#1940Club - An Old Captivity, Nevil Shute

I've been intrigued by the book by year challenge hosted by Simon at Stuck In A Book and since the current year is 1940, I decided to give it a whirl. 

I chose Nevil Shute's My Old Capitivity for a couple of reasons. First, I absolutely love his A Town Like Alice and have read it twice, so I've been wanting to read something else by him for awhile. Second, the premise of My Old Capitivity includes archeology, Nordic and Celtic settlements in Greenland and Iceland, and flying. My dad was a WWII RAF pilot, and I've been wanting to learn more about what it was like to be a pilot circa 1940.

I confess that I have mixed feelings about the book. It was good, but it is no Alice. For starters, three-quarters of the book reads like an adventure memoir. It describes in detail what is involved in planning and executing an expedition to Greenland by a Scottish pilot for hire, an Oxford don who wants to get aerial photographs of the sites of long-gone settlements in Iceland, and his rigid, self-righteous daughter. We learn what is involved in procuring the seaplane, assembling all the equipment, packing it, transporting it by both air and sea, finding lodging enroute, refueling the plane, listening to weather reports, eating seal, hiring indigineous help, and finally overdosing on sleeping pills. 

Incredibly, I didn't find this at all boring--it was super interesting, and the pilot, Donald Ross, is a hardworking, capable, mechanically gifted pilot whose biggest job initially is convincing, Mr Lockwood, the archeologist who employed him, and his daughter, Alix, just how complicated and fraught with danger this expedition really is.

And then the story took a pretty bizarre turn. Ross dreams that he is a Scottish slave, captured by the Vikings on one of their many raids on Scotland, and is working for Leif Erikson in Greenland. I kid you not! In fact, Ross (aka Haki) ends up discovering Cape Cod...in his dream, or is it a dream?

To sound like a total curmudgeon, the older I get, the less patience I have for magical realism, fantasy, hocus-pocus, and all that. I would have liked the book better if it had gone deeper into the archeology and stayed grounded (so to speak) in reality while speculating about what might have happened 1500 years ago or thereabouts. 

The title seems to have a triple meaning--my old captivity could be referring to Ross's former life when he was an enslaved Scot, or to his dependence/addiction on sleeping pills, or to his falling in love (again) with Alix who, coincidentally, was his girlfriend back in the way back.

The other weird thing about this book is that it is a framed story--the narrator (I don't even know if we ever learn his name) is on a train trip and Ross is in the same coach and neither can sleep so Ross tells him this story. But, at the end of the book, we don't end up on the train. I have no idea where Ross is going, what happened with him and Alix. There is absolutely no reason this is a framed story, as far as I can tell.

Finally, this was published in 1940 and there is zero reference to the war or the state of the world. Ross, Lockwood, and Alix fly from England to Iceland and then on to Novia Scotia and down to New York with nary a mention of a world crisis that might cause them trouble. Maybe the idea was to provide the reading public with a story in a world without WWII, but it struck me as so weird.

Sorry, Nevil, but this was just a three-star book for me.

A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute

I honestly don't know why it took me so long to read this utterly fantastic book--after all my dad spent years aged 4-14 in Australia and his sisters and parents returned there after WWII so all of my cousins except one are in Australia and I really should know more about the country, but I digress.

A Town Like Alice is wonderful. First person narration by a London solicitor, Noel Strachan, who recounts the story of one of his clients, Jean Paget, who is taken prisoner as a 20-year old in Malaya by the Japanese in WWII. She is a born leader, compassionate, practical, resourceful, and diplomatic. She rallies the other women and children who were also taken prisoner at the same time, and without fuss, arrogance, or power-mongering enables them to survive months of marching from town to town and then a couple of years as labourers in a rice paddy.

Early into her captivity she meets an Australian prisoner, Joe Harman, who befriends her and is crucified for his actions. The chemistry between Jean and Joe is not only palpable but achingly lovely. I don't want to give away the plot because reading the story fresh and without any expectations for how things work was such a completely enjoyable experience that I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

And I do want to stress how much I enjoyed this book. I enjoy virtually all the books I read, even those I don't like much, if that makes sense, because I enjoy reading. But this book is special--it truly captivated my interest and I found myself sitting slack-jawed as I marveled at the ingenuity, grace, and heart of Jean Paget. She's my new role model, and had I read this book as a young woman I might have set off for the Australian outback to try to find a town of my own to build.

After I finished the book I did a smidgeon of reading about the book on Wikipedia. Apparently, Nevil Shute based the Jean Paget character on a Dutch woman who had a similar experience in Sumatra, and the Joe Harman character on an Australian veteran of the Malayan campaign who had been crucified by the Japanese while working on the Burma Railway. It's clear that Shute based the narrator, Noel Strachan, on himself.

I honestly cannot praise this book too much--if you like love stories, read it--if you like history, read it--if you like dramas, read it--if you like great writing, read it. I do feel compelled to note that this book was published in 1950 and reflects WWII and post-war British/colonial views with regards to Australian Aborigines. The protagonists do use derogatory slang when referring to their Japanese captors also. It's not a politically correct book, but I do feel that it is historically accurate.

Now I get to watch the 5-hour BBC mini-series from 1981, starring Helen Morse and Bryan Brown. Tried as I might, I couldn't find a dvd so I hope the VCR still works--haven't used it for years. I've heard from many people that the mini-series rivals the book in terms of "OMG, this is so good!"