A few weeks ago I asked you to nominate the book that had most impressed or inspired you. Three of you came up with a wide-ranging, well argued for, choices. I offered a book token for the most interesting submission. I find that I may now have to cut it into three pieces. Look carefully in your Christmas stockings!
Georgie – Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker
I had to think hard on this one as there have been so many books that have stayed with me after reading them, the Chinese princess, kite runner, noughts and crosses… one of the most impactful was birdsong but thought that would be cheating! So on the same theme of world war books, the book (stretching it slightly as it’s a trilogy) is the Pat Barker regeneration trilogy.
The novel explores the experience of soldiers being treated for shell shock, a number of whom will be known to most as famous poets – Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen. Like birdsong, it can be harrowing at points when Barker describes experiences of the battlefield and the toll it has taken on these men.
On reading the trilogy, you’re reminded of just how tragic a situation these men found themselves in and how lucky we are to not face a similar situation ourselves. Throughout the books, Barker explores the human psychology and process of rebuilding after trauma. You become invested in the characters and hope they make a recovery however that often means returning to the front…
Like the trilogy, Owens poem Dulce et decorum est has stuck with me since school and on reading the books, has even greater impact…
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
One of those that reviewed the book states that it is ‘a book that balances conscience and the vitality of change against a collapsing world’ and in many ways it can apply to some of the conflicts and tragedy’s since where we have not learnt the lessons so plainly depicted in these books, that sometimes we ask so much of human beings for some imperative cause, not realising the toll. I think this is why it was so impactful and important to read.
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Lucy – The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
‘When asked to write a short account on a book that made me think I dreaded it.
For me reading is something I rarely feel I have time to do. It’s all or nothing. I mainly read on holiday and then I bash out 5/6 in a week.
There have been a few books that have stayed with me. The first Harry Potter book was a major one. It was nothing i had ever read or imagined before. I must of been 9? I was blown away!
However there is one particular book that has has stuck with me and I think of often. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. The book is based on the 5 Lisbon Sisters who experience a tragedy that will forever change them
And set the wheels in motion for the lives. It is narrated by the neighbourhood boys who loved them but never really knew them. Desperate to understand them . I don’t want to give to much Away in case people want to read it.
The book is incredibly beautiful and When I was 16 it was very impressionable. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone and made me feel normal with normal teenage thoughts and feelings.
The book made me long to help them; laugh with them and just want to sit in the summer haze And listen to music with them.
I think about this book regularly and will forever be marked on my owns scars.
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Jeanette – The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
This is a story based on a Russian fairy tale. Brief outline – an older couple move to Alaska. They are childless, having suffered the misery of losing a child. The husband works hard to get the farm they have moved to in a state that will sustain them whilst his wife suffers terrible loneliness – a hard life for both. There is a great distance between them in their relationship and yet they are supportive of each other. One day they build a snow child only to discover the next day that the child has disappeared and they see footsteps leading in to the forest. They then start to see a young girl flitting through the trees accompanied by a red fox. The story then enfolds from there – no spoilers as to what happens.
This book is so beautifully written, is very descriptive so much so that you can imagine being there – the harshness of the landscape as well as the beauty. It is sensitive, as well as both sad and yet hopeful. I didn’t want it to end and it is one of the few books that I will read again and again. I would urge everyone to give this charming book a read.
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