Customer Reviews

A Few Flowers for Shiner

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This book by Richard Llewellyn does not contain the emotional impact as 'How Green Was My Valley'. However, it does show a comedic style typical of movie-making. In fact, the book reads more like a film treatment than a novel.

This could be due to the fact that Llewellyn was employed by MGM as a screenwriter prior to publishing the book in 1950. The book contains lots of dialogue with British colloquisms from the 1940's and 1950's.

The story centers around a British Military unit on a convoy mission against the Germans, in the mountains of Italy.

Snowy Weeks, the central character, is a master mechanic and devoted to his truck, Rosie. Snowy is paired with Craftsman Bill Dodd on the convoy. Snowy is not happy about being paired with Dodd, since Dodd is replacing his former partner, Shiner. Shiner was killed in during fighing in Italy.

The story centers around the espionage and womanizing adventures of the team, while trying to get the military unit out of the mountains. Comedic references are made to 'Rosie', the truck. Snowy displays an exaggerated reverence for the truck that will carry the team to safety.

Flashbacks of Shiner and Snowy in previous fighting are included to show the relationship of comrades in war. As a final remembrance for Shiner's wife, Snowy places flowers and a small memorial on the mountainside. He takes pictures of the site to send to Shiner's wife later.

Not as eloquent as other Llewellyn works, but a quick read with poignant references to wartime friendships and loss.

This is a beautifully written book about war at ground level - not the countries or the generals or the strategy - but from the point of view of the soldiers fighting it and the people it is affecting profoundly. Set in Italy near the end of WWII, the book focuses on a few characters that you really get to know, and a lot happens on this simple mission to flowers on a grave.

There's Snowy, the main character, a truck driver/mechanic for the English army, who goes on leave to put flowers on the grave of Shiner, his partner who got killed before the start of the book. Rosie, his truck, a character in her own right, so strong a presence that the book wouldn't have been the same without her. Bill, also an English mechanic, who for some reason is made to go with Snowy. Max, an American deserter who back home was a pharmacist. Princess, an American woman who is married to an Italian; her husband is in a concentration camp. Rusty, an Italian mechanic. Dincott, an English deserter who has created his own army out of other deserters and is terrorizing the country.

Then there are the Italian peasants - a group of scholars who have lost their homes and everything but some boxes of books; some women and children who have been carted by train to the middle of the country and left to starve; and other destitute, starving, penniless souls.

And there's the fight to feed everyone, help people, protect people, and win a war.

Shiner, although his name is in the title, barely comes up.

The other reviewer states that the guys are "womanizing" - this is inaccurate. Something happens between Princess and Snowy, but the men are hardly rampaging across the country "womanizing". In fact, Max, Snowy and Bill miss their wives terribly, and are constantly talking/thinking of them. When Rosie is stolen, they are all devastated that their wives' letters were stolen too.

The bad thing about this book is it is written in slang of the day, and it took me a while to get through it - I had to re-read many passages to get the intent.

The good: as stated earlier, the book is beautifully written. Some of the descriptions literally took my breath away. Also, each character has a distinctive voice, even Rosie.

It is clear to see why Richard Llewellyn was so revered in his day, and a shame that more don't know his work.

I am so glad to have read the two reviews of this book. Apparently the reviewers knew more details than I was able to garner from close reading of the book. Indeed! very few details are given outright and one has to carefully read each word to try to figure out the whole plot. I didn't mind doing this. I also felt the author's writing was poetic in parts. This was a very unusual book to read and I enjoyed the story very much.