Books: Wartime Guernsey and Modern Britain

I find some literature more challenging than others. In this posting I am alluding to a recent novel and a book of short stories, by two different authors...

The novel first: " The Guernsey  Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," published after the death of writer Mary Ann Shaffer --apparently also worked on by her niece, Annie Barrows-- is an entertaining ( but sometimes grim) account of how the inhabitants of the Isle of Guernsey adapt to German occupation during World War II.

The story is told from the point of view of an English journalist, one Juliet Ashton, who in early 1946 stumbles on information that leads her to become interested in Guernsey and its inhabitants and how they survived ( or didn't survive) the war. The peculiar Society of the title is part of this tale.

This book verges dangerously on " Chick Lit," I think, but has enough literary value -- as I said, it is definitely entertaining-- to recommend it. 

It seems well researched and has convincing if a little too convenient ( and a little stereotyped) characters-- this is a book that wants you to like it. In this, it was a success for me and I hope other people who are looking for a "good read" will check it out.

Something totally different is the collection of short stories " The First Person" by the writer Ali Smith.

Let me take the easy way and quote from blurbs on the jacket that I agree with: "  (She) is a wonderful ventriloquist, adept at throwing her voice into an astonishing array of characters"-- Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times.

A little too fulsome in praise but headed in the right direction is the quote from  The Times  of London: " Joyous...Smith plays dizzying games with her story and language: she bends and buckles her prose, breathes fire into it, lets it cool, swirls it up into unimaginable shapes. This is writing as pure rapture, as giddy delight."

I don't know about all that " giddy delight."  I think Ali Smith is a difficult modern author ( like Deborah Eisenberg) and is a challenge to take on.

Her stories wander all over in theme and approach-- my favorite was " The Child", in which a baby that appears suddenly in a woman's shopping cart ( and she gets stuck with, at least for a while) is angelic in appearance but who speaks like a hilariously politically incorrect adult and tells jokes at the woman's expense. Just how she handles the problem of getting stuck with the child is very amusing and I invite you to read the story to see how it all happens. 

Ali Smith has won a lot of prestigious prizes and is aiming at a more intellectual audience than Mary Ann Shaffer.  Shaffer's book is easier to read, as I said, but if you like to be challenged then I would try to see how you deal with Ali Smith. I have a feeling Ms. Smith is going to be around for a while.