historical fiction – Dimples Migraines and Aahs

I knew He would never leave me. Yes, a struggle it has been but just before the end of the month the delivery of a post! I willed myself to write and I sought for a piece, had 3 drafts but they did not sit well with me.. one fateful evening of going through my friend’s stories and it landed on my lap, well served.

I started this book on 26th January and right from the start I knew I finally got the one. The blurbs promised a sad story; one of two girls, deep in poverty in Britain. I subscribed to the funeral ceremony that would make one of the girls cross paths with her to be destiny. Yeah, you think you’ve got a rag to riches story… Well rags, they were in and their journey and the narration of the story is one you want to read.

I must be reading books based in London each year.. it is the English for me. I can certainly twang and I am all airs. The lives, the descriptions, is it that I relate because the Britons were our colonizers and we have some sort of kinship tie. It certainly is the notable mentions, the nobility and the world of the dead as a whole especially at this time of the year. Historical fiction is the label given to the book’s genre.

The funeral industry is one that always leaves me in awe. Talking to dealers in death whenever the opportunity presents itself, watching how different cultures treat their dead, reading about hanging coffins and how that began due to scarcity of burial ground and the lengths the wealthy go about honoring their dead like Emelda Marcos having piped music playing in her husband’s coffin to keep him until burial in his home country became possible.

I like the ideas impressed upon me by this book. The author’s pedantic prose.. would it be a book by an English author if I do not have newfound words rolling off my tongue. I want to give it all away but I’m holding myself on a leash. I cried tears of joy because who would have seen that coming!!!

The book cover is befitting. The length is very manageable as it is only 232 pages that will turn fast. Another plus is that you will be more knowledgeable about England’s history when you finish the book.

I might as well sum up my 2021 in books in this post. 2021 recorded the lowest in the three years since I began tracking my reading experience. It is not that I read less or that I was distracted but many of the materials I read in 2021 were more academic than recreational. I marvel at the people whose count is 96 books in a year and in 2020 I was chasing that although with a starting goal of 40. This year January is almost coming to an end and I have only two finished books; quite a slow start.

My last book of the year which spilled over the first days of this year was Regretting you by Colleen Hoover. I am so glad I managed to read a book by her during the year. If you recall in 2019 when I started recording my progress I had read 4 of her books and I had so much to say here https://wordpress.com/post/dimplesmigrainsandaahs.home.blog/207. It is my pleasure to confirm that Regretting you has maintained the bar set by colleen Hoover. I dreaded picking the book up in 2020 in fear that it may erase the streak maintained.

I always like it when an author ropes the book title in the story and this book does it. The first few pages kept me interested, the next few pages lost my interest. I urged myself to keep reading since I only judge a book after the first hundred pages. Somewhere along my reading I stopped keeping track of the pages turned and as the end drew near, I was content with the pace, the writing, the description, the characters, the plot, the language and the length of the book.

Finding my passion is my passion

The story is beautiful, we go through the emotions with the characters, and the dialogue is so well written. One feels as if they were part of the audience. Other Honorary mention goes to The Mothers by Brit Bennet, and City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. 2021 in books may fall short of the in depth review because of the books I read, the six that moved me during the year got their stand alone posts and two though written went unpublished. I am looking forward to the books I will read this year and the impact they will have on me and my writing.

War stories… knowing what people went through at a certain time in history through no fault of their own and imagining how I would have survived being in that situation. It is the names the natives coin for their oppressors. It is the love that comes their way in spite of the bodies dropping each day and knowing that each kiss is a goodbye. It is the hope for a better future, the longing for the past, and the uncertainty of the present. It is mostly the narration of the story, the description, the tempo, and the tone.

I almost gave up on this book; 200 pages in and I was as clueless as the characters. I wanted to know something they did not. Perhaps it should have been one of those stories that start with the end then explain how we got there. Maybe there should have been a letter that was written that we get to read before it is delivered. I grew tired of Isabelle talking about the war, Vianne expecting the return of the men who went to war and Gaëtan.

At first, I felt like nothing was happening in those 200 pages then in the next 100 pages I made sense of why things had to be narrated as they were. I was glad to be as clueless as the characters. Happy to go through the experiences with them. I felt frightened, fatigued from the walk to the border, the lack of essentials because everything is being rationed and the resignation to fate while doing my part.

Isabelle is brave, impetuous, reckless and I think that sometimes she took a risk when she ought to have played safe. Things were bad and she hoped her actions would help quicken the process to a free France but there was a long way to go. I understand how one can love another and at the same time only spew hatred towards them. I understand how one can be quick to think the worst after examining things on the surface. I understand that you can mean well but still be unable to do anything for another.

Some experiences are brutal and maybe as the book suggests, we need not work towards forgetting them and leaving them in the past but we should narrate them, remember them, notice what impact they have had and how they have shaped our character. The characters in this book portray different reactions individuals would have at a time of war.

There are those who would be up in arms in the frontline. There are those who sit back hoping and praying that their loved ones come back safe and sound. There are those who take subtle measures that make a huge difference even though they are not frontline in the war. There are circumstances that cannot be explained away and hard choices that people have to live with long after the war.

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are

There is so much loss in war. One loses friends because much as the invader is the enemy, we each play a different role in the war for our survival and hence people drift. One loses themselves as the hypothetical scenarios they once formed in their heads become reality and there is no one to share with because everyone is going through something. Dignity, humanity, pride is stripped off and souls are laid bare. Children are forced to grow up overnight and see the world as is, no fairies, no Santa clauses, no Prince charming just ordinary men and women.

Grief like regret settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us

After the war, some people talk about their experiences others want to move on with the pieces left of who they once were. There is so much to be forgiven, so much to be accepted, there is evidence of it all around but each person does what can get them to go through another day without hurting deeply. In love we find out who we want to be; in war, we find out who we are.

Tag: historical fiction

Fallen Grace and books in 2021

The Nightingale has sung