We might be marking the centenary of start of the First World War this year, but here on Annecdotal there’s been an unexpected focus on the Second. From Louise Walters’s Polish pilots and land girls to Elizabeth Buchan’s code breakers and Danish resistance workers, from Audrey Magee’s Nazi marriage of convenience to Richard Flanagan’s Japanese prisoners of war, and forward in time to Peter Matthiessen’s Holocaust Memorial, we’ve viewed it from a range of angles but hadn’t, until now, considered the dynamics of the occupying powers overseeing the de-nazification process of a defeated Germany in the years immediately following the war. Step forward Rhidian Brook and his cast of characters strutting the rubble-strewn stage of a bombed-out Hamburg in 1946: Colonel Lewis Morgan, trying to bring compassion to the reconstruction of the city of shattered buildings and broken spirits; his grieving wife, Rachael, with mixed feelings about being reunited with her husband, blaming him for the death of their eldest son; Edmund, their eleven-year-old, whose pre-programmed prejudices cannot withstand his adventurous spirit; and the widower, Herr Lubert, and his teenage daughter, Frieda, whose palatial home they come to share. Add in Ozi, leader of the bunch of feral kids begging cigarettes from the soldiers to swap for bread or other items on the black market of use to the post-war German resistance, and we’re set for powerful drama on both a human and global scale.
If, like me, you’re sceptical about British officers bringing their families to live alongside them in such a destitute city, then rest assured that the set-up was based on the author’s grandfather’s experience. The six-page fragebogen that features strongly in the novel was indeed used throughout the country in an attempt to identify and disempower former Nazis and their associates. What struck me most were the extent of the city’s desolation and the complexity of the Allies’ task in bringing about an entire country’s rehabilitation, and how ill-equipped the military were to carry it out, given the understandable resentments and conflicting priorities, especially with the Cold War on the horizon. In an attempt to play fair, it looks as if the British applied the type of bureaucracy and hierarchy that had characterised their colonisation of other countries generations before.
My only slight criticism of this novel applies to the cover of the paperback version I read: although the woman in the picture is lovely, she doesn’t suggest the political shenanigans which was the main pleasure for me. Also, although the novel was not especially short and the ending was satisfying, I would have liked it to have been longer simply to give me more time to get my head round an aftermath I feel I ought to know more about.
My only slight criticism of this novel applies to the cover of the paperback version I read: although the woman in the picture is lovely, she doesn’t suggest the political shenanigans which was the main pleasure for me. Also, although the novel was not especially short and the ending was satisfying, I would have liked it to have been longer simply to give me more time to get my head round an aftermath I feel I ought to know more about.
Thanks to Penguin books for my review copy. If you’re interested in this period of history and/or how human factors impinge on how the world is run, this might be one for you. Alternatively, you might find something to suit you among the seven other novels I’ve reviewed this month.
The anomaly of the British and German family sharing a home in post-war Hamburg leads me into Charli Mills’ latest flash fiction challenge: to write a 99-word story using two objects, people or ideas that don’t go together. Rather than focusing on the complexities of cross-cultural relationships, I thought I’d build my flash around two objects from the novel. I was very tempted by the suitcase Ozi drags around with him, but I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise for potential readers of discovering what’s inside. Instead, I’ve borrowed cigarettes and questionnaires, linked it with my non-NaNo WIP on the subject of psychiatric hospital closure (delighted to say I’ve passed my 30,000 word target, with a few hours of November still to go) and, because it’s very loosely based on my real-life experience, almost qualified for Lisa Reiter’s current Bite-Sized Memoir prompt on interviews. Not sure how much sense it will make out of context, but here goes:
The anomaly of the British and German family sharing a home in post-war Hamburg leads me into Charli Mills’ latest flash fiction challenge: to write a 99-word story using two objects, people or ideas that don’t go together. Rather than focusing on the complexities of cross-cultural relationships, I thought I’d build my flash around two objects from the novel. I was very tempted by the suitcase Ozi drags around with him, but I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise for potential readers of discovering what’s inside. Instead, I’ve borrowed cigarettes and questionnaires, linked it with my non-NaNo WIP on the subject of psychiatric hospital closure (delighted to say I’ve passed my 30,000 word target, with a few hours of November still to go) and, because it’s very loosely based on my real-life experience, almost qualified for Lisa Reiter’s current Bite-Sized Memoir prompt on interviews. Not sure how much sense it will make out of context, but here goes:
“Does your home have more rooms than people?”
Matty stared as if I were the crazy one.
I ticked the “no” box and moved on. “Can you make a meal any time you choose?”
Matty frowned. “May I see?”
I passed the questionnaire across. How to explain our duty, not only to ensure a better quality of life in the community, but to prove it?
Matty dragged on her cigarette. She raised a corner of the printed sheet to meet the glowing tip.
I would’ve scored that as another “no”, had she not reduced the questionnaire to black powder.
Matty stared as if I were the crazy one.
I ticked the “no” box and moved on. “Can you make a meal any time you choose?”
Matty frowned. “May I see?”
I passed the questionnaire across. How to explain our duty, not only to ensure a better quality of life in the community, but to prove it?
Matty dragged on her cigarette. She raised a corner of the printed sheet to meet the glowing tip.
I would’ve scored that as another “no”, had she not reduced the questionnaire to black powder.
RSS Feed
