My Dear i wanted to tell you

[susan kitchen]

New book out at the moment called My Dear i wanted to tell you. By Louisa Young. It's fiction and the title is taken from standard issue field postcard that soldiers had to fill in during the war. The tatler states it's Birdsong for the new millenium. The Times rates it as good as David Nicholls One Day. I've not read that so i can't give an opinion. The mail on Sunday put's Young up with Pat Barker and Sebastian Faulks.

I'm reading it at the moment and i think i like it better than Birdsong. It starts just before 1914 and goes through to the 1918. Very moving.

[David Filsell]

Sadly, "I saw things different".

My knowledge of ‘chick lit’ is mercifully limited, yet, essentially, Louisa Young’s My Dear I Wanted to tell you, seems to me to fall within this category; lightweight, fluffy and initially alluring. But, if like me, you view Warhorse as a boy meets horse, boy looses horse, boy finds horse melodrama, then this is the poor boy meets posh girl, then there’s a war and people get seriously hurt, equivalent.

Inevitably I suppose, though classes apart, a couple fall in love. He volunteers in August and is, amazingly, in Belgium by October. A natural leader of men (if not one of us, her mother thinks) he is, inevitably, commissioned from the ranks. She, thwarted by a love that actually has a name, becomes, yes, a VAD. Only in the last section when our hero suffers a jaw loosing wound, and the author ascribed genuinely jaw dropping consequences, are they (or are they not) re-united?

Despite stereotypical characters, the author has clearly undertaken considerable research on the surgery of the period and her writing is skilled and frequently polished. Yet, and yet dear reader, I feel forced to write, this seems far more a Mills and Boone than Mills and Bomb evocation of the Great War. It is also, apparently the forerunner of a projected series about its protagonists. Not least its attractions are diminished for me a dire “Readers Group Guide” at the story’s end for those wishing to relive novelised experience. Not me. I shall turn up late just to enjoy the wine and canapés which follow the discussion.

Just my opinion of course

David

[susan kitchen]

Books are very subjective. But i see your point David. I would never read Mills and Boon. How ever there is no harm in going for a lighter read for a change instead of reading books like 1915 the Death of Innocence or they called it Passchendaele. Not to mention the harrowing stories revealed in some of the books containing diary extracts etc. and personal accounts. And let's face it even Birdsong had a love story attached to it. He lusting after someone he shouldn't have and she lusting after him etc.

For all your dispargement of the book seem's like you read to the end.

S

[tipperary]

My Dear i wanted to tell you. What Field postcard had these words as a choice? john

[rose of picardy]

Susan, I read a novel about WWI-"The Flowers of the Field" by Sarah Harrison- many years ago that I found very moving. I bought a copy for myself a few years ago. It was pelted with eggs by some here! I agree with you about variability of taste and opinion. Please enjoy your book and report your opinion to us! I have heard of it and was hoping it would turn up in a discount bookstore I frequent.

[susan kitchen]

I loved The Flowers of the Field. It was a favourite of mine for a long time. I think men find it difficult to appreciate anything about the War if there is sentimentality attached to it. But like i've pointed out there was a love story attached to Birdsong. I'm certainly not saying that i agree with the newspaper's when they say Louisa Young is up there with Sebastian Faulks and Pat Barker. Actually i don't think she is. But with one character in the book she is trying to show how difficult it was when a husband is on leave and she has to deal with his coldness and being a loof. Her lack of understanding or even trying to understand. And how this soldier has to cope with his silly shallow wife when all the time there are so many awful images flashing through his mind.

I suppose i'm a bit of a peasant really i'll read anything about WW1. Even if it's a fact on a cornflake packet. However i'm told by a friend of mine who works in a Bookshop that this book is flying off the shelves.

[susan kitchen]

My Dear i wanted to tell you. What Field postcard had these words as a choice? john

Wel apart from a statement in the notes part of the book, i'm sure i'v read quite a few times about cards that just had a few words i.e to say they were in Hospital etc to let people at home know what had happened to them until soldiers could send .

[Sue Light]

I read this early last year when it first appeared in hardback, and really enjoyed it. I was a bit irritated with the Downton-like errors in hospital detail, and it worried me that the'hero' of the book was commissioned from the ranks into the same battalion, but of its type I thought it was a really good read. I also love reading what others would regard as rubbish - I spend enough time involved in the serious side of war, and think there's a large place in my life for 'non-worthy' reading. I'm sure it has more appeal for women, but anything that can spark an interest in war where there was none before can't be a bad thing. And as mentioned below - it's definitely flying off the shelves.

Sue

[David Filsell]

I very much enjoyed Flowers of the Field.

Yes a reviewer's opinions are arbitrary, and yes they are only his/hers alone.

But it is interesting that another member of the forum has commented on medical innacuracies, another on field post card errors, another on a commission into the bn in which a man served as an or.

I firmly believe that it a given that any successful novel needs strong narrative drive, a believable plot, characters and a sound knowledge of period and place. On that scale thuis scores 2 out of 5.

Yes I finished it - because I was asked to review it. Otherwise .....

Historical novels, mysteries, even romances, if good, stand firmly and convincingly in period.

In addition a modern novel about the Great War has one greater hurdle to overcome; the work of those who participated in the conflict; the giants of Great War authorship, who have left such an illuminating body of novels and fictionalised ‘life writing’.

By these standards - again my own - the book falls at an early hurdle for anoyone with an interest in and some basic knowledge of the Great War and the period. That said this author is not alone

David

[tipperary]

Hi Susan my point was that soldiers were not allowed to write on the field service card other than their name + address of destination.There was a sereis of choices to be ticked or crossed out and i dont remember the book title as being one of them, pedantic i know but i still hope you enjoy the read.john

[susan kitchen]

Sorry my fault . I didn't mean to suggest that the book title was on the card . I meant that in the soldiers head it was My Dear i Wanted to Tell you, then he marked what was the right thing for him.

S

[susan kitchen]

I read this early last year when it first appeared in hardback, and really enjoyed it. I was a bit irritated with the Downton-like errors in hospital detail, and it worried me that the'hero' of the book was commissioned from the ranks into the same battalion, but of its type I thought it was a really good read. I also love reading what others would regard as rubbish - I spend enough time involved in the serious side of war, and think there's a large place in my life for 'non-worthy' reading. I'm sure it has more appeal for women, but anything that can spark an interest in war where there was none before can't be a bad thing. And as mentioned below - it's definitely flying off the shelves.

Sue

I did notice the errors. However i thought that the endeavour to get into the mind of the Hero was good. Let's face it unless you were there how can you possibly know. As for non-worthy reading as i said in my earlier post ,there is a need to have a break from the serious books and let your mind have a holiday. This reminds me of when i used to work in Book shop. A lady used come in regularly and buy novels. Every month she would buy a classic, Dickens, Austen etc In due course i was recommending one's to her i had read. Eventually she told me that she had never finished any of the classic's she had bought. I asked her, as she didn't enjoy the books why did she keep buying them. Her answer was she thought she should have to read them, because they would be better thought of than the one's she usually bought. That's sad.

S

[E Wilcock]

I postponed reading this book until I was in bed with flu. The title, it seems, was taken from a postcard found by the author in the archive of the hospital on which the hospital in Sidcup in the book is based. The author researched the facial repairs and plastic surgery developed there in order to write a previous book on her grandmother who nursed there. The author also drew on other family history of service in World War 1.

Since I too inherited an archive of war letters and mementos from two casualties: my TA Artillery Officer grandfather who served in the same Hebuterne area and died the same year as the author's fiance's great grandfather, but also my uncle who signed up as an Oxford Undergraduate and was commissioned in the King's Own Liverpool. I admire the use Lousia Young has made in constructing her fiction from diverse material and information from within her own family.

This may indeed be a romance for women readers. I wept. But it also deals with the unwritten history of women: how our grandmothers were educated and what decisions they had to take when left unsupported by men. I guess few of us on the Forum have paused to consider how far our own parents and subsequently ourselves were affected by the family deaths or mutilation in World War 1. Since I was growing up in World War 2, that question never crossed my mind.

The class question is also challenging. There was enormous discrepancy and juxtaposition of class and rank both in the UK and within the army at that time. In 1914 some of the officers came from homes of considerable opulence, served by domestic staff who might volunteer with their masters. Promotion came quicker to some sorts than to others - and it is good to have these issues aired.

Of course, a novel reconstructs reality - one may notice oddities, and postings that are historically unlikely. However, the construction of fiction demands alterations and the oddities probably arise from an attempt to incorporate all the family information which the author has inherited. She transferred characters from artillery to infantry. Twelve years ago I would not have realised this might not be a happy idea. But my current detailed knowledge of an artillery Brigade and daily life in Hebuterne does not invalidate the different source material on which she draws. Having delved through family memoirs and archives myself, I read this novel with the pleasure of recognition.

[Michelle Young]

I just spent £1 on this book. Not sure if I would have purchased it at full price. Anyway I will give it a go. I haven't managed to even pick up Wounded which my cousin loaned me.

Michelle

[Martin Bennitt]

I see this is in the American Library in Paris which I frequent, so I will at least thumb through it. I confess to having a copy of The Flowers of the Field, which I think I picked up for nothing. Older books in this vein which I enjoyed were John Masters' trilogy of Now God Be Thanked, Heart of War, and In The Green Of The Spring, and Philip Rock's The Passing Bells. But I steer clear of Anne Perry.

Cheers Martin B

[paulgranger]

Coincidentally, I found 'The Passing Bells', which I read when it was first published, as a Kindle download today. I didn't know it was the first of a trilogy.

[Old Owl]

"---it worried me that the'hero' of the book was commissioned from the ranks into the same battalion--"

Sue

Hi Sue,

Not the norm admittedly, but this did happen on occasion. An example:

William George Lane joined the Worcestershire Hussars Yeomanry on September 3rd,1914. He sailed with his regiment for Egypt in April,1915, and was sent to Gallipoli, whence after some weeks of active service he was invalided to Lemnos, and so to Alexandria. After a period of garrison duty in Egypt he took part in the battle of Katia on Easter Sunday,1916, when only 70 out of 350 of the Worcestershire Yeomanry got back, Will Lane being amongst that number. Later he was fighting at El Arish and Gaza, and rose to be a sergeant in his regiment. He received his commission just before the fighting in which he was fatally wounded. Lt.Col.H.J.Williams wrote to his parents as follows:

"I had asked for your son to be posted as an officer to my regiment--owing to what I had seen of his worth as an NCO. He had only been posted as a 2nd Lieutenant a week when he was severely wounded, and a few days afterwards he died in hospital. He was shot in the head whilst we were repulsing a Turkish counter attack on a position at Ras El Nagbab out 12 miles N.E. of Beersheba. His courageous handling of his troop was of the utmost value in successfully repelling the attack, for he was holding a forward and vital position. The whole regiment mourns his loss, for he was held in the greatest respect both as an NCO and during his brief career as an officer."

One of his comrades also wrote of the gloom into which all were plunged by the death of one who had been with the regiment from the first. He died at the 45th Stationary Hospital on November 7th,1917, and was buried at Masaid Military Cemetery, Egypt. He had seen two and a half years service without obtaining any home leave.

Thus he had served through and through with the 1st/1st Worcestershire Hussars Yeomanry.

Robert

Extracted in part from: Wycliffe and the War.

[Sue Light]

Yes, like everything you can never say never. Nowadays it does seem to be a particularly popular scenario for fiction writers, as having someone with a known history in the battalion does give lots of scope for back stories and plot lines, and certainly not unacceptable.

Sue