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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Nature’s remedy: The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys

9/5/2015

10 Comments

 
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The war is barely a year old when James is shot down on his first bombing mission. Incarcerated in a POW camp, he vows to use his time productively. Instead of digging escape tunnels from which he’d inevitably be recaptured, James dedicates himself to a detailed study of a pair of redstarts nesting beyond the barbed wire. He records his observations in a notebook and in letters home to his wife. Yet the only person who really seems to understand his passion is the camp commandant.

Only six months married before James was summoned to fight for his country, Rose is bored by her husband’s letters, barely able to bring herself to open them, let alone reply. Alone in a tiny cottage on the tip of the Ashdown Forest not far from where she grew up, she spends her time roaming with her dog and patrolling as an ARP warden to safeguard the blackout. She’s wondered about her loneliness for some time: at first she thought it was missing James but now it seems an existential condition. And she’s found a way to soothe it in her secret meetings with Toby, on sick leave from the war.

Then James’s elder sister, Enid, is bombed out of her London flat and, with nowhere else to go, she foists herself upon Rose. With her own guilty secret, Enid isn’t the best of houseguests, while Rose is far from the perfect host. The women have more in common than they think, but their different loyalties to James prevents them becoming friends.


Published on the same day as A God in Ruins, it covers some similar ground in terms of the different ways in which war interrupts the characters’ lives and the upbeat letters home that fail to reassure. Yet James seems more damaged by his wartime experience and its consequences than Kate Atkinson’s protagonist, Teddy. Enid, visiting her brother five years after the end of the war, isn’t so different to Teddy’s daughter, Viola, a generation later, however (p202):

It’s so hard to get life right, she thinks, pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders. All the small balances are impossible to strike most of the time. And then there are the larger choices. It’s hopeless. She might as well be one of those gannets, tossed about by the gusts of wind the drive up from the Atlantic.

When given a glimpse of how the camp commandant has fared in the aftermath, I was also reminded of The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But The Evening Chorus differs from both in depicting love and loss in the Second World War in the context of the natural world, and it’s from there that the characters – and readers – can take some hope. A character here is speaking about the marsh gentian, but she might as well be voicing the message of the novel itself (p243):

it is rare and one would be lucky to find it, but the rarity makes it more desirable … even though you might not find it if you look, you should look all the same – because if you do find it, there is nothing more beautiful

Thanks to Serpent’s Tail for my advance proof copy. Another one for your TBR lists!

When Charli posted her latest flash fiction challenge to write a 99-word story on the theme of Spring, I thought this review would make the ideal partner. But that was two days ago, before my compatriots (not you, obviously) re-elected a government that cossets the wealthy and punishes the vulnerable (on the seventieth anniversary of VE Day, of all things). I commented on Charli’s post that I prefer the downbeat prompts, but I’d intended to write something against type. There’s lots to appreciate at this time of year: like James, I enjoy watching the birds (pairs of bullfinches, greenfinches, goldfinches, great tits and dunnocks making regular visits to the garden feeders); like his sister, Enid, I love wildflowers, though I lack the patience they had to make a detailed study.
But I’m too stricken by grief to put it into fiction. Instead, I can offer this longer short story that fits the theme: The Beach Where He Found It with apologies to those who’ve seen it before and this tongue-in-cheek reminder from The Producers that what feels like a new start to some is the death knell for others.

Thanks for your understanding.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
Norah Colvin link
10/5/2015 04:16:48 am

I think I would enjoy reading "The Evening Chorus", Anne. I like the way you described the story. I do enjoy novels that deal with relationships and this one sounds quite good. I like the way nature has been used to makes links with the characters and the plot. I also like the cover and the title. It has a "nice" feel to it.
I'm sorry your feelings aren't so pleasant at the moment, and disappointed for you that you weren't able to respond with fiction this week. However the good thing for me is that you linked to "The Beach Where He Found It" and I got to read your lovely story again. This one appealed to me when I first read it, and it still does. It is a lovely piece of writing and I feel a certain amount of hope for Rose now that springtime has come - renewal in her desolate life. (Why did I think Rose. I've have just looked back at the story to make sure I had the name correct and, as it is told in the first person, there is no name. I wonder what it is really.)

Reply
Annecdotist
11/5/2015 06:25:28 am

Thank you, Norah, I'm chuffed that you thought my short story was worth a second reading and touched that you wanted to name my narrator – after the flower or the character in this novel, I wonder?
Don't know if it makes any difference to your reading, but just to add something I didn't including my review was the author's note that some events in this novel were based on actual events, including a camp commandant who took a prisoner out to see some cedar waxwings in a nearby forest and that one of the most respected books on the redstart is written by a wartime birdwatcher (John Buxton).
As to the election, I didn't think I had any particular hopes until the results came in and I felt my disappointment!

Reply
Norah Colvin link
13/5/2015 05:54:19 am

Duh! I didn't think to look back at the name of the character in the story reviewed!
Interesting to know about the factual basis of some events.
Funny how we don't know what we want until it's gone. I guess the results were a surprise to many.

Annecdotist
15/5/2015 10:36:28 am

It was more that I never envisaged a clear majority was a possibility, as all the polls were pointing towards a coalition. I'd have definitely known I didn't want THIS!!

geoff link
10/5/2015 02:33:18 pm

Your reviews make me want to fictionalise my parents wartime experiences as revealed by my dad's letters. I thought about it briefly a while back but these recent books have recharged the notion. I wonder... As for the election...

Reply
Annecdotist
11/5/2015 06:28:25 am

I think your parents' story would make a lovely novel, Geoff, as long as you could have enough distance from them as your parents, if you know what I mean. And immersing yourself in the post-war years would also be a great antidote to the present as the welfare state – which is part of what the ordinary soldiers fought for – is dismantled brick by brick.

Reply
Charli Mills
11/5/2015 04:12:39 pm

There's something both holy and wholesome in bird-watching, and I can imagine soldiers finding some sort of normalcy and meaning in the act during wartime. This book certainly captivates me in its pairing of war and nests, yet also seems to have interesting twists and characters.

Lately, I've not felt hopeful regarding elections. I've been working on Rock Creek and had the depressing thought that American pioneers were used to do the dirty work of settling the west and once it was secured, "economic difficulties" then took the land away from homesteaders and gave it to the wealthy; a pattern that continues. My daughter gifted me with two beautiful nature magazines with strong literary overtones (with the encouragement to submit essays) and I read a piece on how all land ownership is theft. I'm going far afield in my thinking here, but feeling a foreshadowing of results from our country's November elections. Already the campaign money swirls like spent spring blossoms around candidates who favor the special interests of those who have much more than most.

I wish you a healing time for your grieving and perhaps some bird-watching and writing to sort out some purpose. I'm not so good at identifying wild flowers, but enjoy the challenge of learning.

I've read this story of your before and found it masterful, haunting and beautiful. Where their is yet life; yet life does not continue for all.

Reply
Annecdotist
12/5/2015 09:53:20 am

Thanks, Charli, for these beautiful and validating words. I hadn't thought fully about the significance of the birds' nest building in this novel until I read your comment, but of course the POWs would have been especially enthralled by the birds freedom to build their own home. I love how these comments make me think further about what I've read.
I didn't think I had any hopes for this election, but we were all expecting a coalition, so I suppose I had hoped not to get the result we did. And the US election always impacts on us over here – sometimes feel we ought to have a vote as well – and I dread to think where we'll be if we have something like a repeat of the Thatcher-Reagan years.

Reply
Charli Mills
13/5/2015 01:12:17 am

The Thatcher-Reagan years should never be repeated. I saw a general election sign from England that read "Vote Kermit (with a photo of Kermit the Frog). No matter who wins we get a muppet." I'd post something like in my yard!

Annecdotist
15/5/2015 10:38:26 am

That's right, we have no real left-wing parties with any clout here, apart from in Scotland, but that's no use for us south of the border. Watching your election pantomime with renewed interest.


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