The Welsh Girl [Hardcover]

Peter Ho Davies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 12, 2007

From the acclaimed writer Peter Ho Davies comes an engrossing wartime love story set in the stunning landscape of North Wales during the final, harrowing months of World War II.

Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a fiercely nationalistic sheep farmer, Esther yearns for a taste of the wider world that reaches her only through broadcasts on the BBC. Then, in the wake of D-day, the world comes to her in the form of a German POW camp set up on the outskirts of Esther's village.

The arrival of the Germans in the camp is a source of intense curiosity in the local pub, where Esther pulls pints for both her neighbors and the unwelcome British guards. One summer evening she follows a group of schoolboys to the camp boundary. As the boys heckle the prisoners across the barbed wire fence, one soldier seems to stand apart. He is Karsten Simmering, a German corporal, only eighteen, a young man of tormented conscience struggling to maintain his honor and humanity. To Esther's astonishment, Karsten calls out to her.

These two young people from worlds apart will be drawn into a perilous romance that calls into personal question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity. The consequences of their relationship resonate through the lives of a vividly imagined cast of characters: the drunken BBC comedian who befriends Esther, Esther's stubborn father, and the resentful young British "evacuee" who lives on the farm -- even the German-Jewish interrogator investigating the most notorious German prisoner in Wales, Rudolf Hess.

Peter Ho Davies has been hailed for his "all-encompassing empathy that is without borders" (Elle). That trancendent compassion shines through The Welsh Girl, a novel that is both thought-provoking and emotionally enthralling.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Following two widely praised short-story collections, Equal Love and The Ugliest House in the World, Peter Ho Davies's first novel, The Welsh Girl, deserves to be equally well received. It carefully examines two great themes, dislocation and cowardice, through the stories of a WWII POW camp built by the British in the remote mountains of northern Wales and Esther, the 17-year-old Welsh girl at the heart of the story. The POW camp, filled with Germans, is yet another national insult, as far as the Welsh are concerned, only one of many instances of prejudice between and among the novel's characters: Welshman against Brit and vice versa, Brits and Welshmen against Germans, Germans against Jews. Some of these enmities are age-old antagonisms; others are newly-minted political killing machines.

Davies introduces a Welsh concept--cynefin--for which there is no English equivalent. It means a certain knowledge and sense of place that is passed down the matrilineal line in a flock of sheep. They always know where they belong and never leave their own turf. It is a perfect metaphor for much of what takes place in this carefully plotted story, and for the displacement felt by many of the characters. Esther longs to escape her village, yet is devoted to the flock and to her father. She meets Colin, an English soldier, in the pub where she works. He is a rough sort and things end very badly between them.

Another theme visited again and again is the concept of cowardice. Is it cowardly to save one's life and the lives of others by surrendering to the enemy? Is death the price that must be paid to be considered brave? The German POWs debate this endlessly, especially Karsten, an intelligent, sensitive soldier who did surrender himself and his men when it was clear that all was lost. When he and Esther find one another under impossible circumstances, Davies renders their relationship perfectly: it is star-crossed, but desperately important to both of them, setting them both "free" in the truest sense of the word. The Welsh Girl is a beautifully told story of love, war, and the accommodations we make in the midst of both. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly

Esther, a WWII-era Welsh barmaid, finds her father—a fiercely nationalistic, anti-English shepherd—provincial; she daydreams that she'll elope to London with her secret sweetheart, an English soldier. In short order, Esther is raped by her boyfriend, and her Welsh village is turned into a dumping ground for German prisoners. Meanwhile, Karsten, a German POW who is mortified that he'd ordered his men to surrender, believes that only by escaping can he find redemption. Davies (Equal Love) uses the familiar tensions of WWII Britain to nice ensemble effect: among the more nuanced secondary characters is a British captain who is the son of a German-Jewish WWI hero—the man's father had always considered himself a Lutheran until the Nazi ascension forced him to flee Germany. As Esther begins to question her own allegiances, Karsten comes into her orbit. What makes this first novel by an award-winning short-storyteller an intriguing read isn't the plot—which doesn't quite go anywhere—but the beautifully realized characters, who learn that life is a jumble of difficult compromises best confronted with eyes wide open. (Feb. 12)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Printing edition (February 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618007008
• ISBN-13: 978-0618007004
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #963,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Empathy Without Borders, August 20, 2007

By 

Jill I. Shtulman (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Welsh Girl (Hardcover)

This gem of a novel is not designed for those who prefer action books with linear plots; it's as real as life itself. From the start, I believed in these characters -- Esther, the Welsh girl...Karstan, the German POW...Jim, the young English boy.

The Welsh Girl can be read in so many different ways: as a story of connections that span boundaries and defy expectations. Or it can be read as a novel of identity. Peter Ho Davies write: "We have something in common, you and I. The same dilemma. Are we who we think we are, or who others judge us to be? A question of will, perhaps."

By the end of the novel, each character will wrestle with this question. The POW will learn the true meaning of "to surrender." The young English boy will find out what "courage" is all about. And the Welsh girl, at the center, will discover about cynefin -- a Welsh quality that has no English translation, but loosely translates to the flock knowing its place. And each will define himself or herself further by comparison with a presumed dead Welsh soldier, whose identity seems to be in the eye of the beholder.

I was enchanted by this novel, the first by the author of Equal Love, a fine short story collection. I'd recommend it wholeheartedly for true readers who are fascinated with love, family, loyalty, and national identity.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars luminous, May 25, 2007

By 

reader (michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Welsh Girl (Hardcover)

One of the greatest accomplishments of this novel is the way it beautifully and convincingly--and with the compassion others have mentioned here--evokes and channels the female experience, granting it true complexity. This isn't something we've seen in the historical fiction of the men of previous generations, and is just a part of the great feat of imagination that makes this novel such a success.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Distant time, distant story, September 22, 2008

By 

Karie Hoskins "karieh" (Everett, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Welsh Girl (Paperback)

It took me over a month to read "The Welsh Girl" - and I'm not sure why. I know I am in the minority in my lukewarm reception of this book (please see "Long-listed for Man Booker Prize"). It's certainly not as if the characters were not well drawn, the time and place carefully crafted, the story less than compelling...and yet...and yet.

I suppose the best way to describe my hesitation with this book is that I always felt as arms length. Even when inside the thoughts and hearts of Esther, Karsten and Rotherham...I felt as if the essence of what they were thinking and feeling were closed off. I didn't FEEL their feelings, didn't SEE what they were seeing...

That being said, it is undeniable that this novel, set during World War II in North Wales, is beautifully crafted. The descriptions of time and place were excellent; the characters seem ones transported in time for the reader to meet.

There were parts that I couldn't help but read twice - parts that broke through the fourth wall for me.

"...his progress reminds Esther of how the dogs part a flock. Sheepish, she thinks. The villagers feel sheepish. The word appears before her in her own flowing copperplate. She's been having these spells lately when words, English words, seem newly coined, as if they're speaking to her alone, as if she's seeing the meanings behind them. She's conscious of her lips, her tongue, forming them."

And there are moments when I can see the village so clearly that I feel I am truly there. "Within the fence, the faces of the Germans and MPs turn up to the slope to where the villagers stand. Hands are angled to shield eyes against the sun; arms are lifted, pointing. Esther finds herself blushing, embarrassed to be caught staring, but even as she turns away, Mott, at her feet, lifts his head and offers a long howl of replay to the snapping dogs below."

I've gone over and over that paragraph and I can't put my finger on it...but something about those words take me there - I can feel the sun on my face, making me squint...I can see the prisoners pointing up, I can hear the dog and I can smell grass and animals nearby.

And there are some small moments when the thin wall cracks and I can feel the emotions of the characters.

"He was serious, Karsten saw, the answer deeply important to him. For just a moment, he wanted to cry yes! and have done with it. For just a moment, he could feel the cool relief of admitting it, even to this child. He was almost certain the boy would rather have his friend alive and a coward than brave and dead. All he had to do was say it. Yet something inside him recoiled. Some pride, some recollection of those dreadful steps down the passage out of the bunker."

There I am able to feel those tightly wound emotions straining to explode - I can feel the pulse of the story. And once more with Esther:

"Esther looks at her through her tears and nods slowly. She does have hope, she realizes. All this time she's thought Rhys dead, and now she hopes, prays, that he is."

Maybe because these characters, in the short period of time when their lives intersect, live in circumstances where they cannot give reign to their emotions, cannot let their guard down for even a moment - maybe that is the distance I feel from their story.

This tale of bravery and defeat, of cowardice and unacknowledged heroism, is one I wanted to appreciate more. But maybe, this is one of those books where when read again, at a different point in my life, will have a greater impact.