34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Although I don't normally read short-stories, this book gave me new respect for the genre., April 3, 2009
This review is from: Good Evening Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (Persephone Classics) (Paperback)
Each story -- written and set in England during the Second World War and published in the New Yorker -- is a gem, an example of short stories at their best. Many are witty and all are astute in their observations about human nature and what real everyday people are like.
The stories are set in order of writing (chronologically as the war progressed), and as you read through, you can see the experiences and problems of the British people during the war change.
My mother lived through the Second World War in England, and many of the stories echo what she told me. Fairly late in the book, for example, is a short story about the fairly severe food rationing, which was taking its toll: the central character of one story is a school teacher whose thoughts dwell on food, displacing most other concerns, except, perhaps, jealousy. Chocolate bars are to be eaten privately to avoid having to be shared. Other stories tell about housing shortages, and people living uncomfortably in shared households and trying to make the best of it.
But what I thought is particularly great in these stories is the perfection of the endings -- those last paragraphs should be studied carefully by would-be writers, to see how cleverly the author "sticks the landing." My only complaint was learning that the author apparently wrote relatively few short stories -- she was primarily a journalist.
This book is a rare treat for anyone interested in short stories, war fiction, World War II, or the writing of forgotten women authors.
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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's a view of England by an Englishwoman for Americans, November 21, 2008
This review is from: Good Evening Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (Persephone Classics) (Paperback)
Usually when one reads a book about England during the Second World War it focuses on the soldiers, or life in London. Panter-Downes writes short stories about those who are indirectly affected by the war: wives, parents, refugees. No story is directly about the war but focuses on the little things, the womens societies that keep meeting, the friends who disappear, the thatched roof of the chicken coop. All the things that keep happening despite the war that's being battled on the continent.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A gem, November 21, 2006
What a delightful surprise these little stories were- so witty and wise and utterly readable. A true treat.
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