Oddly enough, I spent much of this weekend thinking about WWII. I picked up the much-discussed book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society early last week (by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows), and the novel was just what I thought it would be.
It’s the epistolary story of a writer who corresponds with a bunch of folks on an island in the English Channel just after the Nazi occupation of their territory ended. When some residents of the island were caught out after curfew by Nazis, they pretended they started an impromptu book club to cover up the fact that they were having a pig roast. The Nazis, to prove themselves to be model occupiers, were amenable to the idea of a reading group. Some even joined.
And though I haven’t finished it yet, it’s pretty much a brilliant book in terms of marketing (though I don’t think the authors thought of it that way). First off, it’s a book about a reading club (instant best-seller material there). Second, not only is it about a book club-but it’s not just any book club. It’s a book club formed to resist the Nazis. It’s such a great premise. Why didn’t I think of that?
Anyway–to further cement its popularity–there are quotes in the book that readers will just eat up. Here’s a few:
“Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.”
“It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don’t really know what they’re after–they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisher’s blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?”
Anyway, The Guernsey Potato Peel and Literary Society–or is it The Literary Potato and Guernsey Society (I can never get it straight)--is a very quiet and almost self-conscious feeling look at Nazi occupation.
You can imagine what a shock it was when–in the middle of this book–I went out to see Inglourious Basterds (which, if you don’t know, is the new Tarantino with Brad Pitt). If there was ever an opposite of Guernsey, it’s this movie. Yes, there’s gore and wild excess and frippery and operatic acting. (I enjoyed it a lot). It’s also an alternative history–so big, ballsy, and hideous. Really, everything that Guernsey is, Inglourious Basterds is not (and vice versa).
So where is the real WWII in all of this?
Somewhere in the middle, I suspect. And far less hyped.
LOVE TO READERS: What WWII books and movies have you read? And–if you’re a romance reader–do you go for the whole WWII subgenre (which I admit to not knowing much about)?
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