played him in a 1981 TV adaptation of the book, and I can see that.


I recommend the book, if you can see past its flaws. If you can't, stop reading immediately because they will continue to be insurmountable.

What did you think: outdated or a reminder of the strength of the human spirit?

On Veterans Day, A Look at War in Fiction

Fiction is ripe with conflict and war, and I've read a few volumes that can attest to that on this Veterans Day.

Ian McEwan's controversial, excellent novel Atonement captures the before and after of war, of tragedy, of irrevocable words.  Briony is a blossoming writer on the cusp of womanhood in the years before England joined World War II.  One stifling summer day, she witnesses private scenes misinterpreted through her youthful filter and comes to a disastrous conclusion.  We see the war through the eyes of a foot soldier on the way to Dunkirk through the French countryside and through the eyes of a student nurse in a London hospital.  It's been named "the book most likely to be thrown across the room," so be prepared.

In Blackout and All Clear, Connie Willis shows the heroes of WWII were not just the ones on the front.  In this two-part novel, Professor Dunworthy sends his Oxford historians to Pearl Harbor, Singapore, Dunkirk and London to confirm the information recorded about the war.  Michael is sent back specifically to witness and record heroism on the battlefront.  Polly lives in London and works as a shopgirl.  Charles is a Navy officer practicing golf and etiquette in the months before the invasion by Japan. Eileen is the caretaker of children sent to the English countryside during the early years of England's involvement in the war.

However, when three of them are thrown together by chance and necessity, they discover the very act of leaving the Tube station after a bombing required a heroism one does not consider under normal circumstances.

To top it all off, there's something going on with time travel that has Mr. Dunworthy rescheduling drops and consulting with a time travel scientist who sees a pattern in the escalating slippage.

For those who like classic literature, consider The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  The Pevensie children are sent to the countryside to live with a stranger, the practice at the time, when they encounter the wardrobe that sends them to Narnia.  There, also, is a war, and good has been dormant until the heroes come along.  Who would think four young children could make such a difference?  Aslan, that's who — one of my favorite characters of literature.  I gobbled up the entire series, holed up in my bedroom one glorious week.

David wasn't as lucky as the Pevensie children in the modern tale, The Book of Lost Things.  He wound up in the country during WWII, but it was with his father, his new sibling and his new stepmother.  He heard books "talking" to him, and through them he discovered a breach between his world and a fantastical world.  He took the leap and discovered that tales must originate from somewhere — and sometimes, that "somewhere" is as much nightmare as dream.

John Connolly mixes tragedy and humor, fairy tales and reality, a child's worst nightmares and his greatest dreams in this book that is not for the faint of heart.  In the end, we discover that things don't change all that much: children always want to be loved, and the gray area between adulthood and childhood should be trod with care.

What books have you read regarding war that have made an impression on you, and why?