Review: The FitzOsbornes in Exile

The FitzOsbornes in Exile by Michelle Cooper

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I'm a book behind with this series. My twitter feed has been full of people reviewing the third book (and loving it) so I know that I've got something good still to come.

I adored the first book (although my Goodreads review might not seem like it, I did give it five stars), and I equally adored the second book. I also got a laugh out of the fact that while reading it, I was wondering whether Cooper had used particular sources, and when I got to the end, yes, she had. :-) There is so much to love in this book: Henry, who is just plain awesome, Simon the mostly stalwart, Veronica the Magnificent, especially when speaking to the Foreign Secretary's Office, and later in her final big scene... I can't wait to see how Colonel Stanley-Ross' character develops in the next book, and I have to admit that if he wasn't already married and ridiculously too old for Sophie, I'd be shipping the two of them right now.

Which brings me to Sophie. The wonderful, strategic, clever, and far too good for the fluffiness of débutante society Sophie. The line I quoted in a status update about feeling like a one-person League of Nations is marvellous, and I can just imagine her, in Geneva, meeting Edith Campbell Berry and the two of them getting along like a house on fire.

I hope I find a reasonably priced copy of FitzOsbournes at War sooner rather than later, because it's a while until the British edition is released, and I don't like the cover of that one nearly as much as the Australian version.



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Review: A Woman's War: The Exceptional Life Of Wilma Oram Young, AM

A Woman's War: The Exceptional Life Of Wilma Oram Young, AM by Barbara Angell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I accidentally left "Bad Faith" at work for the three-day weekend, and so hot on the heels of that review comes this one.

This review is probably the more scathing one. Sorry 'bout that.

This book is about a woman who is awesome. Who achieved an amazing amount in her life, and possibly the most amazing thing was that she survived the Japanese Prisoner of War camps along with her fellow army nurses. I don't want this review to take away from that at all.

This book is about a remarkable old biddy. However. She would hate me, and I doubt I'd be all that enamoured of her as a result. So there's that from the beginning. She's just far too much like my grandmother. (Odd that Keating's 1993 election win is mentioned negatively, and yet no mention is made of Howard's 1996/7 win. Suspect bias on the part of the author, but have not yet determined in which direction this suspected bias lies.)

Anyway. The first two sections of the book are fine. The first describes Wilma Orem (Young)'s childhood and training as a nurse; the second her time as an Army nurse and then as a prisoner of war; the third her life following her return to Australia after the war.

The second section is the most impressive and thought-provoking; in particular the gruesome yet matter of fact descriptions of war, violence and torture.

However the whole is negatively impacted by Angell's unimpressive writing; while the drama of the second section carries the reader along, in the first and third, the pedestrian nature of the writing makes the reading experience drag. The third section is particularly tedious: every ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, every reunion with her fellow-prisoners is described as 'particularly special'. I would have expected more from a writer with Angell's apparent credentials as a screenwriter and teacher of writing, but there was just so little energy once the prisoner-of-war section was over.

In sum: the story is important, and I value it. The presentation lets the story down, as does the confusion relating to the politicisation of Orem Young's later years (ie, why the mention of the Labor win but not the Liberal? Was that because the author wanted to emphasise or minimise the difference (or lack thereof) of Veterans policy between the governments of the two parties. As I said, I'm unsure.)

This past January I went to the Australian War Memorial's special exhibition on nurses in war. I also saw (briefly) some of the work done by the nurses in the PoW camps. What these women survived was amazing. I only wish that the book I just read had been more worthy of what they themselves went through.

(Betty Jeffrey's "White Coolies" is going on my To-Read shelf despite my automatic flinch at its title.)





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Review: Bad Faith: A Story of Family and Fatherland. Carmen Callil

Bad Faith: A Story of Family and Fatherland. Carmen Callil by Carmen Callil

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



An interesting read. In a "may you live in interesting times" kind of way.

Last year we went to see the movie "La Rafle", about the Vel d'Hiv' "round up" of French Jews during the Second World War. I bought this book a couple of years ago (because of the title, and because it's about the German occupation of France during WWII, and WWII is one of those things I always want to be learning more about), but only picked it up this year. I will also admit that it got more sustained attention from me because it is by a female author who identifies as Australian.

Things I learned from this book:
- a lot more about the legalities and practicalities of Vichy France (and the fact that the town of Vichy is still trying - and failing - to live down the fact that its name is forever associated with the technically ongoing identity of the French nation during WWII)
- between my previous read ("Fatal Silence"), this one, and the one I just borrowed from the library today ("Hunting Evil") I am in a really anti-Roman Catholic-Curia-during-WWII stage of existence
- not surprisingly, France under German occupation is a little more complex than 'Allo 'Allo. I certainly hadn't previously realised that the Germans essentially re-took control of the whole of France in 1942 prior to reading this book.
- theodicy (the problem of evil) forms a lot of my thought processes at the moment. Not just because of my reading (recent sermons are also an influence)
- the ugliness of the "cultural cringe" of Australians who left here in the 60s and have never really returned is not limited to celebrities such as Germaine Greer, Robert Hughes, and Clive James.
- I *really* don't like generalisations about Tasmanians, even though I don't think I'd like the Jones family one little bit.

Downsides to the book:
- Callil generalises wildly about Australia. I object to this from someone who hasn't lived here since 1960.
- In a lot of ways its not enough about Anne. It's not even all that much about Anne's relationship with her father, or in fact about *family* at all. Which makes the title of the book rather misleading. I actually wish that the book had NOT been given the framing mechanism of Anne Darquier, because as interesting as it occasionally was, it meant that I wanted to know more of Anne's life, more of Anne's thoughts, than I had any chance to be given. I wish Callil had admitted from the beginning that this was a book almost entirely about Louis Darquier with only tangential references to his wife and daughter. If that had been the case, she might not have been so disparaging of Australia in general, into the bargain.

I really am trying not to be too mean about this book. After all, I learnt a lot from it, and I did finish it. I'm also trying not to react just to the clangers about Australia, but the problem was, they were in the first few chapters, and rang so false that they coloured my entire impression of the book.

Ultimately, I'm glad I only paid $5 for this book. It will probably stay in my collection, but more because it's about WWII than because I have any real intention of re-reading it in the future.




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