Customer Reviews

Conventry

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Coventry" is a poetic novel that revisits one of the most significant events of World War II; the night of November 14, 1940, when German planes bombed and smashed the British industrial midlands city of Coventry to a moonscape, causing great civilian casualties, and destroying, among other important buildings, its famous medieval cathedral, at the heart of the city, of which it had been so proud. This bombing, amply covered in the media of the time, set off strong shock waves in America, as well as other countries, and certainly helped encourage the United States to follow Great Britain into war with Germany and the other Axis powers. It was also thought for many years that this bombing, and the carpet bombing of London, enraged the famous, widely esteemed British Prime Minister at the time, Winston Churchill, so greatly that he forgot his wiser bombing strategy of going for German industrial sites in favor of inflicting more civilian damage in revenge. However, as British World War II files have been opened to historians, it has been shown that Churchill changed his bombing strategy more to infuriate the Germans, and actually to motivate them to inflict more civilian damage, in order to distract them from his nascent, critically important radar network, without which the war could not be won. See:British Strategic Bombing Policy Through 1940: Politics Attitudes and the Formation of a Lasting Pattern (Studies in British History, Vol 12).

At any rate, Helen Humphreys, the author of this book, does not touch upon this question of British air strategy, though she has evidently done a great deal of research on the subject of the bombing. She presents us a block by block, burnt to death bird by bird, terrified horse by terrified horse, vivid picture of the overwhelming night in question. She tells her story through two women, Harriet Marsh, widowed as a young bride by World War I, and Maeve Fisher, an artist, mother of the young man Jeremy, who is a fire watcher on the roof of the cathedral, with Harriet. Humphreys is author ofThe Lost Garden, which "The Boston Globe" called a "stunningly beautiful little gem;" two New York Times Notable Books: Leaving Earth: A Novel, winner of the Toronto Book Award, and Afterimage, winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.

It's not for the squeamish, but neither was the event. It packs a powerful emotional punch as it shows us these women, and this city, rebuilding their lives, and the rise of the new, modern Coventry Cathedral.

The Review

This novel, which reads as quickly as a novella, spans the lifetimes of Harriet, Jeremy and Maeve and yet primarily occurs over the course of a bombing raid that fell upon them overnight. In reading the story of the bombing of Coventry on November 14, 1940, I felt saddened as I watched a city be shamelessly destroyed and lives pitifully wasted in the name of "war." I viewed the bombings through the eyes of these characters and shook my head in disgust for what happened in our not-so-distant past.

As horses ran free and buildings turned to ash, these characters made life-or-death decisions not evening knowing if those decisions would keep them safe from the bombs. That kind of fear I cannot even begin to imagine. How do you know if you stay.. and, if so, where?.. or to exile... and, if so, to where? Viewing this story from there eyes was unsettling, to say the least.

In the aftermath of that fateful night, the reader accompanies both Harriet and Maeve as they assess their immediate losses in the wake of this WWII destruction and recall the great tragedies suffered at the hands of WWI. Much of their lives and loves were lost to the senseless acts of war. It makes me ponder such great loss... the loss of your lover or your child... how do you recover, if ever?

The most memorable quote of this book for me came in the form of a poem:

"For hours, for no reason that I could imagine, I drew black swans. Hunched over a piece of cardboard on the floor of the hotel room, the coal softened to dust on this surface beneath me.

What I wanted was the simple pleasure of seeing you again. But you didn't come, couldn't come. I don't know how to make you return to me.

But I did come to know the black swan. I knew the long snake flex of its neck, knew the shape of the body was a leaf, a wing, an open hand, the human heart. I fastened these images to paper, called them swan. And then I rose, black dust dripping from my hands, my arms spread to the empty sky, as I walked out through broken sheets feathered with shadow-darkness lifting me home."

There is another fantastic review of this book at Anna's website... one of MY PERSONAL FAVORITES... Diary of an Eccentric.

On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale:"

This book was a difficult story to absorb, yet very beautifully written. The story is thought provoking and shadowed with sadness. But, like other good historical fiction that I've read, I learned something from reading this book and I'm glad that I ventured to read this story. For the genre Fiction:Historical, I am going to rate this book a 8.5 OUT OF 10.

My mother grew up in Coventry. At the Cathedral Convent School. This book was like listening to my mom and my aunt talking about when they were young. It was a novel so it had some extra story (the 'romance') but I could see the streets, feel the bombs and the fires because we had so many stories about Coventry when we were little. I brought copies for my brothers and sisters and asked that their children read the book too!! Thank you for reminding me of what heroes I grew up with.

On the evenings of November 14th and 15th, 1940, a massive bombing raid destroyed the English city of Coventry. German attack planes flew over the city dropping hundreds of bombs, decimating most of the architecture and killing roughly 600 people and wounding many more. What was left standing was barely recognizable as a once flourishing and beautiful city. In the novel Coventry, Helen Humphreys weaves this tragic time in history into the story of three people who begin that fateful evening alone but somehow end up finding each other. Harriett, a young woman who lost her husband in the first World War, is quiet and unassuming. While she still misses her husband desperately, her emotions have been somewhat calloused and atrophied from the years spent alone. When she agrees to take over a shift on the local fire brigade, she gets more than she bargained for when the bombing causes massive fires to break out in her area of patrol. While she is simultaneously fighting the fire and eventually running from it's destruction, she meets Jeremy, a courageous young man who will be her guide and companion through the burning city. Jeremy is also part of the fire brigade, and after the bombing he and Harriett begin to search for his mother Maeve, the third player in this arresting drama. Maeve, an artist, has raised Jeremy alone and is caught in a pub when the bombing begins. When she makes her way home she wishes to stay there and wait for Jeremy but is persuaded by her neighbors to flee the city for the countryside, where it is safer. As the three players move closer to their reunion they witness terrible havoc and bloodshed throughout the once remarkable city. While they are busy dodging the falling bombs they each discover the hidden sides of themselves that they never expected to find, and become enmeshed with each other in astounding ways.

This is a slim book, but one of tremendous power. The author has a way of being very understated and subtle in her choice of words, but somehow this makes the narrative both more haunting and evocative. There were many things about the book that seemed subdued, from the way in which she portrayed her characters to the situations that she chose to illustrate, but there was something that was extremely poignant in the way that she juggled this huge amount of confusion in her story with restraint and quietness. Had she chosen to construct the narrative in a more hypersensitive way, I think the story would have been somewhat directionless and less focused.

Another thing that I appreciated about the book is that the author used the show and not tell method of storytelling. Instead of trying to explain all of her situations and characters and the reasons for their actions, I felt that she let the characters' actions and reactions speak for themselves. It was not hard to see why Harriett behaved as one wounded, or why Maeve was so headstrong. Their characters grew into these emotions as the book progressed, and instead of laying it all out there in a repetitious and elementary way, the author chose to close all those gaps with the growth of her characters and the emotive power of her situations.

As far as the characters go, I preferred Maeve's character to Harriet's because Harriet at times seemed a bit too detached for me, and her remoteness in the main portion of the book was something that I felt was a bit hard to relate to personally. Despite this, I felt that, as a character, Harriet displayed much more growth than the others did. It was illuminating to watch the shifts in her personality and to see her mentally become more cognizant of her emotions and behavior. The growth that Harriett evinced was one of the things I liked most about this character and this book. There was a type of internal monologue running through her that was both plausible and satisfying to witness.

Of the three characters highlighted in this book, Maeve was my favorite. She was very independent and spirited, and I liked the way that her love of drawing and art was infused into the very fiber of her character. I thought that she showed tremendous courage in raising her son alone. During that time period, I am sure hers was not the most popular or acceptable decision. Her love for her son was touching, but it was not an overpowering force in the story; instead it showcased the bond between the two characters in a tender and gentle way.

I also liked Jeremy. He was very young, but he seemed to show a mature and sound emotional capacity, and was endowed with many characteristics that are rare finds in the men of literature. I found him to be an extremely sensitive and compassionate person while still being somewhat of an innocent. Although he could have left Harriett behind to face the odds alone, he willingly took on her presence and agreed to guide her safely through the maelstrom towards safety.

There was a an interesting chemistry between these three players; they were all so very different, but in the end, they all manifested some of the same characteristics, albeit in different ways. Though the force of the war was huge, the force of their personalities were bigger, and that was something that elevated this from your typical war story.

I really enjoyed this book, and think it would be perfect for those who enjoy character driven novels. Whether or not you are a war enthusiast, this book will probably strike a cord in you because there is a great deal to focus on in the story. The characters and situations in the book feel authentic, and although this is a sad story, it is not permeated with bleakness throughout. If you enjoy books that focus on the people surrounding an event and their reactions towards that event, you might really enjoy this book. Recommended.

This well-written novel about wartime England really draws the reader in, making the bombing of London real with its vivid, focused description. Highly recommend.

Author Helen Humphreys' novel, Coventry, primarily revolves around the night and early morning hours of November 14-15, 1940, when over 500 German Luftwaffe blitzed the entire town of Coventry, England. Over 600 residents were killed, thousands of homes and businesses were reduced to rubble, and the beautiful medieval Coventry Cathedral was turned into a shell of its formal grandeur.

Humphreys writing of the blitz of this town was strikingly, hauntingly beautiful. You got a real feeling of the total devastation and horror of the bombing, as well as what the residents might have felt during the attack. Less successful, IMO, was the fictional story itself; a story of two women who first met briefly in 1914 at the beginning of WWI, lost touch, and reunited during the attack of of November 14-15th. I didn't quite buy all the incredible coincedences that played out to facilitate their reunion, and one plot thread in particular didn't ring true to me at all and just felt like a cheap, sexual titillation into what was heretofore an interesting character dynamic. That being said, Coventry is still an interesting novel as it pertains to the actual events of the blitz, and well worth the time to read if you enjoy this period of history. There are 2 flashbacks to 1914 to set the stage and introduce the two female characters, and 1 (lackluster) flashfoward to 1962 that ends the novel. It's a very quick read, with only 177 pages, with some thoughtful, beautiful prose like the following:

"The good thing about books is that they remain themselves. What happens in their pages stays there. Harriet does not like the idea of the story bleeding through into real life. She trusts a story, and doesn't trust real life. But what makes her trust a story is the knowledge that it will stay where it is, that she can visit it but there is no chance it will visit her".

this novel is so much more than an interesting story.as an american, it gave me the opportunity to feel what it was like to be in a war zone.as an anglophile,i could admire british courage.

What a wonderful literary journey into the historic past. How Helen manages to get such emotion, thought and message into so few poetic words astounds me. One of the few books I'll read over and over while wishing it would never end.

Well done

Though I read this novel in a newly published French-Canadian edition (I'm sure I would have prefered it in English), I found this book... I thought that (still think) this book... I saw this book as... Oh, I loved it! I wasn't waiting for a punch, but an emotional response and I got it. Humphrey's characters are "felt" (and cleverly outlined) in a few sentences and there they are, in full. Descriptions of Coventry, in this dramatic eventful night, are going hand in hand with these characters. It's a symbolic few hours of something that may have happened to many people that night...

The surprise, in my opinion, lies in the poetry used to image the terrible sceneries. Poetry to make you SEE destruction, it has to be read to understand what I mean ! Beauty to describe ugliness and pain.

When I finished the book today, I felt like saying out loud: "Already?".

Using history as the stage, this book is impressionistic look into the minds and hearts two women. Harriet has experienced a lifetime of loss and assaults on her soul that have sapped her of life's color and joy. Maeve too has had her share of struggles but has not allowed them to so dramatically narrow the scope of her interests and activities. The author focuses less on the details of the decimation of Coventry than the meaning of it for 3 people which may explain the contrived yet engaging story line.