Showing posts with label Nevil Shute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nevil Shute. Show all posts

Friday, May 12, 2017

The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute (Pan, 1968)

Found at a Lifeline Bookfair, bundled with some other books by the same author:


THE CHEQUER BOARD

'One of them was a Negro from America,' Turner said.  'The last one to go out... Dave Lesurier, his name was... Then there was Duggie Brent - he was a corporal in the paratroops.  And then there was the pilot of the aeroplane... Flying Officer Morgan.  We was all in a mess one way or another, excepting him, and yet in some ways he was in a worse mess than the lot of us.' 

THE CHEQUER BOARD

Brilliantly interweaving the chequered fates of four men brought together by one violent moment in war, this unforgettable story matches A TOWN LIKE ALICE with its heart-stirring romance, its rich humanity and compelling drama.
World War II was a major influence on Nevil Shute's writing--all his best known novels involve the war in one way or another.  However, he wasn't a writer of straight combat stories.  No, Shute's fiction is mostly about the civilians caught up in the war, and the human effects on the men who have to fight it.

And that brings me to The Chequer Board, which deals with four men in wartime.  Three are in trouble with the law--and the fourth is just in trouble.   The book tells the story of how they got into trouble and what happened to them afterwards (spoiler alert--it ends happily for most of them!)  Of the four stories I enjoyed the one about Dave Lesurier--the 'negro from America'--most, and the culture clash between a small Cornish village and the US Army base that has been planted upon it.

The Chequer Board was first pubished in Great Britain in 1947.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

What Happened to the Corbetts by Nevil Shute (Pan, 1970)


When war came to Southampton, no one expected it to be like this - least of all the Corbetts.  Their home a ruin without gas, electricity or water, no milk for the baby, typhoid and cholera a daily threat, and bombs from the sky a nightly terror.

In a desperate attempt to save their children, Joan and Peter begin a heart-stirring journey that exchanges the dangers on land for the darkness and waste of the sea...

Written in 1938, this moving and dramatic novel of simple heroism shows a master storyteller and modern prophet at his irresistible best.
This is an oddity--a "future war" story about the Second World War... published a year before the actual war began.  So it's interesting to read this in hindsight and compare it with real life events--which were both better and worse than depicted here.  Better, because British civilians were better prepared for the Blitz and subsequent upheavals when the bombing eventually began.  Worse, because the author clearly didn't imagine how ruthless the Nazis would be and how quickly they'd steamroller over Europe.  (It's quite clear from the text that Europe is not under enemy occupation when the attack on Britain begins.)

One last really strange thing to note--though it's quite clear who the author sees as "the enemy" in this book, they are never named!