Many novels have been published about the First World War and the recurring ingredients are always: the initial enthusiasm of the volunteers, the horrors in the trenches, the shell shock and the loss of all illusions. Of course, this novel also has some of those ingredients, how could it be otherwise? But the original approach of the Flemish author Brijs is that he situates the story around an initial opponent of the war, the English student John Patterson; the setting is a poor neighborhood in London, which gives a very Dickensian atmosphere to the novel, at least in the first part. The role that letters play back and forth is not entirely unique, but it is a useful technical trick to connect the two parts of the novel (before the trenches and during). So this is worth reading, this book.
But ... Brijs offers a very simple, linear story, and oh so tame, without the slightest risk or edge. Of course, the horrors of the war are highlighted and of course there is gripping melodramatics in it, but it all remains so simple, without surprise. Now take the love of John on Mary, or the ambiguous friendship for her brother Martin, it’s so adolescent and naïeve that I had a hard time accepting it as credible. In literary terms, there are certainly beautiful passages in this novel, but some others are rather schoolmasterly. 'Post for Mrs Bromley' is meritorious, that certainly, but as far as I am concerned, nothing more.