Love in War by Michael Farthing
Love in War
by Michael Farthing
Synopsis
Love in War is a love story of its time. Joanna and Johnnie were born in South London in the shadow of the Great War and were still growing up when the narrative begins in 1936 during Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany. It ends ten years later in 1946, when Johnnie is demobilised. Despite the committed intensity of the five-year relationship, they spent only forty-nine days together. Thus, Love in War is more about managing life apart than being together. The story moves between London and Berlin (where Joanna visits in 1938 and her dear schoolfriend, Ursula lives out the war) and the horrific theatres of war in North Africa and Southern Italy, which have disastrous effects on Johnnie and render him almost unrecognisable on his return to England after the war. As the story closes, it is evident that there are no winners, just losers. Perhaps it is love that emerges as the only victor. The future is uncertain for all concerned. They have almost nothing to show for the last five years; just time lost. There remains a rather modest ray of hope – as Johnnie says at the end, ‘but we are alive.
My Review
This has to be one of the most deceptive titles I have come across. I have to be totally honest that when I received the book to review I put it on one side thinking I wasn't in the mood for yet another WW2 love story, of which there seem to have been a lot this year. However, when I finally came to sitting down to read the book , after the initial pages which were appearing to live up to my first impressions, I was suddenly enthralled at the history and knowledge that were imparted throughout. Berlin, and what it was like to live there just before the war was really brought to life through the eyes of Ursula and Joanna and this had been a city I had previously known very little about .
The description of the war in North Africa and also in Southern Italy is often one aspect that is missing in books of this genre and it will make you , as a reader, take stock of the full extent of the horror that was inflicted.
The way that Michael discusses the feelings of all the characters in relation to how they are affected before, during, and after the war is on a higher level to most war stories in this genre and you find yourself being pulled into what they are going through and the, at times, difficult questions and solutions they find themselves having to deal with.
This is one of those rare books that, to me, is both fiction and non-fiction in one and is my preferred way of learning about an atrocity that affected us all. Consequently I would recommend this book without hesitation as an interesting and informative read set in the context of a novel told from the viewpoints of Joanna and Johnnie.
About the Author
Michael Farthing’s career has been as an academic physician in the UK and USA. In addition he has conducted medical research in several low-income countries including India, Zambia, South Africa and Belize and has written many scientific papers and medical books. Since leaving medicine, he has published a critique of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawings and a ‘memoire plus’, Finding India, which explored the emergence of modern, independent India tracked across the last fifty years through the eyes of a foreigner. He is an Honorary Professor at University College London, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex and lives between London and Sussex.
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