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Requiem for a Wren

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I suppose the best modern term to describe these war veterans is "adrenalin junkies". The war is over and everything is now an anticlimax. They queued to get into the Korean War and were turned down. What can they do and what don't they end up doing? Nevil Shute was extremely popular in the 1940s and 50s. He wrote in a straightforward, highly readable style on subjects that he knew about. Thus it is not surprising that there are quite a few technical references in this book, especially to equipment used in the Normandy landings of 1944 (Shute, an officer in the RNVR, was actually present at D-Day) but these are easily comprehensible to the ordinary listener. The atmosphere and tension of those weeks before the invasion is very well caught. However, novels like this rise or fall on their characters. Shute does a great job exploring how each of the surviving characters processes the war and the long years after the war. Some of the characters adapt and move on as best they can. Some don’t move on and Shute explores their agony with respect. Alan is a decent and good man, but he has flaws and the novel traces how he resolves his past mistakes by actually learning from the experience of his brother and the Wren. All of this plays into Shute's story and is worked beautifully into a story of love, war, regret and family. While the author pulls no punches, he does not dramatize, he tells it like it was, laying bare the hearts of the characters. Even knowing of the eventual end of the pivotal character does not take away from the dramatic tension Shute creates throughout the story. He brings us to slow realizations in a wonderfully artistic manner, dawn breaking finally revealing the true depth of each character.

Have you listened to any of Damien Warren-Smith’s other performances before? How does this one compare? Albeit sad, I can accept Janet’s inability to love and marry anyone other than Bill Duncan, Alan’s brother. With Alan’s return home, that she chooses suicide makes sense to me too. Alan’s love for Janet never felt genuine to me, and his decision to marry Viola Dawson isn’t drawn convincingly either. To be honest, I'm not sure your original assessment is wrong. There is all that, and it's more evident in some novels than others. When I think about it, it could be that Shute's novels are soap operas for an industrial society, rather than a financial one, which automatically gives them the appearance of rather more substance. An Old Captivity is definitely interesting; it contains the usual simplistic relationship stuff, but large parts of it consist of practical arrangements for a trip to a sub-arctic island, the detail of which is almost anti-fiction. Then you have a book like Ruined City which is a sort of capitalist fairytale and which reflects his extreme right-wing views. At some point I decided that with Shute it was best to take him book by book, if I was at all inclined to do so, and I'm not really - I've been through about half his output and the remainder are marked to read, at some point, someday. The late 1940s story concerns two English women, Wrens, and two Australian brothers. It is narrated by one of the brothers, Alan Duncan. His elder brother, Bill, a Royal Marine frogman, has been killed in action, and Alan is now returning to his wealthy parents' prosperous sheep station (ranch) in Australia. Alan has studied as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and fought as a RAF pilot in World War II before being injured in action, losing both feet when his plane crashed. He has recently qualified as a barrister ( called to the bar) in England. removed until everyone who knew those exciting times is gone, is short-sighted and overly dramatic.Requiem for a Wren is a sad story of the consequences of those servicemen/women who served in WWII. War may be over, but for them, it'll never be over. The ghosts of the past haunt them, the guilt weighs them, and an unexplainable restlessness possesses them. They know that they must put the past behind them and adapt to civil life as best as they could. But this is not easy. It's a simply, but beautifully written story of the heroism and staunch optimism of the British people during the dark times they faced during the early and middle 1940s. One of my all-time favorites. Disabled fighter pilot, Alan Duncan, must confront his own ghosts and fears. His brother, a marine sergeant, has died in Normandy and he wishes to learn the true details. The brother's girl, a wren officer, is lost to him without a trace, and he must find her for his brother's sake. His fear of flying and the fear of facing life challenges in his new disability are personal hurdles that he must overcome. It's still great. I'd forgotten about the Irish Terrier, Dev. I used to have Irish Terriers and I loved both dearly, Bridget, then Colleen. Naturally, it made the story all the better.

Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it’s all over.A day or so later I was in Plymouth and walked into a used bookshop near Sutton Harbour. First book I spotted was Requiem for a Wren! I was fated to buy the book. Shute reveals the end at the beginning, but only part of it, the devastating part. A young woman's suicide that seemingly has no rhyme or reason starts the returning home Aussie pilot on a journey through his past. The attention to detail is fantastic and the reader learns much about the nitty gritty of maintaining the gunnery parts of British WWII ships. I had no idea that there was such a thing as Ordinance Wrens in the War. They were an integral part of the War Effort and they suffered as much of what we know now as PTSD as any of the soldiers that saw action. Janet was haunted by a decision she made in the course of her war duties. After that one mistake, she loses all her cherished people, one by one, as the war takes them, which she comes to feel is justice for her unforgivable act. As a character she is heartbreaking; as a symbol she embodies the impossible burdens of war. Meanwhile, Alan, who needs his own healing, has become obsessed with his quest to find her. The cruellest accident of all is Alan's arrival at the house in Australia, too late to meet her in person. As we read, the pressure of this timing grows to tragic proportions; if he had come home just a few months earlier, would that have saved Janet in some way? Could she have forgiven herself? Would it have saved him? The Breaking Wave is one of Nevil Shute's most poignant and psychologically suspenseful novels, set in the years just after World War II. Nevil Shute is a rare breed of writer. His books are full of danger, romance and other dynamics. But the principal theme in all his work is dignity amid and often accompanied by death. In On the Beach Shute depicted a group of Australians awaiting radiation fall out and subsequent death with strength and forbearance. A Town Called Alice showed a group of Australians living and dying amid the Pacific theater of WWII. The Breaking Waves mines familiar terrain. It follows a group of people through WWII and the subsequent decade or so afterward. Shute’s thesis in this book is that war can go on killing and affecting people long after the final battle. Also, Shute argues that peace is often impossible because people who fight wars in their youth become nostalgic for the war, without realizing it’s their youth they actually miss, and thus will support future wars rather than peace for a chance to return to that excitement. Nothing they realize will ever touch them the way the war did, and they long to return to that feeling all their days. If this sounds heavy for a novel, rest assured Shute is a master at plotting and keeps events moving.

My spouse and I have been watching a program called Foyle's War. It's essentially a British cop show, but set in WWII. It's a wonderful show, but it got me started thinking about WWII-era things, and I decided to dust off this gem from the past. urn:lcp:requiemforwren0000unse:epub:a30ef13e-9c23-498b-9987-af104de9ed55 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier requiemforwren0000unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9g54g300 Invoice 1652 Isbn 0900948086 Acronyms and technical military, nautical and aeronautical terms, as well as terms for weaponry and arms, frequent the text. This adds a sense authenticity. The author doesn’t define these terms but with the help of adjacent explanations lay readers come to understand what is meant. The is well done. However, in expressing things several times and in different ways there is quite a bit of repetition which is at times annoying. Too often a reader is told of events rather than experiencing and living them firsthand, as they occur. This is what you need to know about the author’s writing style. Requiem for a Wren is a departure for Shute from his usual "formula." It is a heart breaker. Close to the beginning of Requiem for a Wren the hero of the story commits suicide. Once she is found dead it is discovered that she had been living under an alias and there are no papers with which to identity her. The purpose of the rest of the book is to discover the identity of this woman and to allow the reader to get to know her and her motivations for killing herself. The more I read the more I liked this woman (Janet) and the sadder became her story.Alan guesses that this troubled woman must have left personal papers hidden somewhere in case her suicide attempt was not successful. He searches the house and finds a small suitcase of letters, diaries, and her passport. He is appalled to learn that he knew her: she was, in fact, Janet Prentice, a former Wren and his late brother Bill's sweetheart. Together with another Wren, Viola Dawson, Alan has spent years searching for Janet after Bill's death.

The inimitable Nevil Shute has an impressive resume as both a writer and an aeronautical engineer. His intelligence shows in his writing, his attention to detail, his understanding of the mechanics of war, and his knowledge of wartime operations. But what makes him a great writer is his ability to tap the souls of his characters, breath life into them, and imbue them with all the heroism and weaknesses that war can reveal. Setting aside my few complaints, I enjoyed the story immensely. The characters were so well drawn I felt like I knew each one of them. As I got to know Janet I kept hoping that she, who committed suicide at the beginning, would somehow be found alive.... perhaps the dead body was mis-identified ....and the ending would be a happy one, as I've come to expect from Shute. Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it’s all over.” urn:lcp:requiemforwrenla00nevi:epub:1a4d7a45-5995-43bb-9fe2-f99e54d29d04 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier requiemforwrenla00nevi Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t6g203847 Invoice 1213 Isbn 0708984428 The ending is particularly tragic. By this time we have come to know and like many characters. Alan is one of these characters and it is through his searches for Janet (he does not yet know that she has committed suicide) that we get to know not only her but Alan and a friend of Janet's, Viola. Alan and Viola get to know each other over the course of a year. Their relationship breaks off because it is clear to Viola (who loves Alan) that he is in love with Janet. Alan's opinion of Viola is that she is not in the same league as Janet. But the book ends with his leaving Australia to propose to Viola and bring her home as his wife. He, like Janet, ran out of options.I liked the main character. I really wanted to like the female lead character, but she frustrated me by her giving up in the end because it seemed so unlike her character (from the way she acted in the past).

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