Page Forty-One

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

I both liked this book and did not like this book. The story is fairly intriguing: a 4-year girl found after a boat docks in Australia is taken in by a loving couple and raised as their own, until she is told in her late teens that she is not their biological child. The girl, now named Nell, attempts to piece together her past, which leads her to the mysterious Blackhurst Manor in England. Contributing to the search after her death is her granddaughter, Cassandra.

The story is indeed a mystery, but there are so many voices in the text at times it became a bit frustrating: Nell, Cassandra, and Eliza are the three main narrators, but thrown in are also Rose, Adeline, Eliza, Luis (whose role in the story was oddly developed), Nathaniel ... and I am likely missing one or two characters. The ending was fairly predicatable and Morton's playing off of well known fairytales and children's stories, such as The Secret Garden - even including Frances Hodgson Burnett as a character where it is implied she used the garden at Blackhurst Manor to inspire what would become The Secret Garden - was almost annoying, though I could see this would appeal to many readers.

Overall, however, a good escapist read for the summer.

Page Forty

Small Wars by Sadie Jones

"The outrage of the collective frees the individual to commit terrible acts" (141).

It is 1956 and British soldier Hal Treherne is defending the British colony of Cyprus. His wife, Clara, and two twin girls join him. Hal has built his life around his love for his country and the army. A respected Major, Hal is impatient to see "action." However, like many soldiers, Hal soon becomes disallusioned with the army and the role he plays when things in Cyprus begin to heat up. Hal becomes increasingly emotionally disturbed by the events around him and thus increasingly emotionally distant from his wife and family, while Clara attempts to maintain the 1950s wife persona - accomodating, supportive, pleasant - even when Hal's internal struggle begins to change him in ways they never thought possible.

Jones captures the futility of war, the disallusionment of fighting for something that becomes difficult to believe in, the effects of war on family and marriage, and the struggle to remain human in an inhuman world. Her characters are believable and multi-dimensional, her writing descriptive, and her story powerful. This was a great book.