2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Playing at war....., October 25, 2008
This review is from: Goodnight Sweetheart (Paperback)
English Caro, Robyn and Irish Edwina. Three girls before and during World War II.
The jacket of this book is so lovely, I hoped for an improvement after a couple of disappointments with Bingham lately.
Alas, not so. The first 100-200 pages or so consist of endless dialogues about the tiniest details. Page after page nothing happens as we are told what people wear, eat and say to one another. The (too) many details become tedious; a lot of it readers can very well assume themselves and it does make for skipping pages in between.
The book starts out concentrating on Caro and her conversations with a young painter who is doing a mural of Caro's family, the Garlands. We are introduced to Caro's sister, beautiful Katherine, who is running away with her boyfriend and joining the nazis. Then there is Caro's friend Robyn and the two girls' rather uneventful pre-war life.
In the vicinity of Caro's home in the country, Chevrons, the girls drive around in their little cars (the Angel and the Bentley), have some rather fun accidents, nothing serious, only part of their daily amusement. Getting some bumps and blue marks but, really, nothing to fuss about and nothing that a hot bath cannot cure. They drink too strong gin and tonics and discuss the prospects of future boyfriends/husbands and so on.
The upcoming war does become a topic as it nears, but mostly it's all about the uniform the girls are going to wear when they join the FANY's (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). This is a most serious matter, as the book explains, and no hanky-panky. Young Caro's Aunt Cicely was a FANY in the first World War and according to her, their uniform is about the best, which solves the matter of war duty for Caro. As Aunt Cicely says to Caro's friend Robyn quote): "You can drive well, you have a good figure, you will look well in the FANY's. The uniform is most flattering. You will shine in it, believe me, especially if we make sure to have it tailored for you at your father's tailor, which frankly is "de rigeur" if you want to cut a dash".
What a glorious war, one may be tempted to say.
The war does come and the girls do start their duty. They experience the living from day to day in London, taking part in the frantic gaiety among people who do not know if next day will ever come, and grabbing love when they find it.
However, in spite of all this, the lightness, the feeling of being in a play rather than in a most devastating reality, continues throughout the book. Oh, there are grave incidents, unimaginable tragedies and always the general bleakness of war all around. But still, the flippancy of the three girls' almost carefree chatter as they sail through it all, or at least, that's as it seems to me, fails to get me hooked.
I DID like the end. A happy end, actually. The book is very well constructed in the way it starts out just indicating slightly what will in fact finally finish the whole thing 400 pages later. All the girls find love and get married to their sweethearts. Some sweethearts do not make it through the war and are bid goodnight in a most touching way.
Actually two stars, since most of the book is rather boring (the endless dialogues, only half of which are necessary). The third star for excellent characterization and after all, some good fun with the darling young heroines.
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