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The Eliot Quartet #2
A World of Other People
Set in 1941 during the Blitz, we follow the love affair of Jim, an Australian pilot in Bomber Command, and Iris, a forthright young Londoner, finding her voice as a writer.
Haunted by secrets and malign coincidence, the couple struggles to build a future free of society's thin-lipped disapproval. Iris shares rooftop firewatching duties with the poet TS Eliot, who unwittingly seals their fate with his famous verse 'Little Gidding'.
Haunted by secrets and malign coincidence, the couple struggles to build a future free of society's thin-lipped disapproval. Iris shares rooftop firewatching duties with the poet TS Eliot, who unwittingly seals their fate with his famous verse 'Little Gidding'.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2013
12 people are currently reading
261 people want to read
About the author
Steven Carroll
16 books30 followersSteven Carroll is an Australian novelist. He was born in 1949 in Melbourne, Victoria and studied at La Trobe University. He has taught English at secondary school level, and drama at RMIT. He has been Drama Critic for The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne.
Steven Carroll is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne with his partner, the writer Fiona Capp, and their son. As of 2019, he also writes the non-fiction book review column for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Steven Carroll is now a full-time writer living in Melbourne with his partner, the writer Fiona Capp, and their son. As of 2019, he also writes the non-fiction book review column for the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
June 7, 2013
Sometimes I just hate books and book writers – I really do. Those who know me may be aghast at this confession of abhorrence given my track record as a reader, but matters will become clearer as you read on!
Hell, I read the reviews in the weekend broadsheets and time and time again I encounter something right up my alley – then I remember that huge pile that sits awaiting beside my bed – not to mention the shelves full languishing back up north in Burnie. So I hate books when it means I have to think more than twice about adding another one to that pile.
I hate books when I meander innocently into one of my favourite bookshops – say Fullers, the State Cinema or, when in Melbourne, the St Kilda/Carlton Readings. Usually within five minutes I espy half a dozen or so tomes that would certainly be worth the dough to buy and read – that is, until I remember, yes, that pile beside the bed. The other day, just inside the door of the first establishment listed, I spotted a copy of ‘Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation’ by Judith Mackrell and it immediately piqued my interest. Of course that gilded age is all the rage at the minute because of a certain film doing the rounds, and though I was sorely tempted I – you guessed it – remembered that pile. As it is, I am currently reading of one of those dangerous women, Scott Fitzgerald’s missus in ‘Zelda’, a fictionalized account by Therese Anne Fowler. Another of the Jazz Age six is the subject of a novel that sits near the top of said pile – ‘The Last Nude’ (Ellis Avery) on the life and times of the remarkable artist Tamara de Lempicka. So the volume was placed back in its spot and I wandered deeper into the emporium of books to see what else would tempt me – plenty, as it turns out, but I refrained.
Now the main reason for those piles, up north and down by the river, was because, in my final year of teaching, I stockpiled. I was fearful that my years of retirement would be chastened by impecuniousness, thus I’d need a goodly number of tomes to be ‘going on with’. It has since turned out that life post sixty isn’t as straightened as initially feared, but that doesn’t diminish the pile.
After reading Steven Carroll’s ‘A World of Other People’ there is another title that I now wished I had chased up and purchased - Lara Feigel’s ‘The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War’. You see this tome is a factual account of the lives of prominent literary figures during the London Blitz. Amongst those luminaries was TS Eliot – he of ‘The Wasteland’ and ‘Cats’ fame. I remember studying the former during my matriculation years, understanding very little of it, but still feeling it was ‘awesome’ - the work of a far superior mind to that of a callow provincial youth. And it is the one and same great man who features in ‘The World of Other People’. He is at first no literary behemoth, merely a roof-top warden, spotting fires around war torn Covent Garden. Carroll’s publication is loosely based around a poem from his celebrated ‘Four Quartets’ – his ‘flaming phoenix’ now taking the form of a crash landed Wellington bomber. Eliot’s fellow spotter is an ‘engaged’ young woman, Iris. In a state of co-incidence she later encounters the pilot of that plane, a clearly disturbed Australian airman, in a London park. Despite his damaged persona, she commits to a very truncated affair – truncated (spoiler alert) due to his sad and early demise. His is not the sort of death usually associated with Bomber Command.
It is a pretty simple tale really, and there’s the rub. Pared back to its bare bones, there is not much more than a short story in it – a novella at most. And now comes the reason I hate writers – or, at least, writers of Carroll’s calibre.
Despite the joy I receive from producing my own scribblings, I could not possibly, even with enough years given back to me, match the expertise of wordsmithery that Carroll produces in this resonating publication. Out from a very simple storyline he has crafted a work of rare class; one where beauty lies within his expertise with language rather than the narrative alone. He is able to layer and layer to weave a luminous, gossamer web of delight – heartrendingly poignant in its depiction of the waste that is war.
The short time the two lovers have together is intensely handled. He also fills Iris’ decision to reluctantly part with the Aussie pilot to the brim with a sense of the waste of it all. There’s that word again – ‘waste’. They have but one window of time for reconciliation, but that is so gut-wrenchingly taken from them by something so simple, but so cruel, that any reader with a modicum of soul knows she/he is under the spell of a master.
Despite the comparison, I fully intend to plod on with my ruminations and attempts at fiction with the wonderful encouragement of a cherished daughter and partner. Besides, it keeps me out of mischief. If I wrote less that pile of books would diminish with some alacrity, allowing me to further indulge in binges of book buying. But writing for me brings equal joy to the reading – so my conundrum will remain.
I really do hate books. I really do hate writers.
Hell, I read the reviews in the weekend broadsheets and time and time again I encounter something right up my alley – then I remember that huge pile that sits awaiting beside my bed – not to mention the shelves full languishing back up north in Burnie. So I hate books when it means I have to think more than twice about adding another one to that pile.
I hate books when I meander innocently into one of my favourite bookshops – say Fullers, the State Cinema or, when in Melbourne, the St Kilda/Carlton Readings. Usually within five minutes I espy half a dozen or so tomes that would certainly be worth the dough to buy and read – that is, until I remember, yes, that pile beside the bed. The other day, just inside the door of the first establishment listed, I spotted a copy of ‘Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation’ by Judith Mackrell and it immediately piqued my interest. Of course that gilded age is all the rage at the minute because of a certain film doing the rounds, and though I was sorely tempted I – you guessed it – remembered that pile. As it is, I am currently reading of one of those dangerous women, Scott Fitzgerald’s missus in ‘Zelda’, a fictionalized account by Therese Anne Fowler. Another of the Jazz Age six is the subject of a novel that sits near the top of said pile – ‘The Last Nude’ (Ellis Avery) on the life and times of the remarkable artist Tamara de Lempicka. So the volume was placed back in its spot and I wandered deeper into the emporium of books to see what else would tempt me – plenty, as it turns out, but I refrained.
Now the main reason for those piles, up north and down by the river, was because, in my final year of teaching, I stockpiled. I was fearful that my years of retirement would be chastened by impecuniousness, thus I’d need a goodly number of tomes to be ‘going on with’. It has since turned out that life post sixty isn’t as straightened as initially feared, but that doesn’t diminish the pile.
After reading Steven Carroll’s ‘A World of Other People’ there is another title that I now wished I had chased up and purchased - Lara Feigel’s ‘The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War’. You see this tome is a factual account of the lives of prominent literary figures during the London Blitz. Amongst those luminaries was TS Eliot – he of ‘The Wasteland’ and ‘Cats’ fame. I remember studying the former during my matriculation years, understanding very little of it, but still feeling it was ‘awesome’ - the work of a far superior mind to that of a callow provincial youth. And it is the one and same great man who features in ‘The World of Other People’. He is at first no literary behemoth, merely a roof-top warden, spotting fires around war torn Covent Garden. Carroll’s publication is loosely based around a poem from his celebrated ‘Four Quartets’ – his ‘flaming phoenix’ now taking the form of a crash landed Wellington bomber. Eliot’s fellow spotter is an ‘engaged’ young woman, Iris. In a state of co-incidence she later encounters the pilot of that plane, a clearly disturbed Australian airman, in a London park. Despite his damaged persona, she commits to a very truncated affair – truncated (spoiler alert) due to his sad and early demise. His is not the sort of death usually associated with Bomber Command.
It is a pretty simple tale really, and there’s the rub. Pared back to its bare bones, there is not much more than a short story in it – a novella at most. And now comes the reason I hate writers – or, at least, writers of Carroll’s calibre.
Despite the joy I receive from producing my own scribblings, I could not possibly, even with enough years given back to me, match the expertise of wordsmithery that Carroll produces in this resonating publication. Out from a very simple storyline he has crafted a work of rare class; one where beauty lies within his expertise with language rather than the narrative alone. He is able to layer and layer to weave a luminous, gossamer web of delight – heartrendingly poignant in its depiction of the waste that is war.
The short time the two lovers have together is intensely handled. He also fills Iris’ decision to reluctantly part with the Aussie pilot to the brim with a sense of the waste of it all. There’s that word again – ‘waste’. They have but one window of time for reconciliation, but that is so gut-wrenchingly taken from them by something so simple, but so cruel, that any reader with a modicum of soul knows she/he is under the spell of a master.
Despite the comparison, I fully intend to plod on with my ruminations and attempts at fiction with the wonderful encouragement of a cherished daughter and partner. Besides, it keeps me out of mischief. If I wrote less that pile of books would diminish with some alacrity, allowing me to further indulge in binges of book buying. But writing for me brings equal joy to the reading – so my conundrum will remain.
I really do hate books. I really do hate writers.
July 16, 2024
‘There is meaning here, the voice says, but you must find it yourself.’
T.S. Eliot and his poetry, especially `Little Gidding' (1942) from Four Quartets, play a significant part in this novel. The poem is presented as a consequence of what Eliot saw, one night, as a fire-watcher on the Faber and Faber building in London at the end of the Blitz during World War II.
Iris, a fellow fire-watcher, was with Eliot that night, and later receives a copy of `Little Gidding' inscribed `To Iris, who was there'.
Jim, a pilot from Essendon in Victoria, is the pilot of a disabled Wellington - with a dove painted on its side - which flies over Iris and Eliot that night. The plane crashes, with Jim the only survivor. Jim cannot remember all the details of the crash and the period immediately afterwards.
`The dove descending breaks the air/ With flame of incandescent terror'
Sometime after the accident, Jim and Iris meet in a park. Iris asks Jim if he is alright, and leaves him with a rose. They are attracted to each other, and have an affair: war is everywhere around them with no end in sight; every moment is precious and to be experienced. Jim is tormented by the plane crash and what happened to his crew, while Iris is conscious that she has a previous understanding with another man. She tells Jim of this, and when their telephone conversation ends, so does their contact.
`Then there is special time, time that contains incident and meaning in ways that ordinary time doesn't.'
Sometime later Jim attends Eliot's reading of `Little Gidding' at St Stephen's, South Kensington, hoping to see Iris there as it is the church she used to attend and where she met Eliot. Iris is not there, and Jim thinks of leaving. But then he hears Eliot's `poet's voice' - a voice that is detached from the emotions that surely create poetry, he stays, and finds memories in the words.
`What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.'
I picked this novel up a few hours ago and could not put it down. The characters of Jim and Iris are finely drawn and, having listened to a recording of T.S Eliot read some of his poems I have my own sense of his `poet's voice'. `Little Gidding' is a great poem: what Eliot saw and wrote is a very different telling of what Jim experienced. And that, for me, is one of the messages in the novel: perception and reality, memory and experience each depend on different individual assessments. Relationships have strengths, weaknesses and different dimensions. Reality is relative and memory is flawed.
This is Steven Carroll's ninth and most recent novel. It is the second of his novels in which T.S. Eliot plays a part.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
T.S. Eliot and his poetry, especially `Little Gidding' (1942) from Four Quartets, play a significant part in this novel. The poem is presented as a consequence of what Eliot saw, one night, as a fire-watcher on the Faber and Faber building in London at the end of the Blitz during World War II.
Iris, a fellow fire-watcher, was with Eliot that night, and later receives a copy of `Little Gidding' inscribed `To Iris, who was there'.
Jim, a pilot from Essendon in Victoria, is the pilot of a disabled Wellington - with a dove painted on its side - which flies over Iris and Eliot that night. The plane crashes, with Jim the only survivor. Jim cannot remember all the details of the crash and the period immediately afterwards.
`The dove descending breaks the air/ With flame of incandescent terror'
Sometime after the accident, Jim and Iris meet in a park. Iris asks Jim if he is alright, and leaves him with a rose. They are attracted to each other, and have an affair: war is everywhere around them with no end in sight; every moment is precious and to be experienced. Jim is tormented by the plane crash and what happened to his crew, while Iris is conscious that she has a previous understanding with another man. She tells Jim of this, and when their telephone conversation ends, so does their contact.
`Then there is special time, time that contains incident and meaning in ways that ordinary time doesn't.'
Sometime later Jim attends Eliot's reading of `Little Gidding' at St Stephen's, South Kensington, hoping to see Iris there as it is the church she used to attend and where she met Eliot. Iris is not there, and Jim thinks of leaving. But then he hears Eliot's `poet's voice' - a voice that is detached from the emotions that surely create poetry, he stays, and finds memories in the words.
`What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.'
I picked this novel up a few hours ago and could not put it down. The characters of Jim and Iris are finely drawn and, having listened to a recording of T.S Eliot read some of his poems I have my own sense of his `poet's voice'. `Little Gidding' is a great poem: what Eliot saw and wrote is a very different telling of what Jim experienced. And that, for me, is one of the messages in the novel: perception and reality, memory and experience each depend on different individual assessments. Relationships have strengths, weaknesses and different dimensions. Reality is relative and memory is flawed.
This is Steven Carroll's ninth and most recent novel. It is the second of his novels in which T.S. Eliot plays a part.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
July 12, 2015
A World of Other People is set in London during the blitz. The first chapter opens with a man escaping from ‘F for Freddie’, a bomber that has crash landed in a field. But confusingly, the chapter is dated March 1946. The bomber’s pilot will not remember anything more than crawling out of the wreck before it explodes, the only survivor. He awakens to:
‘Smiles all round, but other people’s smiles. Laugher, but other people’s. A world of other people.’
The story switches back to May, 1941, where Iris has just accepted a proposal of marriage from a young man about to leave for the front. But she’s ambivalent about the engagement and wonders what love really is. In addition to her boring civil service job, Iris is also a fire-watcher, checking for fires on the roof of a publisher’s house with T.S Elliot. But on her first night, there’s no raid, just a low flying Wellington bomber, with flames coming from the engine, flying very low over London. Elliot only reappears once more but his presence and poem are integral to how the story plays out.
Then another jump forward in time, to September 1942, when Iris meets Jim, a young Australian fighter pilot who has been injured. He is sitting on a park bench, drenched in the misery of post-traumatic stress. ‘Are you all right?’ Iris asks and Jim answers that he is not. So begins a love story and the connection to all other elements of the story.
Carroll used the T.S Elliot poem ‘Little Gidding’, the last of a quartet, as the basis for this story. The first poem, ‘Burnt Norton’ inspired Carroll’s The Lost Life, for which A World of Other People is the sequel. The poetic meaning and symbolism of this story were largely lost on me because I know almost nothing about poetry, but that made not a blind bit of difference.
This is one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful and affecting books I’ve read in a long while. The pace is slow and plot is almost non-existent but the structure is a masterpiece. The way the small elements of scenes are woven together to lead inexorably to the devastating climax shows what a skilled writer Carroll is. Only the most crucial dialogue is included and sometimes the same scene is told over again from a different character’s point of view. The painstakingly slow scenes, where the same ideas tend to loop back on each other, repeating themselves over and over, takes some getting used to but really draw the reader into the interior life of the characters, if you are prepared to stay the distance with them. Carroll said at the Sydney Writers Festival that he was intrigued by the rhythm and circularity of poetry and has tried to incorporate it into his own writing.
This book doesn’t aim to immerse the reader in life during the London blitz or demonstrate the skill and daring of fighter pilots and its slow speed won’t appeal to everyone. But the way this book ends made me cry and its one of the most beautifully written and structured stories I’ve read in a long time.
‘Smiles all round, but other people’s smiles. Laugher, but other people’s. A world of other people.’
The story switches back to May, 1941, where Iris has just accepted a proposal of marriage from a young man about to leave for the front. But she’s ambivalent about the engagement and wonders what love really is. In addition to her boring civil service job, Iris is also a fire-watcher, checking for fires on the roof of a publisher’s house with T.S Elliot. But on her first night, there’s no raid, just a low flying Wellington bomber, with flames coming from the engine, flying very low over London. Elliot only reappears once more but his presence and poem are integral to how the story plays out.
Then another jump forward in time, to September 1942, when Iris meets Jim, a young Australian fighter pilot who has been injured. He is sitting on a park bench, drenched in the misery of post-traumatic stress. ‘Are you all right?’ Iris asks and Jim answers that he is not. So begins a love story and the connection to all other elements of the story.
Carroll used the T.S Elliot poem ‘Little Gidding’, the last of a quartet, as the basis for this story. The first poem, ‘Burnt Norton’ inspired Carroll’s The Lost Life, for which A World of Other People is the sequel. The poetic meaning and symbolism of this story were largely lost on me because I know almost nothing about poetry, but that made not a blind bit of difference.
This is one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful and affecting books I’ve read in a long while. The pace is slow and plot is almost non-existent but the structure is a masterpiece. The way the small elements of scenes are woven together to lead inexorably to the devastating climax shows what a skilled writer Carroll is. Only the most crucial dialogue is included and sometimes the same scene is told over again from a different character’s point of view. The painstakingly slow scenes, where the same ideas tend to loop back on each other, repeating themselves over and over, takes some getting used to but really draw the reader into the interior life of the characters, if you are prepared to stay the distance with them. Carroll said at the Sydney Writers Festival that he was intrigued by the rhythm and circularity of poetry and has tried to incorporate it into his own writing.
This book doesn’t aim to immerse the reader in life during the London blitz or demonstrate the skill and daring of fighter pilots and its slow speed won’t appeal to everyone. But the way this book ends made me cry and its one of the most beautifully written and structured stories I’ve read in a long time.
November 21, 2017
Egged on by Naomi and Travellin’ Penguin after I read The Lost Life, I decided to continue onto Book 2 of Steven Carroll’s Eliot Quartet instead of reading something else. And I’m glad I did, it’s a wonderful book.
TS Eliot is both a major and a minor character in A World of Other People. His appearances are brief and he is aloof and remote – but his poem ‘Little Gidding’ (from Four Quartets) is more significant than he knows. It is a decade since the events of The Lost Life and now he is a firewatcher on the roof of Faber and Faber, where he is joined for the nightly vigil by Iris, a young woman with a boring job in the army but who also does her duty by night during the Blitz.
Duty is a key theme in the novel. Iris has been gently manipulated into becoming engaged to a young man called Frank. It’s a sign of the times: he’s a nice young man, but she’s not in love with him. She just didn’t know how to say no when he was about to report for duty and produced the ring. He wants someone to wait for him, to be his girl and to sustain him through danger. She knows that, she knows he might get killed, and she knows the situation is because of the war.
But before Iris knows it she is trapped in the cliché of the eternal triangle. In a park in Bloomsbury, she sees a young pilot sitting still like a statue, and she goes to see if he is alright. Jim is suffering from what we now call PTSD and survivor guilt, after his bomber crashed with the loss of all his crew. And though she’s initially wary of getting involved, and he thinks he is doomed never to rejoin the world of other people, they fall in love.
Carroll is much too good a writer to reduce this to a slushy wartime romance.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/11/21/a...
TS Eliot is both a major and a minor character in A World of Other People. His appearances are brief and he is aloof and remote – but his poem ‘Little Gidding’ (from Four Quartets) is more significant than he knows. It is a decade since the events of The Lost Life and now he is a firewatcher on the roof of Faber and Faber, where he is joined for the nightly vigil by Iris, a young woman with a boring job in the army but who also does her duty by night during the Blitz.
Duty is a key theme in the novel. Iris has been gently manipulated into becoming engaged to a young man called Frank. It’s a sign of the times: he’s a nice young man, but she’s not in love with him. She just didn’t know how to say no when he was about to report for duty and produced the ring. He wants someone to wait for him, to be his girl and to sustain him through danger. She knows that, she knows he might get killed, and she knows the situation is because of the war.
It’s the war. It’s the war doing that. It’s one of those phrases going round. And she doesn’t like it. For she is trained in language and this phrase is sloppy. There’s something wheeled out and mechanical to it. A substitute for thinking. She swears she’ll never use it again. The war may reduce her to using beetroot juice for lipstick when the occasion arises, but she is determined it will not reduce her to cliché. (p.19)
But before Iris knows it she is trapped in the cliché of the eternal triangle. In a park in Bloomsbury, she sees a young pilot sitting still like a statue, and she goes to see if he is alright. Jim is suffering from what we now call PTSD and survivor guilt, after his bomber crashed with the loss of all his crew. And though she’s initially wary of getting involved, and he thinks he is doomed never to rejoin the world of other people, they fall in love.
Carroll is much too good a writer to reduce this to a slushy wartime romance.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/11/21/a...
August 13, 2024
Very good, I will read more Steven Carroll and don’t know how he’s passed me by so far.
I do wish I hadn’t read a GR review with an unflagged spoiler, which removed dramatic tension for me. A lesson.
I do wish I hadn’t read a GR review with an unflagged spoiler, which removed dramatic tension for me. A lesson.
July 25, 2015
I had to have a small, non-life threatening but nonetheless uncomfortable operation. After my family dropped me at the hospital I realised I hadn't brought any reading that was truely engrossing so when they wanted to help me recuperate I suggested they find me a good novel. When they returned from Manuka with A World of Other people I was in for a real treat. I couldn't sleep very well in the hospital bed so I read through most of the night. I loved this book. It is slow and reflective, deeply poetic and gripped me right from the beginning.
I loved that it was layers of real events and fiction woven together. I loved that the story arc didn't really make complete sense until the end and yet it was never needlessly frustrating or difficult to follow. It was gentle and ponderous like a whale slowly gliding through a clear ocean. Not a great deal happens and yet you feel like you have experienced life in all its poignant complexity. Love, longing, distance, empathy, reserve, grabbing at life and life slipping away.
The story is set in London during the blitz and involves a young woman who wants to be a writer, a young Australian pilot who suffers in the war and T.S. Eliot who would go on to define modernity for us through his bleak poems.
I will read more of Steven Carroll.
I loved that it was layers of real events and fiction woven together. I loved that the story arc didn't really make complete sense until the end and yet it was never needlessly frustrating or difficult to follow. It was gentle and ponderous like a whale slowly gliding through a clear ocean. Not a great deal happens and yet you feel like you have experienced life in all its poignant complexity. Love, longing, distance, empathy, reserve, grabbing at life and life slipping away.
The story is set in London during the blitz and involves a young woman who wants to be a writer, a young Australian pilot who suffers in the war and T.S. Eliot who would go on to define modernity for us through his bleak poems.
I will read more of Steven Carroll.
April 10, 2014
I expected better of this novel, having enjoyed Carroll’s previous work and having listened to him talk about this book at Adelaide Writers Week. Carroll has a fascination with the work of T. S .Eliot and this is the second novel in a proposed set of four, each connected to one of Eliot’s Four Quartets.
The kernel of this novel is the possible inspiration for the lines in Eliot’s Little Gidding:
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Eliot was a fire watcher during the London Blitz and Carroll imagines him seeing a troubled Wellington bomber, with an engine aflame, emerging from the clouds over the roofs of London. Painted on the aircraft’s side is a white dove.
The novel is not, however, much about Eliot. The main characters are Iris (a young fellow firewatcher and would-be writer) and Jim, the Australian pilot of the doomed plane, of which he is the only survivor. Jim and Iris meet subsequently and fall in love but a quarrel leads to tragic consequences. The story seemed contrived and the unadorned and conversational prose style (which works so well in Carroll’s Glenroy trilogy) often seems inappropriate to the intentions of this book.
The most interesting aspect of the novel is Carroll’s exploration of the relationship between fiction to life and how writing can distance us from or immerse us in the intensity of the moment. The novel is rich in literary references, not only to Eliot.
I would have given this 2 ½ stars but have opted for 3 because the last third of the novel engaged my interests and emotions. I am also sure it would repay a closer reading, especially if I renewed my acquaintance with the Four Quartets which I haven’t read for over 50 years!
The kernel of this novel is the possible inspiration for the lines in Eliot’s Little Gidding:
The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Eliot was a fire watcher during the London Blitz and Carroll imagines him seeing a troubled Wellington bomber, with an engine aflame, emerging from the clouds over the roofs of London. Painted on the aircraft’s side is a white dove.
The novel is not, however, much about Eliot. The main characters are Iris (a young fellow firewatcher and would-be writer) and Jim, the Australian pilot of the doomed plane, of which he is the only survivor. Jim and Iris meet subsequently and fall in love but a quarrel leads to tragic consequences. The story seemed contrived and the unadorned and conversational prose style (which works so well in Carroll’s Glenroy trilogy) often seems inappropriate to the intentions of this book.
The most interesting aspect of the novel is Carroll’s exploration of the relationship between fiction to life and how writing can distance us from or immerse us in the intensity of the moment. The novel is rich in literary references, not only to Eliot.
I would have given this 2 ½ stars but have opted for 3 because the last third of the novel engaged my interests and emotions. I am also sure it would repay a closer reading, especially if I renewed my acquaintance with the Four Quartets which I haven’t read for over 50 years!
November 12, 2013
I am a fan of Steven Carroll and I loved this book, it is one to be re-read many times.
His writing style is beautifully concise and the "between the lines" bits are packed in this moving and evocative story centred around WWII. War has always provided much inspiration for fabulous literature in the past and will continue to do so, but it was so good to be able to compare the idealistic view (Eliot) with the realistic one in Iris. I think Carroll has absolutely nailed the precious fragility of life, whether during wartime or not, in his characters of Iris and Jim.
Will have to join Hannah Kent on next year's Franklin List.
His writing style is beautifully concise and the "between the lines" bits are packed in this moving and evocative story centred around WWII. War has always provided much inspiration for fabulous literature in the past and will continue to do so, but it was so good to be able to compare the idealistic view (Eliot) with the realistic one in Iris. I think Carroll has absolutely nailed the precious fragility of life, whether during wartime or not, in his characters of Iris and Jim.
Will have to join Hannah Kent on next year's Franklin List.
January 18, 2022
A World of Other People is the second entry in Steven Carroll's Eliot Quartet. Each installment is based on one of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, and so this one draws on "Little Gidding", replete with its images of flames and doves from Eliot's time as a fire watcher during WWII.
Part One (London, March 1946) opens with the crash landing of a plane, "F" for Freddie, in a country field. The plane bears the image of a dove on the fuselage. One of the occupants, Jim, survives the crash and, despite the danger, goes to the aid of the second pilot. There is an explosion and everything goes black. He wakes up later in hospital, unable to remember what happened. The section closes by describing a young woman taking her first published story to an office. (We don't know it yet, but the woman is Iris, and the story is her fictionalized retelling of what happened to Jim in the war - hence the 1946 date. The office she is going to visit is T.S. Eliot's, at the publishing firm Faber and Faber.)
Part 2 (May 11th, 1941). Iris goes to visit a Catholic church in Covent Garden, just for the atmosphere; her regular church is St Stephens in South Kensington, where T.S. Eliot serves as a churchwarden. While doing some drama during her time at Oxford, Iris had met a young man named Frank. Before going off to the war, Frank had proposed to her, and she had taken his ring out of a sense of obligation.
Iris works in the public service at Whitehall, a job she got through her flamboyant flatmate, Pip. Feeling detached from the war because of her desk job, Iris volunteers to be a fire watcher, a position she shares with T.S. Eliot. One night, during the Blitz, they witness the strange sight of a bomber with a dove painted on it crash landing. Iris watches Eliot's perversely excited reaction to this event, which he will inspire his poem "Little Gidding".
Part 3 (September 1942). Iris walks to the park to have her lunch. After reading a letter from Frank, she notices a young man, sitting as still as a statue. When a plane flies over, he breaks his silence and cries. Iris goes over and asks him if he is okay, and he confirms that he is not. Traumatized by the plane crash and the death of his fellow soldiers, Jim feels as though he is alone in the world, cut off from the world of other people. Iris briefly chats with Jim but, needing to return to work after lunch, she hands him a rose and promises that she will meet him again the following week.
The narrative focuses on Jim. He is originally from Melbourne, Australia, where he played football for Essendon. At university, he studied with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The crash has damaged his ankle, so that he now walks with a pronounced limp. Looking at the rose, he feels a sudden hope that Iris can lead him out of his solitude. When Iris sees Eliot that night, she notices that he, too, appears to be detached from the world of people.
Three weeks later, and Jim and Iris have fallen in love. He watches her playing musical chairs at a pub. They note the difference between clock time and lived time. For the first time, Iris feels as though she has joined the "secret society" of people who know what love is. Iris takes Jim back to her place for the night. He is impressed to learn that she knows Eliot.
On another day, they go for a walk in the park. Iris is planning to tell Jim about her arrangement with Frank, but before she can do so, he freaks out about a woman whose child is crying - it seems to trigger some trauma in him.
Jim returns to the base. He reads some letters from his parents, informing him that his friend Lionel has been killed in the war. Iris, meanwhile, talks about being in love with Pip. She discovers that Jim has accidentally left behind his silver lighter at her place.
Part 4 (October 1942). Iris gets a call from Frank's mother, informing her that Frank has gone missing. She feels a sudden wave of guilt and panic, feeling somehow, magically responsible for his fate. In the mail, she receives a copy of "Little Gidding", which Eliot has personally inscribed for her. The poem reinforces her feelings about Frank. Going out with Pip, she now suddenly feels detached from the world of other people.
Jim calls Iris at work and voices his fears that she will leave him. He calls her again a couple of days later, and the awkwardness between them leads her to confess about Frank. Jim hangs up, and Iris realizes she has no way to contact him. A depressed Iris contemplates Jim's lighter and how much longer its flame will last, while Jim has fantasies of returning home.
Part 5 (December 1942). Jim sees a notice in the newspaper announcing that Eliot will be giving a poetry reading at St Stephen's. He decides to attend in the hope of seeing Iris. Iris intends to go, but at the last minute she has to fill in for someone else on fire-watching duties. Eliot reads "Little Gidding", and the images once again trigger Jim's trauma, and he remembers what really happened. Eliot and Jim exchange a look of mutual recognition, before Jim departs. He heads to the historical township of Little Gidding that inspired Eliot's poem and dies there in the snow.
Iris receives a phone call from the military base, informing her of Jim's death. She gets the captain's reluctant permission for her to see his possessions before they are sent back to his family. She takes back the photograph of herself, as well as the dead rose she presented Jim on their first meeting, which he had placed between the pages of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. This glimpse into Jim's private world gives Iris a feeling of intimacy and connection with him.
Part 6 (January 1943). Iris finds out from a higher-up what really happened to Jim's plane. Rather than landing in a country field, it had actually crashed in Regent's Park. To prevent a panic, the authorities had ordered the site to be cleaned up immediately, leaving no trace. Iris meets Frank at a pub, and they amicably call off their engagement.
Part 7 (March 1946). Iris now lives alone, her friend Pip having married. The city is still scarred from the bombing. She sits in the park, contemplating Jim and Eliot, and starts crying. A man comes and asks if she is all right. She passes the pub where she played musical chairs, and contemplates the necessity of living life as it presents itself.
A World of Other People is not quite as good as its predecessor, The Lost Life. In part, that is because the story is somewhat weaker, but also because the couple at its center are far less engaging and sympathetic than Catherine and Daniel in the first book (in fact, I rather despised Jim). What makes the book worthwhile reading, though, is Carroll's rethinking of the key themes of Eliot's work, and in this respect A World of Other People is a definite success.
Part One (London, March 1946) opens with the crash landing of a plane, "F" for Freddie, in a country field. The plane bears the image of a dove on the fuselage. One of the occupants, Jim, survives the crash and, despite the danger, goes to the aid of the second pilot. There is an explosion and everything goes black. He wakes up later in hospital, unable to remember what happened. The section closes by describing a young woman taking her first published story to an office. (We don't know it yet, but the woman is Iris, and the story is her fictionalized retelling of what happened to Jim in the war - hence the 1946 date. The office she is going to visit is T.S. Eliot's, at the publishing firm Faber and Faber.)
Part 2 (May 11th, 1941). Iris goes to visit a Catholic church in Covent Garden, just for the atmosphere; her regular church is St Stephens in South Kensington, where T.S. Eliot serves as a churchwarden. While doing some drama during her time at Oxford, Iris had met a young man named Frank. Before going off to the war, Frank had proposed to her, and she had taken his ring out of a sense of obligation.
Iris works in the public service at Whitehall, a job she got through her flamboyant flatmate, Pip. Feeling detached from the war because of her desk job, Iris volunteers to be a fire watcher, a position she shares with T.S. Eliot. One night, during the Blitz, they witness the strange sight of a bomber with a dove painted on it crash landing. Iris watches Eliot's perversely excited reaction to this event, which he will inspire his poem "Little Gidding".
Part 3 (September 1942). Iris walks to the park to have her lunch. After reading a letter from Frank, she notices a young man, sitting as still as a statue. When a plane flies over, he breaks his silence and cries. Iris goes over and asks him if he is okay, and he confirms that he is not. Traumatized by the plane crash and the death of his fellow soldiers, Jim feels as though he is alone in the world, cut off from the world of other people. Iris briefly chats with Jim but, needing to return to work after lunch, she hands him a rose and promises that she will meet him again the following week.
The narrative focuses on Jim. He is originally from Melbourne, Australia, where he played football for Essendon. At university, he studied with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The crash has damaged his ankle, so that he now walks with a pronounced limp. Looking at the rose, he feels a sudden hope that Iris can lead him out of his solitude. When Iris sees Eliot that night, she notices that he, too, appears to be detached from the world of people.
Three weeks later, and Jim and Iris have fallen in love. He watches her playing musical chairs at a pub. They note the difference between clock time and lived time. For the first time, Iris feels as though she has joined the "secret society" of people who know what love is. Iris takes Jim back to her place for the night. He is impressed to learn that she knows Eliot.
On another day, they go for a walk in the park. Iris is planning to tell Jim about her arrangement with Frank, but before she can do so, he freaks out about a woman whose child is crying - it seems to trigger some trauma in him.
Jim returns to the base. He reads some letters from his parents, informing him that his friend Lionel has been killed in the war. Iris, meanwhile, talks about being in love with Pip. She discovers that Jim has accidentally left behind his silver lighter at her place.
Part 4 (October 1942). Iris gets a call from Frank's mother, informing her that Frank has gone missing. She feels a sudden wave of guilt and panic, feeling somehow, magically responsible for his fate. In the mail, she receives a copy of "Little Gidding", which Eliot has personally inscribed for her. The poem reinforces her feelings about Frank. Going out with Pip, she now suddenly feels detached from the world of other people.
Jim calls Iris at work and voices his fears that she will leave him. He calls her again a couple of days later, and the awkwardness between them leads her to confess about Frank. Jim hangs up, and Iris realizes she has no way to contact him. A depressed Iris contemplates Jim's lighter and how much longer its flame will last, while Jim has fantasies of returning home.
Part 5 (December 1942). Jim sees a notice in the newspaper announcing that Eliot will be giving a poetry reading at St Stephen's. He decides to attend in the hope of seeing Iris. Iris intends to go, but at the last minute she has to fill in for someone else on fire-watching duties. Eliot reads "Little Gidding", and the images once again trigger Jim's trauma, and he remembers what really happened. Eliot and Jim exchange a look of mutual recognition, before Jim departs. He heads to the historical township of Little Gidding that inspired Eliot's poem and dies there in the snow.
Iris receives a phone call from the military base, informing her of Jim's death. She gets the captain's reluctant permission for her to see his possessions before they are sent back to his family. She takes back the photograph of herself, as well as the dead rose she presented Jim on their first meeting, which he had placed between the pages of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. This glimpse into Jim's private world gives Iris a feeling of intimacy and connection with him.
Part 6 (January 1943). Iris finds out from a higher-up what really happened to Jim's plane. Rather than landing in a country field, it had actually crashed in Regent's Park. To prevent a panic, the authorities had ordered the site to be cleaned up immediately, leaving no trace. Iris meets Frank at a pub, and they amicably call off their engagement.
Part 7 (March 1946). Iris now lives alone, her friend Pip having married. The city is still scarred from the bombing. She sits in the park, contemplating Jim and Eliot, and starts crying. A man comes and asks if she is all right. She passes the pub where she played musical chairs, and contemplates the necessity of living life as it presents itself.
A World of Other People is not quite as good as its predecessor, The Lost Life. In part, that is because the story is somewhat weaker, but also because the couple at its center are far less engaging and sympathetic than Catherine and Daniel in the first book (in fact, I rather despised Jim). What makes the book worthwhile reading, though, is Carroll's rethinking of the key themes of Eliot's work, and in this respect A World of Other People is a definite success.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 13, 2015
London, during WWII, is one of my favourite settings, and I enjoyed the touch of Australia in this novel. It is the story of two people forever changed by events in the war, and how they come to terms with them, or not, the impact of relationships and words. A very thoughtful and hopeful book, beautifully written, if a little repetitive.
May 2, 2016
An unexpected surprise that i liked this book. After the first third i was ready to give up but as i had to read it for a discussion i persisted and found i was soon entranced by this tragic story. The story is set in the 1941 during WWII when an Australian bomber pilot crashes his plane in London and is the only survivor.
May 21, 2014
There is something exquisite in the way that Steven Carroll puts a bunch of ordinary words together to make a collection of ordinary sentences into a work of quiet grace and beauty. This novella is utterly breathtaking.
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September 16, 2014Really enjoyed this book. Was very pacey and a window into the world of London during the second world war.
December 7, 2025
First off, like another reader, I just want to say (and this will hopefully help others) that there are two instances in this novel where the dates of a section don’t align with the following text. Part One – London March 1946 might align (in a metaphorical way) with the last section of the book but the date is really just confusing. England (without a date) would have been just as effective. The other section would you believe I now can’t find but it was a little jarring too and I know it was a reference to a month (not covered by the title of the section).
Secondly, the first half of the book is slightly ponderous, but when the story opens out emotionally into the second half, it does somehow add to the depth of feeling that both characters experience in this love affair.
In the first half the stage is set. We meet Jim, a traumatised Australian pilot and Iris a forthright English girl who works in the Treasury and also does fire watching duties with the famous poet T S Eliot on the roof of the Faber building.
The strength of this novel is the plot in the second half and how successfully Caroll immerses us in the time 1941-46 and the place London. We find out how Iris feels about the war and all the attending cliches it brings into everyone’s lives. We also discover she is involved in a very awkward engagement. Here she is thinking about the bombings.
“They have been bombed every night now for so long she can barely remember when it started. And it will happen again tonight. Of course. Every night they come over. From France, just over there. And it’s so terribly strange to think that just over there, not so very far away, twenty-one miles from coast to coast, close enough to see on a clear day, a young woman who reads and dreams of falling in love one day (or already has) is sitting in some town square eating a sandwich in her lunch break. Except she’s got Germans all around her. And her country’s not hers any more. And neither is her life.”
Here’s Jim:
“He has a room to himself now. They made him an officer, just for staying alive, he assumes. And the room came with being an officer. It’s a small one. But enough. He nods to the guard at the gate, and although they are perfectly familiar with each other nobody takes any chances and nothing is taken for granted, and so he shows his papers, the barrier lifts and he enters the base.”
It is amazing how well Carroll has crafted this story with the lovers’ fate tied up with the last quartet of Four Quartets. You’ll have to read the book to find out the how and why. Four and a half stars.
Secondly, the first half of the book is slightly ponderous, but when the story opens out emotionally into the second half, it does somehow add to the depth of feeling that both characters experience in this love affair.
In the first half the stage is set. We meet Jim, a traumatised Australian pilot and Iris a forthright English girl who works in the Treasury and also does fire watching duties with the famous poet T S Eliot on the roof of the Faber building.
The strength of this novel is the plot in the second half and how successfully Caroll immerses us in the time 1941-46 and the place London. We find out how Iris feels about the war and all the attending cliches it brings into everyone’s lives. We also discover she is involved in a very awkward engagement. Here she is thinking about the bombings.
“They have been bombed every night now for so long she can barely remember when it started. And it will happen again tonight. Of course. Every night they come over. From France, just over there. And it’s so terribly strange to think that just over there, not so very far away, twenty-one miles from coast to coast, close enough to see on a clear day, a young woman who reads and dreams of falling in love one day (or already has) is sitting in some town square eating a sandwich in her lunch break. Except she’s got Germans all around her. And her country’s not hers any more. And neither is her life.”
Here’s Jim:
“He has a room to himself now. They made him an officer, just for staying alive, he assumes. And the room came with being an officer. It’s a small one. But enough. He nods to the guard at the gate, and although they are perfectly familiar with each other nobody takes any chances and nothing is taken for granted, and so he shows his papers, the barrier lifts and he enters the base.”
It is amazing how well Carroll has crafted this story with the lovers’ fate tied up with the last quartet of Four Quartets. You’ll have to read the book to find out the how and why. Four and a half stars.
December 23, 2023
i actually liked this book, it was an easy and quick read given i usually take a century to finish a book.
the story was pretty interesting but it definitely could have gone into more detail, i need to know more about Frank for sure. but otherwise yea pretty good.
the story was pretty interesting but it definitely could have gone into more detail, i need to know more about Frank for sure. but otherwise yea pretty good.
July 11, 2015
This book is not pacey. I normally love a ripping yarn. This isn't one, but in the apparently slow pace of life in London during the blitz, Steven Carroll brings out the poignancy of depression, love, honor and commitment, the need to fit in.
My favorite theme, however, was our need to make meaning of our lives and our actions. In the middle of the blitz, rather than feeling overwhelmed by helplessness, Iris feels herself responsible for everything.
A truly amazing insight into the human psyche.
My favorite theme, however, was our need to make meaning of our lives and our actions. In the middle of the blitz, rather than feeling overwhelmed by helplessness, Iris feels herself responsible for everything.
A truly amazing insight into the human psyche.
July 21, 2014
Meaghan and Mandy recommended this good read and I'm so glad they did. Set during, and just after the London blitz, it is a love story of the times. Beautifully written in a style that reminded me of a pared back Ian McEwan, I look forward to reading more of this less well known? Australian author.
November 18, 2019
"He is one of those who bring their own dark clouds wherever they go. He keeps them on a string. They are always there, even on the brightest of days. It takes only a chance remark and he tugs their strings, drags them down, and blots out the sun. "
February 17, 2015
I found this book to be incredibly visceral and moving. I loved the restraint of the descriptions of Mr Eliot and really enjoy the repetitive nature of Carroll's writing.
December 15, 2023
Couldn’t warm to this one. Definitely not for me.
April 15, 2018
This is book 2 of the Eliot Quartet, and like book 1 the message of this book is to grab life and live it passionately and fully while you can. Unfortunately for the main characters in this book, that message is learned too late.
This novel is set in London in 1942. Jim is an Australian bomber pilot whose plane crash lands killing all the crew except Jim. The plane explodes shortly after impact leaving Jim with memory loss compounded by being deliberately told lies by those in command. Suffering from PTSD and unable to recall all the events of that last fateful bombing mission, Jim is a hollow man who feels removed from society. He feels as if he is living in a world of other people.
Iris is "engaged" to Frank, who has left for the war. She does not love Frank, but felt unable to say no to him when he asked her to wear his ring and be the person back home that he could write to. Iris doesn't wear Frank's ring and does not imagine the relationship will survive the war, but she is there for Frank to write to.
Iris works for the civil service by day and volunteers as a fire-watcher at night, where she spends one day a week with Mr Thomas Eliot and a couple of other men, watching for fires ignited by falling bombs from the roof of the Bloomsbury Press. One night they see Jim's plane burst out of the clouds with one of its engines on fire and are all mesmerised by the sight.
Jim and Iris meet accidentally one day and there is a connection between them that Iris describes as 'boom' and which pulls Jim out of his depression and back into the life of the world. Neither of them is aware that they have the shared memory of Jim's last fiery flight.
Mr Eliot writes his poem, "Little Gidding" and sends a copy to Iris which arrives the same day that Iris learns that Frank is missing in action. Iris interprets the poem as meaning that she must not waste her life chasing love and feels that Frank has gone missing because she has not been true to him, so she breaks off her relationship with Jim.
T.S. Eliot gives a public reading of his poem and Jim goes along in the hope of encountering Iris. Iris is not there, but a line from the poem unblocks Jim's suppressed memory of the crash and the awfulness and hideousness of the loss of his crewmates and his inability to save one of the gunners trapped in the tail comes flooding back to Jim. Jim cannot cope with the trauma of these memories and the loss of Iris and he walks to the village of Little Gidding where he lies down in the snow and dies.
The effect of Thomas Eliot's poem on the lives of Jim and Iris is monumental. Iris realises that Eliot's view of life is wrong and that life should be lived with brazen happiness if possible and that she should never stop chasing life and love. But this realisation comes too late to save Jim.
Once again, Steven Carroll has given us a beautifully written story with a wonderful evocation of time and place. T.S. Eliot is a very minor character in this book, but his impact on Iris and Jim is huge. There were parts of the story which felt a bit repetitious, where we spent too much time in Iris's head but overall it works really well.
This novel is set in London in 1942. Jim is an Australian bomber pilot whose plane crash lands killing all the crew except Jim. The plane explodes shortly after impact leaving Jim with memory loss compounded by being deliberately told lies by those in command. Suffering from PTSD and unable to recall all the events of that last fateful bombing mission, Jim is a hollow man who feels removed from society. He feels as if he is living in a world of other people.
Iris is "engaged" to Frank, who has left for the war. She does not love Frank, but felt unable to say no to him when he asked her to wear his ring and be the person back home that he could write to. Iris doesn't wear Frank's ring and does not imagine the relationship will survive the war, but she is there for Frank to write to.
Iris works for the civil service by day and volunteers as a fire-watcher at night, where she spends one day a week with Mr Thomas Eliot and a couple of other men, watching for fires ignited by falling bombs from the roof of the Bloomsbury Press. One night they see Jim's plane burst out of the clouds with one of its engines on fire and are all mesmerised by the sight.
Jim and Iris meet accidentally one day and there is a connection between them that Iris describes as 'boom' and which pulls Jim out of his depression and back into the life of the world. Neither of them is aware that they have the shared memory of Jim's last fiery flight.
Mr Eliot writes his poem, "Little Gidding" and sends a copy to Iris which arrives the same day that Iris learns that Frank is missing in action. Iris interprets the poem as meaning that she must not waste her life chasing love and feels that Frank has gone missing because she has not been true to him, so she breaks off her relationship with Jim.
T.S. Eliot gives a public reading of his poem and Jim goes along in the hope of encountering Iris. Iris is not there, but a line from the poem unblocks Jim's suppressed memory of the crash and the awfulness and hideousness of the loss of his crewmates and his inability to save one of the gunners trapped in the tail comes flooding back to Jim. Jim cannot cope with the trauma of these memories and the loss of Iris and he walks to the village of Little Gidding where he lies down in the snow and dies.
The effect of Thomas Eliot's poem on the lives of Jim and Iris is monumental. Iris realises that Eliot's view of life is wrong and that life should be lived with brazen happiness if possible and that she should never stop chasing life and love. But this realisation comes too late to save Jim.
Once again, Steven Carroll has given us a beautifully written story with a wonderful evocation of time and place. T.S. Eliot is a very minor character in this book, but his impact on Iris and Jim is huge. There were parts of the story which felt a bit repetitious, where we spent too much time in Iris's head but overall it works really well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 13, 2017
A young Australian pilot has been injured as a result of crash-landing his bomber after a raid during the early stages of WW2. All of his crew died, either before or immediately after the landing, and he is knocked out and injured as the plane explodes. Sometime later he encounters a young female writer in a park in central London. What starts off as a shy encounter develops into a love affair. But can it last? Particularly, as she has given a promise to another man who has joined the British Army. And he has developed PTSD as a result of the crash and loss of his crew. Their two stories become deeply intertwined as she and T.S. Eliot witnessed his landing and Eliot wrote a poem about it. Most of the action is in the heads of the two protagonists with the occasional dialogue involving third parties. I found it difficult to warm to this story at first, particularly as it is not my preferred genre. But after sticking with it, I found the story more interesting and intriguing. I give this story 4 stars out of 5.
April 13, 2021
I tried 'The Time we have Taken' some years ago and found it difficult so haven't tried anything by Carroll since. However this book is clearly the right book for me at the moment as I really enjoyed it. Not much actually happens, but it happens very artfully! I enjoyed the linking in with T S Eliot, and his poetry, and the writing itself is poetic and reflective. The setting is London 1941, and the action is the meeting and 'love at first sight' between Iris and Jim, a downed airman, haunted by his experience. We also have Frank, the man Iris accepted a ring from before he left for war, even though she isn't sure this means anything more than being a girl for him to write home to. I must hunt up 'Little Gidding' next.
September 26, 2023
The second in Steven Carroll's Eliot quartet, this book is simply beautiful - poignant, intense and richly evocative. The protagonist Iris finds herself inextricably torn between one course of action and another - a choice dictated by either "the runaway horse" of love or the "thin lipped armies of the self-righteous and all their thin-lipped advice".
It was some lines from T.S. Eliot's poem "Little Gidding" from his Four Quartets that inspired this story, in particular the following:
"The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire. "
It was some lines from T.S. Eliot's poem "Little Gidding" from his Four Quartets that inspired this story, in particular the following:
"The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire. "
August 25, 2021
I'm sure I have read Steven Carroll in the past, but I don't remember loving his writing as much as I did this book. Lyrical in places, but utterly authentic in it's portrayal of a wartime relationship predicated on a chance meeting in a park. The characters are beautifully written, and the links/coincidences in the narrative so believable. For some reasons I started the quartet at number two, but will certainly now read the rest of the series. It has also piqued my interest in the poetry of Eliot. A beautiful read!
September 5, 2017
I was so excited to read this as I was very interested in the premise of weaving Eliot and his poem Little Gidding into a novel. But I found it a very long thread, very repetitive and too long a bow to draw. The female character was annoying and the love at first sight described over and aver again was tedious. I clearly must have missed the parallels and connections to the poem itself because I just didn't think this was very good.
December 20, 2017
I must have a special affinity for London during the Blitz as here is another one. This one traces the love affair of Jim, an Australian pilot and Iris, a Londoner who is struggling to become a writer (and who is a bit star struck when she volunteers for fire watch duty on the same rooftop where T. S. Eliot is another volunteer). I really like this book. In the right hands, it would make a wonderful movie.
December 18, 2018
The characters in this story seemed to drift along- I didn’t get a sense of the fears of the war- either from the fire watcher or the pilot. Also the first chapter of the book was mystifying. It was dated after the war (March 1946) yet included Jim who had died during the war years?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 16, 2020
this book tried really hard to be deep and be like omg depressing eliot poetry woe is me. the good news is it succeeded most of the time. the bad news is sometimes it didn't. but it sure was depressing
April 2, 2021
At first I thought a 3 star book, but changed it to 4. It got to me the more I thought about it. In this one, Eliot was a more passive character than the others and I preferred that role. Clever ending as well.
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