Worth reading

Book recommendation:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I so enjoyed this book that, in the spirit of back-to-school week, I'm willing to recreate the dreaded timed writings of 12th grade English so I can sing the book's praises here before Samuel wakes up from his nap.

This book is a delightful quick read with something for everyone: character study, historical fiction, humor, sadness and even a shifting kaleidoscope-type of love triangle. Like other good books it can be enjoyed on many levels. It is a treat on the surface, or meaty food for thought for those who dig in.

The novel is set in post-WWII England and chronicles letters between Juliet Ashton, her publisher, and her friends as the young, vibrant author searches for a subject for her next book.
She discovers it in unexpected correspondence with a man on the British isle of Guernsey, who finds her name and address inside a secondhand book. Juliet -- like many of today's readers, I suspect -- never knew much about Guernsey's utter hardships during the five years of Nazi occupation and isolation. For a group of its residents to find comfort in literature endears Juliet all the more. She decides this is her story to tell.

The novel's device of letters made me yearn for the same type of earnest personal expression today. While technology allows us to say so much so quickly, I often wonder how much of ourselves we really ever convey. In contrast, the characters that arise from their penned letters are vivid and richly unique. In fact, my one complaint about this book was the introductory line "from so-and-so to so-and-so" atop each letter. I would have preferred the challenge of identifying the writer as I read, letting each voice speak for itself.

For these characters truly are memorable. An amazing power of this book is the way I cared about Elizabeth, whom all of the Guernsey society members mention in their letters to Juliet, but who never actually appears.

It is her presence, or perhaps essence, that helped form one of my deepest connections to the book. There were times that I wondered why certain letters appear. What is their purpose? How do they advance the story?

Then I would read along much later and one word would forge a link, clanging like iron. When Juliet writes that she is so sad a little girl "will never know her mother -- except by hearsay," I took notice.

That one word, hearsay, brought me back to an earlier letter where a society member shares with Juliet the writings of Thomas Carlyle:

Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul -- not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth, that they knew and acted upon! Verily it was another world then . . . but yet is is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls . . . we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us.

It is true that I'll never know of the tragedies of Nazi rule firsthand, only through hearsay. Yet what this book taught me, even as Juliet realizes she indeed can learn from the Elizabeth she has never known, is that the only way to check the tidings of our souls is to see the human ramifications of history.

Well, Samuel's up. Let me know what you thought of this book!