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Unexploded
Unexploded is the much-anticipated new novel from Alison MacLeod.
May, 1940. On Park Crescent, Geoffrey and Evelyn Beaumont and their eight-year-old son, Philip, anxiously await news of the expected enemy landing on the beaches of Brighton.
It is a year of tension and change. Geoffrey becomes Superintendent of the enemy alien camp at the far reaches of town, while Philip is gripped by the rumour that Hitler will make Brighton's Royal Pavilion his English HQ. As the rumours continue to fly and the days tick on, Evelyn struggles to fall in with the war effort and the constraints of her role in life, and her thoughts become tinged with a mounting, indefinable desperation.
Then she meets Otto Gottlieb, a 'degenerate' German-Jewish painter and prisoner in her husband's internment camp. As Europe crumbles, Evelyn's and Otto's mutual distrust slowly begins to change into something else, which will shatter the structures on which her life, her family and her community rest.Love collides with fear, the power of art with the forces of war, and the lives of Evelyn, Otto and Geoffrey are changed irrevocably.
May, 1940. On Park Crescent, Geoffrey and Evelyn Beaumont and their eight-year-old son, Philip, anxiously await news of the expected enemy landing on the beaches of Brighton.
It is a year of tension and change. Geoffrey becomes Superintendent of the enemy alien camp at the far reaches of town, while Philip is gripped by the rumour that Hitler will make Brighton's Royal Pavilion his English HQ. As the rumours continue to fly and the days tick on, Evelyn struggles to fall in with the war effort and the constraints of her role in life, and her thoughts become tinged with a mounting, indefinable desperation.
Then she meets Otto Gottlieb, a 'degenerate' German-Jewish painter and prisoner in her husband's internment camp. As Europe crumbles, Evelyn's and Otto's mutual distrust slowly begins to change into something else, which will shatter the structures on which her life, her family and her community rest.Love collides with fear, the power of art with the forces of war, and the lives of Evelyn, Otto and Geoffrey are changed irrevocably.
337 pages, ebook
First published July 25, 2013
29 people are currently reading
2725 people want to read
About the author
Alison MacLeod
23 books109 followersAlison MacLeod is a novelist and short story writer. Her latest novel is TENDERNESS (2021/22), a Book of the Year for The New York Times, The Spectator, and The Hindustan Times. and a Best Paperback of 2022 for the Sunday Times. Her novel UNEXPLODED was long-listed for the Man-Booker Prize for Fiction, adapted for BBC Radio 4, and named one of the Observer‘s ‘Books of the Year’. Her short story collection ALL THE BELOVED GHOSTS was shortlisted for The Edge Hill Prize for best story collection in the UK and Ireland. It was a 'Best Book of 2017' for the Guardian, and a finalist for Canada’s 2017 Governor General’s Award for Fiction.
MacLeod was born in Montreal, Quebec of Nova Scotian parents and was raised in both Canada and the States. She is a citizen of both Canada and the U.K., and has lived in England since 1987. Brighton is her adopted home; she has lived in the city since 2000.
alison-macleod.com
MacLeod was born in Montreal, Quebec of Nova Scotian parents and was raised in both Canada and the States. She is a citizen of both Canada and the U.K., and has lived in England since 1987. Brighton is her adopted home; she has lived in the city since 2000.
alison-macleod.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
September 21, 2013
This is the book to read if you've had your fill of London Blitz narratives and everyone pulling together, victory gardens, Winston Churchill, the stiff upper lip, plucky Cockneys, courageous nursing sisters, and heroic but doomed RAF lads.
Unexploded picks up where Unity Mitford and Oswald Mosley left off, and shows us an unromanticized England where xenophobia, anti-Semitism and deprivation of civil liberties are prominent, as are petty selfishness and cowardice. Indeed, it's almost shocking when the book kicks off with the heroine, Evelyn, bitterly resenting her husband for putting patriotic duty above family. Your first reaction is "What's wrong with you? How can you be so selfish?" And then you realize MacLoed is telling a different kind of WW2 story, one which goes beyond the Land of Hope and Glory platitudes, to talk about people who might be someone you might actually meet or be, in Brighton or anywhere, then or now. Similarly, she early on messes with your perceptions of Geoffrey, first shown as a loving, uxurious (but yes, duty bound) husband - you think you know this Englishman from lore and film, but MacLoed won't hesitate to show you the petty prejudice and easy way with power, hinting, without saying, that what separates Geoffrey from his German counterparts is more milieu than fundamental difference. And so too Philip, their plucky (yes, that word) 8 year old son - thrilling not to Churchill on the radio, but to Lord Hee Haw, fantasizing about a Sunday tea with Hitler. This inversion of expectations is like a dip in the cold Brighton sea - bracing, surprising, but ultimately salutary.
There are a few too many coincidences in the plot, and the love story perhaps ventures into cliché where the rest of the novel does not. (If MacLoed fiercely resists romanticizing the English, she perhaps gives into the temptation a bit with her heroic Jewish refugees, passionate, rebellious and hard done by). Nonetheless, the book is interesting, vibrant and engrossing - I had a hard time putting it down, even when I knew how it must end, not only for Virginia Woolf (in a literary celebrity cameo) but for our hero and heroine as well.
Well worth the read.
Unexploded picks up where Unity Mitford and Oswald Mosley left off, and shows us an unromanticized England where xenophobia, anti-Semitism and deprivation of civil liberties are prominent, as are petty selfishness and cowardice. Indeed, it's almost shocking when the book kicks off with the heroine, Evelyn, bitterly resenting her husband for putting patriotic duty above family. Your first reaction is "What's wrong with you? How can you be so selfish?" And then you realize MacLoed is telling a different kind of WW2 story, one which goes beyond the Land of Hope and Glory platitudes, to talk about people who might be someone you might actually meet or be, in Brighton or anywhere, then or now. Similarly, she early on messes with your perceptions of Geoffrey, first shown as a loving, uxurious (but yes, duty bound) husband - you think you know this Englishman from lore and film, but MacLoed won't hesitate to show you the petty prejudice and easy way with power, hinting, without saying, that what separates Geoffrey from his German counterparts is more milieu than fundamental difference. And so too Philip, their plucky (yes, that word) 8 year old son - thrilling not to Churchill on the radio, but to Lord Hee Haw, fantasizing about a Sunday tea with Hitler. This inversion of expectations is like a dip in the cold Brighton sea - bracing, surprising, but ultimately salutary.
There are a few too many coincidences in the plot, and the love story perhaps ventures into cliché where the rest of the novel does not. (If MacLoed fiercely resists romanticizing the English, she perhaps gives into the temptation a bit with her heroic Jewish refugees, passionate, rebellious and hard done by). Nonetheless, the book is interesting, vibrant and engrossing - I had a hard time putting it down, even when I knew how it must end, not only for Virginia Woolf (in a literary celebrity cameo) but for our hero and heroine as well.
Well worth the read.
September 22, 2013
I started this book from the Booker 2013 longlist, expecting to abandon it. I really didn't think I'd find anything new in one more World War 2 novel. To my surprise, I couldn't put it down, because this isn't a story about war, but a story about people dealing with the inconvenience of war almost just in the background, except that war is the reason for everything.
It also made me cry, so there's that. That's pretty rare for me as a reader, but MacLeod captures the internal lives of her characters so well that I really felt for them.
Geoffrey and Evelyn are living in Brighton in 1940, and waiting to be invaded. They listen daily to the broadcasts from Hitler and London, and read papers, in a surreal holding pattern where not much is yet felt. But they know yet is temporary.
"Gulls wheeled over the Park. Geoffrey reached for a piece of toast and a grilled kipper. The impossible had happened. There was even a photo on the front page. Paris had fallen in just four days, Paris, yet here they were, eating Sunday breakfast on the terrace under yet another untroubled blue sky...."
Some of the novel looks back to easier times, when everyone could focus on courtships and spats over ideology.
I loved this description of why Geoffrey fell in love with Evelyn at a party:
"She'd been lovely, awkward... and she had so much life, such spark and brightness in her eyes that the honesty of her gaze made their polite conversation seem a nonsense.... She'd somehow transformed them both into their real selves. In the pulse of that moment, she'd felt like a familiar, a loved one."
There are a few events in the book that are a major test for their relationship. Without giving it away, I'll pull a few little bits in:
"We are broken by everything we cannot say."
"There is no invasion as fearful as love, no havoc like desire. Its fuse trembles in the human heart and runs through to the core of the world. What are our defences to it?"
I'll be looking for more by this author, and I absolutely enjoyed this novel more than many of the books that made it to the Booker shortlist.
It also made me cry, so there's that. That's pretty rare for me as a reader, but MacLeod captures the internal lives of her characters so well that I really felt for them.
Geoffrey and Evelyn are living in Brighton in 1940, and waiting to be invaded. They listen daily to the broadcasts from Hitler and London, and read papers, in a surreal holding pattern where not much is yet felt. But they know yet is temporary.
"Gulls wheeled over the Park. Geoffrey reached for a piece of toast and a grilled kipper. The impossible had happened. There was even a photo on the front page. Paris had fallen in just four days, Paris, yet here they were, eating Sunday breakfast on the terrace under yet another untroubled blue sky...."
Some of the novel looks back to easier times, when everyone could focus on courtships and spats over ideology.
I loved this description of why Geoffrey fell in love with Evelyn at a party:
"She'd been lovely, awkward... and she had so much life, such spark and brightness in her eyes that the honesty of her gaze made their polite conversation seem a nonsense.... She'd somehow transformed them both into their real selves. In the pulse of that moment, she'd felt like a familiar, a loved one."
There are a few events in the book that are a major test for their relationship. Without giving it away, I'll pull a few little bits in:
"We are broken by everything we cannot say."
"There is no invasion as fearful as love, no havoc like desire. Its fuse trembles in the human heart and runs through to the core of the world. What are our defences to it?"
I'll be looking for more by this author, and I absolutely enjoyed this novel more than many of the books that made it to the Booker shortlist.
July 25, 2017
I loved this book so. Within a year, I have had the luck to read two exceptional books; The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld and this one. Each time I knew within the first two pages that I wanted to read everything this author wrote. The writing is exquisite; the story compelling and fascinating as two people very much in love begin to fall further and further apart as they wait for the Nazis to invade Brighton, England. I felt like I had found a gold nugget in this book, and I loved Macleod's writing so much. Her structure was inventive and compelling. I loved the way she played with perspective and time. They won't let you do that in this country. Unfortunately, it was never released in the US (?) and you have to get it used. But it's high on my list, as high as you can get, for recommendation.
October 8, 2019
A melancholic song is playing in the background. It seeps into the aural sense. It affects but surprisingly I don’t want it to end. And it doesn’t; it goes on.
What is war? A conflict carried on by force of arms between nations or between parties within a nation. Force there is, arms there are – fire from the skies, fear there is, and war there is. And then there are other conflicts, within; there are wars in the head, in relationships; a sense of betrayal, there is hatred dripping, there is a tacit shelling of unspoken words, of feelings.
‘There is no invasion as fearful as love, no havoc like desire. Its fuse trembles in the human heart and runs through to the core of the world. What are our defences to it?’
It’s World War II, Germany is planning to invade Britain. George Beaumont is a bank manager but the war has voluntarily turned him into Superintendent of the infirmary. Evelyn is his wife, happy with him and their son Phillip. The war has bought a tremble in her life like everyone else’s. George’s decision to take up an assignment away from them, for the country, has imbibed a sense of betrayal in her that she can’t free herself of.
A feeling of abandonment engulfs her; George hasn’t left yet but the thought of him being able to leave them; her and her son, is killing her, is straining their normalcy. And the green pills of death lying there below the spade in their garden, kept by him, is an evidence of his torture; a death before dying.
When relationships have been lived long and though the strands are strong, there is an inevitable abrasion due to circumstances. That is when the transparency turns to translucency, a slightly opaque layer shrouds and suddenly it becomes unimportant to reveal things. You ask and answer for yourself, ‘what difference will it make?’ – the first signs of a strain.
‘She had to look away. Sometimes, it was still an effort: to hate him so she would not love him. He’d always been such a good father.’
Otto Gottlieb, a prisoner of war, a Jew, an artist, finds himself in Geoffrey’s infirmary. But he’d been disowned even before he reached the infirmary, by the Germans. He’s an outcast; do we not know why.
Evelyn has decided to read at the infirmary to the prisoners; there are only two; the dying Italian and Otto. What starts as an indifference towards the confined Jew, unknowingly develops into love - time, situation, betrayal and most importantly, an imposed loneliness in the head play their roles. Can one infidelity justify another?
‘Life would hobble on. Indeed, perhaps it was only by accepting the inevitable failures of intimacy that one’s married life moved forward and passed into the muted successes upon which anniversary parties, retirement dinners and obituaries ultimately depended.’
According to the biblical narrative, Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, was summoned by King David, who had seen her bathing and lusted after her. David had Uriah himself carry the message to be placed on the front lines of the battle that led to his death.
This disturbing piece of Bathsheba’s story has an apparent influence on ‘Unexploded’s’ central theme, both literally and otherwise. As the story unfolds, the writer unveils the characters to the yearning reader as they wince and gasp in anticipation.
‘Yes’, he (Otto) told the young critic, ‘I think that is fair to say. One is always, also, painting oneself. It’s inevitable, though one’s focus is necessarily trained upon the subject. I suppose all of life, whether off the canvas or on it, is made from’ – he’d allowed himself to smile carelessly for the first time that opening night – ‘the intercourse of two things.’
Through Ms. Macleod’s chisel arises another grotesque effigy of hatred which represents the thoughts of children in war; their perspective. A nation is probably already dead when its children fall prey to hatred, when their minds are polluted, when their innocence is no more the innocence of harmless sport but becomes a criminalized innocence; the innocence remains but is veneered in pure hatred.
What is more disturbing - the everyday anticipation of war or the war itself? Which is more tiring?
‘She wanted life, she wanted it badly. She needed the world to burst open. To go up in smoke. She wanted the enemy to invade the shore and be done with it. Fear was exhausting, but nothing tired a body like hope.’
‘Then, as if in reply to some reckless act of the collective will or an unspeakable communal wish, something in the atmosphere gave way that July night. Squalls and showers blew in from the west. The lid of summer came off. And in a moment that was, after so many months of waiting, as much longed for (secretly, ashamedly) as it was dreaded, the first bomb was tipped into the early morning of the new day: a fifty-kilogram falling star, gravid, lethal and indifferent.'
When you see a plane firing bullets in the distance, a character says in one of the paragraphs, never run away from it; run towards it if you want a chance to survive. And run towards disaster is what every character in this story does but does anyone survive?
It’s a well crafted, intelligently written story; I loved the simplicity of the narrative. It struck a chord and it’ll stay with me for a long time. The melancholic tune still resonates as Evelyn visits Otto’s representation of Bathsheba in his painting on the church dome.
And as a tear finally falls, I am there to witness it.
What is war? A conflict carried on by force of arms between nations or between parties within a nation. Force there is, arms there are – fire from the skies, fear there is, and war there is. And then there are other conflicts, within; there are wars in the head, in relationships; a sense of betrayal, there is hatred dripping, there is a tacit shelling of unspoken words, of feelings.
‘There is no invasion as fearful as love, no havoc like desire. Its fuse trembles in the human heart and runs through to the core of the world. What are our defences to it?’
It’s World War II, Germany is planning to invade Britain. George Beaumont is a bank manager but the war has voluntarily turned him into Superintendent of the infirmary. Evelyn is his wife, happy with him and their son Phillip. The war has bought a tremble in her life like everyone else’s. George’s decision to take up an assignment away from them, for the country, has imbibed a sense of betrayal in her that she can’t free herself of.
A feeling of abandonment engulfs her; George hasn’t left yet but the thought of him being able to leave them; her and her son, is killing her, is straining their normalcy. And the green pills of death lying there below the spade in their garden, kept by him, is an evidence of his torture; a death before dying.
When relationships have been lived long and though the strands are strong, there is an inevitable abrasion due to circumstances. That is when the transparency turns to translucency, a slightly opaque layer shrouds and suddenly it becomes unimportant to reveal things. You ask and answer for yourself, ‘what difference will it make?’ – the first signs of a strain.
‘She had to look away. Sometimes, it was still an effort: to hate him so she would not love him. He’d always been such a good father.’
Otto Gottlieb, a prisoner of war, a Jew, an artist, finds himself in Geoffrey’s infirmary. But he’d been disowned even before he reached the infirmary, by the Germans. He’s an outcast; do we not know why.
Evelyn has decided to read at the infirmary to the prisoners; there are only two; the dying Italian and Otto. What starts as an indifference towards the confined Jew, unknowingly develops into love - time, situation, betrayal and most importantly, an imposed loneliness in the head play their roles. Can one infidelity justify another?
‘Life would hobble on. Indeed, perhaps it was only by accepting the inevitable failures of intimacy that one’s married life moved forward and passed into the muted successes upon which anniversary parties, retirement dinners and obituaries ultimately depended.’
According to the biblical narrative, Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, was summoned by King David, who had seen her bathing and lusted after her. David had Uriah himself carry the message to be placed on the front lines of the battle that led to his death.
This disturbing piece of Bathsheba’s story has an apparent influence on ‘Unexploded’s’ central theme, both literally and otherwise. As the story unfolds, the writer unveils the characters to the yearning reader as they wince and gasp in anticipation.
‘Yes’, he (Otto) told the young critic, ‘I think that is fair to say. One is always, also, painting oneself. It’s inevitable, though one’s focus is necessarily trained upon the subject. I suppose all of life, whether off the canvas or on it, is made from’ – he’d allowed himself to smile carelessly for the first time that opening night – ‘the intercourse of two things.’
Through Ms. Macleod’s chisel arises another grotesque effigy of hatred which represents the thoughts of children in war; their perspective. A nation is probably already dead when its children fall prey to hatred, when their minds are polluted, when their innocence is no more the innocence of harmless sport but becomes a criminalized innocence; the innocence remains but is veneered in pure hatred.
What is more disturbing - the everyday anticipation of war or the war itself? Which is more tiring?
‘She wanted life, she wanted it badly. She needed the world to burst open. To go up in smoke. She wanted the enemy to invade the shore and be done with it. Fear was exhausting, but nothing tired a body like hope.’
‘Then, as if in reply to some reckless act of the collective will or an unspeakable communal wish, something in the atmosphere gave way that July night. Squalls and showers blew in from the west. The lid of summer came off. And in a moment that was, after so many months of waiting, as much longed for (secretly, ashamedly) as it was dreaded, the first bomb was tipped into the early morning of the new day: a fifty-kilogram falling star, gravid, lethal and indifferent.'
When you see a plane firing bullets in the distance, a character says in one of the paragraphs, never run away from it; run towards it if you want a chance to survive. And run towards disaster is what every character in this story does but does anyone survive?
It’s a well crafted, intelligently written story; I loved the simplicity of the narrative. It struck a chord and it’ll stay with me for a long time. The melancholic tune still resonates as Evelyn visits Otto’s representation of Bathsheba in his painting on the church dome.
And as a tear finally falls, I am there to witness it.
July 26, 2013
This novel is set in Brighton, between May 1940 and June 1941. It begins literally days after Dunkirk, when the inhabitants of the seaside town are facing not only the harsh reality of war but the very real threat of invasion. There is only fifty miles of water between them and the enemy and Brighton is "an excellent place to land." However, both those poised across the Channel and those waiting for invasion have some similarities - in that many of them are anti-Semetic. That includes our heroine, Evelyn's, snobbish mother and her banker husband, Geoffrey.
Evelyn and Geoffrey Beaumont live in Brighton, as opposed to the more elegant and desirable Hove, where her mother resides - making deliciously sniping remarks and generally looking down on her daughter's lifestyle. Evelyn is the product of a finishing school and feels generally unable to cope with the cooking and household tasks she faces now she has no help. Geoffrey, although his mother in law may see him as hardly son in law material, is, in fact, one of the town's leading bankers, Head of the Invasion Committee and Superintendent of the new Internment Camp. Together with their eight year old son, Philip, they live a contented, if uneventful life, which war is about to change. Through the internment camp, Evelyn is to come into contact with Otto Gottlieb, a German artist. Both his presence in their lives, plus the war itself, will change Evelyn and Geoffrey's lives forever.
I found that I had immense sympathy for all the major characters of Evelyn, Geoffrey and Otto. The war changed their lives and Geoffrey, especially, was under immense pressure to "turn a blind eye" during his weekly camp inspection. Having a reserved occupation, he still had to work for the war effort and, indeed, there are great little slogans peppered throughout the text, warning people to think before they travelled, for example, as well as those related to virtually every aspect of everyday life. The author paints a wonderful portrait of Brighton under threat of invasion. Of radio broadcasts from the reassurance of the BBC announcers to the propaganda of Lord Haw Haw. Of shortages, collections and rumours. This is expertly realised in the life of son Philip, who roams the town with his friends, creating bizarre fantasies of Hitler visiting the Pavilion and looking for scapegoats. At times, Evelyn is a slightly frustrating heroine; Geoffrey begs her to talk to him and you do feel that she could have solved many of her issues and worries by just voicing them, rather than loitering in doorways unable to express her feelings. However, she is a product of her class and education and eminently human in her relationships. Overall, this is an excellent portrait of a time and place, when England (and Brighton) waited and suspicion was in the air. Longlisted for the Booker, I will be intrigued to see whether it makes the shortlist.
Rated 3.5 stars
Evelyn and Geoffrey Beaumont live in Brighton, as opposed to the more elegant and desirable Hove, where her mother resides - making deliciously sniping remarks and generally looking down on her daughter's lifestyle. Evelyn is the product of a finishing school and feels generally unable to cope with the cooking and household tasks she faces now she has no help. Geoffrey, although his mother in law may see him as hardly son in law material, is, in fact, one of the town's leading bankers, Head of the Invasion Committee and Superintendent of the new Internment Camp. Together with their eight year old son, Philip, they live a contented, if uneventful life, which war is about to change. Through the internment camp, Evelyn is to come into contact with Otto Gottlieb, a German artist. Both his presence in their lives, plus the war itself, will change Evelyn and Geoffrey's lives forever.
I found that I had immense sympathy for all the major characters of Evelyn, Geoffrey and Otto. The war changed their lives and Geoffrey, especially, was under immense pressure to "turn a blind eye" during his weekly camp inspection. Having a reserved occupation, he still had to work for the war effort and, indeed, there are great little slogans peppered throughout the text, warning people to think before they travelled, for example, as well as those related to virtually every aspect of everyday life. The author paints a wonderful portrait of Brighton under threat of invasion. Of radio broadcasts from the reassurance of the BBC announcers to the propaganda of Lord Haw Haw. Of shortages, collections and rumours. This is expertly realised in the life of son Philip, who roams the town with his friends, creating bizarre fantasies of Hitler visiting the Pavilion and looking for scapegoats. At times, Evelyn is a slightly frustrating heroine; Geoffrey begs her to talk to him and you do feel that she could have solved many of her issues and worries by just voicing them, rather than loitering in doorways unable to express her feelings. However, she is a product of her class and education and eminently human in her relationships. Overall, this is an excellent portrait of a time and place, when England (and Brighton) waited and suspicion was in the air. Longlisted for the Booker, I will be intrigued to see whether it makes the shortlist.
Rated 3.5 stars
December 29, 2014
Beguiling.
I cannot divine exactly how MacLeod's style differs from what I'd call “standard literary fiction”; quoting a couple of sentences wouldn't show you. This feeling is instinctive and subjective, but a page might make it understandable. Simply, her words did not go blah blah blah cartoonishly in my head as that sort of writing does, and I was sincerely drawn into the world of the characters.
Similarly, the subjects of Unexploded are easy to dismiss as commonplace and middlebrow. Troubles in a middle class marriage, Britain early in the Second World War. You couldn't really call this book original. The details, though, were just different enough to be interesting: a meticulously evoked urban setting which isn't London (it's Brighton); the buttoned-up beastliness of the upper classes (wife Evelyn's parents); a circle in which anti-Semitism and listening to Lord Haw-Haw are the norm; and rather than the jolly hockey sticks all-pull together outlook, we get frequent reminders of the controlling insidiousness of wartime in which people are told not just what to do, but what to think and feel - particularly unpleasant for the secretly unconventional and contrarian. And there's sly subversion in making Geoffrey, a bank manager husband with supervisory roles on the home front (superintendent of the internment camp, chair of the invasion committee), into someone younger and more serious than Mainwaring. Unexploded is about tension and paranoia over imminent invasion when it was too close for some to be able to laugh.
As with A Tale for the Time Being and Proust, there's probably an extra layer in this book for those who know Virginia Woolf well. Evelyn reads The Years and The Waves and goes to a talk by Mrs Woolf. (The ghost of a more recent novel, E.L. Carr's A Month in the Country also haunts the final third.) There's an overall seriousness of tone which, as I was prompted, reminded me of the bits of Mrs Dalloway I've read. Modernist Bloomsburyish concerns, MacLeod seems to point out, didn't fit well with the communal ethos of wartime.
Good historical fiction* often has something to say about the time it was written as well as about the time it's set. This isn't something I've found much with other newly published books I've read recently, but Unexploded has. At first reflection on the place of art and free thinking when democratic society becomes somewhat more authoritarian and when certain strands of prejudice appear subtly condoned, though later a more frequently-encountered conflict of two approaches to life.
Unexploded seems likely to please people attracted by its premise, though I daresay a few of those reading it just because it was listed for the Booker (who would not otherwise have picked it up) may find it dreary. I was delighted to have my assumptions successfully challenged both about this specific book and the type of story it is. Without being groundbreaking or stylistically fancy, it was interesting and thoughtful and wrenching.
* I couldn't get away from the term here but I don't like to call anything historical fiction when it's set so recently as in the lifetime of my parents - and if the clothes of the era would today simply look like a good vintage style outfit, rather than full-on fancy dress as an Edwardian costume would.
I cannot divine exactly how MacLeod's style differs from what I'd call “standard literary fiction”; quoting a couple of sentences wouldn't show you. This feeling is instinctive and subjective, but a page might make it understandable. Simply, her words did not go blah blah blah cartoonishly in my head as that sort of writing does, and I was sincerely drawn into the world of the characters.
Similarly, the subjects of Unexploded are easy to dismiss as commonplace and middlebrow. Troubles in a middle class marriage, Britain early in the Second World War. You couldn't really call this book original. The details, though, were just different enough to be interesting: a meticulously evoked urban setting which isn't London (it's Brighton); the buttoned-up beastliness of the upper classes (wife Evelyn's parents); a circle in which anti-Semitism and listening to Lord Haw-Haw are the norm; and rather than the jolly hockey sticks all-pull together outlook, we get frequent reminders of the controlling insidiousness of wartime in which people are told not just what to do, but what to think and feel - particularly unpleasant for the secretly unconventional and contrarian. And there's sly subversion in making Geoffrey, a bank manager husband with supervisory roles on the home front (superintendent of the internment camp, chair of the invasion committee), into someone younger and more serious than Mainwaring. Unexploded is about tension and paranoia over imminent invasion when it was too close for some to be able to laugh.
As with A Tale for the Time Being and Proust, there's probably an extra layer in this book for those who know Virginia Woolf well. Evelyn reads The Years and The Waves and goes to a talk by Mrs Woolf. (The ghost of a more recent novel, E.L. Carr's A Month in the Country also haunts the final third.) There's an overall seriousness of tone which, as I was prompted, reminded me of the bits of Mrs Dalloway I've read. Modernist Bloomsburyish concerns, MacLeod seems to point out, didn't fit well with the communal ethos of wartime.
Good historical fiction* often has something to say about the time it was written as well as about the time it's set. This isn't something I've found much with other newly published books I've read recently, but Unexploded has. At first reflection on the place of art and free thinking when democratic society becomes somewhat more authoritarian and when certain strands of prejudice appear subtly condoned, though later a more frequently-encountered conflict of two approaches to life.
Unexploded seems likely to please people attracted by its premise, though I daresay a few of those reading it just because it was listed for the Booker (who would not otherwise have picked it up) may find it dreary. I was delighted to have my assumptions successfully challenged both about this specific book and the type of story it is. Without being groundbreaking or stylistically fancy, it was interesting and thoughtful and wrenching.
* I couldn't get away from the term here but I don't like to call anything historical fiction when it's set so recently as in the lifetime of my parents - and if the clothes of the era would today simply look like a good vintage style outfit, rather than full-on fancy dress as an Edwardian costume would.
April 27, 2017
I knew nothing about the author before finding this book, but was hugely impressed by its literacy and fresh insights into what could have been quite cliched subject matter. A readable and gripping story of life in Brighton during the darkest days of World War 2, it has a nuanced and believable view of the moral issues of the time, and resists the heroic view.
April 30, 2015
This isn't a novel in the way some books are. That sounds a bit odd I'm sure. But what I mean is it's more worthy than that. It reminded me of a Virginia Woolf novel, which is perhaps not so strange as she does feature in it.
It's beautifully written. The prose and style of the book is very well crafted. For me, the story took a long while to take hold and interest me. Because of this I was really slow finishing it. But I did finally get hooked around 3/4 of the way through. I think my only criticism would be that it took too long to pick up the pace of the actual story of the characters. I just didn't engage with them for far too long.
But all in all, a beautifully written book.
It's beautifully written. The prose and style of the book is very well crafted. For me, the story took a long while to take hold and interest me. Because of this I was really slow finishing it. But I did finally get hooked around 3/4 of the way through. I think my only criticism would be that it took too long to pick up the pace of the actual story of the characters. I just didn't engage with them for far too long.
But all in all, a beautifully written book.
February 21, 2022
Make a note of the thoughts that you get. Test them. Are they honest? Neighbourly? Clean? If not, what can you do about it? p11
Being cheery for others cheered oneself up. Platitudes saw one through. p297
One of platitudes that Alison McLeod explodes is that of the stoic with a stiff upper lip. Most all of the lips here do remain buttoned, most of the time, but that is no reliable indication of the passion that might be lurking beneath the surface.
The smallest deviations in life's flight paths were to be celebrated these days. p105
Alison MacLeod delves into the mundanity of war, the details that accrue to etch themselves to the sense of time and place. Acclimatizing to fear, the population takes to their various ways to deny the horror of war and the pointlessness necessity of it. AM presents love too as a form of warfare and for most of the novel she meticulously explores its various fronts: romantic, naturally but also at the gates of learning that women had to fight so long to gain entry; the war of the rich against those they would have remain poor; the war of man against the natural world. How does the love of one's country fit in to all this?
AM holds out high hopes for culture, and literature in particular. One of the most wonderful incidents in the book is Evelyns attendance at a lecture by Virginia Woolf.
She had no illusions. She would find herself out of her depths. She tried to keep up with the new literature, but she read these days largely to convince herself that she was alive. p111
Unfortunately for me, in contrast to spaciousness of most of the book, the end felt rushed and implausible. As much as I enjoyed it, the bitter end detracted enough for me to momentarily hate the book, the author, the world. Luckily, I've got over it and my final assessment for GR remains 4.
In a 7 point system it became 5/7
August 27, 2018
'Unexploded' is a novel set during the second world war, in Brighton. The setting is hauntingly familiar, having been used to costal areas, and beautifully described.
The characters; Evie, Geoffrey, Philip and Jew Otto Gottileb are all interesting and well-crafted. The haunting, disturbing and intricate storyline certainly keeps one glued to the page, eager to find out what happens next.
I personally found parts distressing, such as for instance; the husband's affair, the boy's view on death and suffering, and the sick minds of the Germans in how they regarded and treated people. The fresco that Otto paints is inspired, and consequentially quite beautiful, proving the power of love endures, as too does Evie and her husband's relationship prove this.
The uncertainty of unfolding events keeps you in suspense, however as a reader who enjoys fiction regarding both wars, I was surprised to find that this focuses more on the character's lives and relationships as opposed to the actual war.
Alison Macleod has proved herself to be a competent and accomplished writer, and I very much enjoyed the easy-to-read, fluid prose. The addition of a lecture by Virginia Woolf would delight any literature student or enthusiast, although I felt was slightly out of place in the storyline. A good attempt but not a novel that evoked the times greatly, nor were the characters as 'deep' and as complex as I would like. An interesting, thought-provoking read, albeit slightly disappointing leaving me with mixed views. Not something i'll be reading again.
The characters; Evie, Geoffrey, Philip and Jew Otto Gottileb are all interesting and well-crafted. The haunting, disturbing and intricate storyline certainly keeps one glued to the page, eager to find out what happens next.
I personally found parts distressing, such as for instance; the husband's affair, the boy's view on death and suffering, and the sick minds of the Germans in how they regarded and treated people. The fresco that Otto paints is inspired, and consequentially quite beautiful, proving the power of love endures, as too does Evie and her husband's relationship prove this.
The uncertainty of unfolding events keeps you in suspense, however as a reader who enjoys fiction regarding both wars, I was surprised to find that this focuses more on the character's lives and relationships as opposed to the actual war.
Alison Macleod has proved herself to be a competent and accomplished writer, and I very much enjoyed the easy-to-read, fluid prose. The addition of a lecture by Virginia Woolf would delight any literature student or enthusiast, although I felt was slightly out of place in the storyline. A good attempt but not a novel that evoked the times greatly, nor were the characters as 'deep' and as complex as I would like. An interesting, thought-provoking read, albeit slightly disappointing leaving me with mixed views. Not something i'll be reading again.
July 6, 2014
There are some excellent aspects of this book that I really enjoyed. The setting is Brighton England during 1940. I knew very little about that port town's history during WWII and it was fascinating to hear about their fear of beach invasion, the internment camp set up on the racetrack, the bombings they suffered and those that they missed knowing that the enemy planes are heading for London instead (and feeling relief alongside fear and sadness knowing someone else is going to get hit).
While the war drama is playing out, there is another smaller drama taking shape between Geoffrey and Evelyn, struggling to stay together after 12 years of marriage. Unfortunately, I found the central relationships in this book to be flat and dull, with plot lines relying too heavily on coincidence to make the wheels turn smoothly. The metaphor of the painting towards the end of the book is too heavy handed and too overtly called out to correlate with the struggles of the characters.
I never get tired of WWII stories, especially set in the UK home front, so I was happy to take away a new perspective and to also read about characters who were not necessarily on board with every aspect of the allied agenda. I would love to read another book with these elements but with better central plot that holds up better against the wartime drama.
While the war drama is playing out, there is another smaller drama taking shape between Geoffrey and Evelyn, struggling to stay together after 12 years of marriage. Unfortunately, I found the central relationships in this book to be flat and dull, with plot lines relying too heavily on coincidence to make the wheels turn smoothly. The metaphor of the painting towards the end of the book is too heavy handed and too overtly called out to correlate with the struggles of the characters.
I never get tired of WWII stories, especially set in the UK home front, so I was happy to take away a new perspective and to also read about characters who were not necessarily on board with every aspect of the allied agenda. I would love to read another book with these elements but with better central plot that holds up better against the wartime drama.
July 13, 2014
A disappointing and depressing read. Without giving too much of the plot away, I didn't find some of the relationships believable. The tension grew in the last few chapters but the rest of the novel lacks pace.
April 11, 2015
I think the title was a bit of a misnomer here; there were lots of explosions going on- from the physical bombing of Brighton; the setting of the novel to the unravelling of the Beaumont's marriage. Was fascinated by the period detail. I don't think I ever grasped how real the threat of German invasion was, particularly to those on the South East coast. I also found the anti- semitism voiced by many of the characters quite disturbing. Somehow I grew up with the notion that Britain in WW2 was the champion of those oppressed by the evil Nazis and this was clearly not so; although not tortured or killed the aliens were also incarcerated. The description of the internment camps was both unsettling and contemporary. Despite that meticulously researched sense of time and place after the scene setting until the suspense of the last 50 pages I found the book dragged a little. Probably because I found the main characters so dull, Geoffrey, expectedly but Evelyn who was so necessary for the development of the plot disappointed. She seemed to spend a lot of the time prevaricating, doing good deeds and reading Virginia Woolf......and also letting her son run wild with evil Lord- of- the- flies- type children. The ending was depressing but not unexpected probably no more than Evelyn deserved but Otto the German- Jewish artist did not.
December 23, 2019
Evelyn, Geoffrey and their son Philip live on Brighton during the Second World War, where it is rumoured that the Germans will soon attack. The tension in the city is palpable as everybody waits and prepares as they can. Philip imagines what ife will be under German rule, Geoffrey is Superintendent in the labour camp outside of town, and there is a rift growing between him and his wife, especially when Otto, one of the prisoners, falls in love with Evelyn.
Well, I never thought I’d be bored by a WWII novel, but here we are. It was advertised as a story different from the usual London Blitz tales, and different it was, but not in a good way. The story could have been interesting, but every character, even the kids, ranked somewhere on a scale that went from “completely drab” to “downright unpleasant.”
I do not recommend this. There are too many good WWII books out there to waste time on this one.
Well, I never thought I’d be bored by a WWII novel, but here we are. It was advertised as a story different from the usual London Blitz tales, and different it was, but not in a good way. The story could have been interesting, but every character, even the kids, ranked somewhere on a scale that went from “completely drab” to “downright unpleasant.”
I do not recommend this. There are too many good WWII books out there to waste time on this one.
April 11, 2014
From BBC radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
A tale of love, art and prejudice set in wartime Brighton.
A tale of love, art and prejudice set in wartime Brighton.
March 16, 2014
I thought I was going to enjoy this but I actually really struggled - I'm not sure why -its quite an easy read but I just couldn't get to sympathise with any of the characters.
May 7, 2024
A glimpse of Brighton during the second world war, as they feared invasion from the Nazis. Also, a view of how deep anti-Semitism ran in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Seeing what’s happening today not much has changed in the world.
April 13, 2014
Update 13 April 2014: have now read the book!
This is a quiet, steady little tale, well-written and at times downright uncomfortable to read. Set in Brighton at the start of the war, it follows a small family - the Beaumonts, through a year: Geoffry the father who is a banker and running a labour camp of Jews just outside of town; his wife Evelyn, who comes from high society and wants awfully to do something, so goes to read to the prisoners, and forms a friendship with Otto the painter; and their son Philip, who runs around with the local lads.
There are a lot of things that are unexploded in this book, so the whole story, or at least most of it has this pregnant tension, like we're all waiting for the big things to happen but we don't know quite when they will explode. At the start everyone's expecting the German invasion of Brighton beach at any moment, so they're all making their plans - Geoffry thinking he'll have to leave with other important folk and abandon his wife and son (obviously got his thinking right as to what is important) and leaves his wife some money and two cyanide pills burried in a tin in the garden to help her cope. Evelyn's on the verge of blooming into herself rather than being the dutiful little wife of a banker; although I don't know whether she ever quite makes it.
The anti-semitism in this book is uncomfortable reading. It's not a surprise that it comes up, this being a world war II book; but I think it's the way she underlines that it wasn't just the German Nazis who had this irrational hatred; just as it wasn't the area of villains. Every day people in every day situations casually show this biogtry as if it's nothing more shocking that taking a cup of tea. And I suppose that's where evil starts, in the normal every day. And late on in the book, having the kids mix up the cyanide pills in with the sweeties just continues to build on this horrible sensation that evil can be so close. One of Philip's friends, Orson, idolises his older brother, Hal. Hal is now essentially a vegetable following a bullet to the brain, but before all of that he was keen on Oswald Mosley and Jew-hating, and of course Orson has lapped this all up, and is keen to "get" a Jew for Hal as some sick kind of recompsense for Hal's present condition. But it's all so child like and misunderstood, like when they play stories of Hitler; talking about when Hitler invades Britain, and they'll all go out for a drive in the countryside for a picnic and jam sandwiches. They just don't get it. Because they're kids and they're ignorant of the real world. Which is bigotry I guess: ignorance.
It's all a child of it's time as well, and people sadly held these attitudes. It's the same with the double standards between the sexes. Geoffry has an affair with a prostitute (and a Jew no less, even though he looks down his nose at the Jews!); but that's all right, it's his frustration, it'll end up bringing him and Evelyn closer together, tra-la-la-la-la. But when he catches Evelyn with Otto, he calls her a Jew-bitch. I can't say I took to Geoffry; he was a bit of a stiff upper lipped hypocrite, who hid behind rules and the natural order of things, because heaven forbid he should think out opinions of his own.
Update 22 March 2014: Penguin have very kindly resent - arrived today and going to the top of the TBR pile.
2013: Well, I did win this at the end of September but never recieved it =(
This is a quiet, steady little tale, well-written and at times downright uncomfortable to read. Set in Brighton at the start of the war, it follows a small family - the Beaumonts, through a year: Geoffry the father who is a banker and running a labour camp of Jews just outside of town; his wife Evelyn, who comes from high society and wants awfully to do something, so goes to read to the prisoners, and forms a friendship with Otto the painter; and their son Philip, who runs around with the local lads.
There are a lot of things that are unexploded in this book, so the whole story, or at least most of it has this pregnant tension, like we're all waiting for the big things to happen but we don't know quite when they will explode. At the start everyone's expecting the German invasion of Brighton beach at any moment, so they're all making their plans - Geoffry thinking he'll have to leave with other important folk and abandon his wife and son (obviously got his thinking right as to what is important) and leaves his wife some money and two cyanide pills burried in a tin in the garden to help her cope. Evelyn's on the verge of blooming into herself rather than being the dutiful little wife of a banker; although I don't know whether she ever quite makes it.
The anti-semitism in this book is uncomfortable reading. It's not a surprise that it comes up, this being a world war II book; but I think it's the way she underlines that it wasn't just the German Nazis who had this irrational hatred; just as it wasn't the area of villains. Every day people in every day situations casually show this biogtry as if it's nothing more shocking that taking a cup of tea. And I suppose that's where evil starts, in the normal every day. And late on in the book, having the kids mix up the cyanide pills in with the sweeties just continues to build on this horrible sensation that evil can be so close. One of Philip's friends, Orson, idolises his older brother, Hal. Hal is now essentially a vegetable following a bullet to the brain, but before all of that he was keen on Oswald Mosley and Jew-hating, and of course Orson has lapped this all up, and is keen to "get" a Jew for Hal as some sick kind of recompsense for Hal's present condition. But it's all so child like and misunderstood, like when they play stories of Hitler; talking about when Hitler invades Britain, and they'll all go out for a drive in the countryside for a picnic and jam sandwiches. They just don't get it. Because they're kids and they're ignorant of the real world. Which is bigotry I guess: ignorance.
It's all a child of it's time as well, and people sadly held these attitudes. It's the same with the double standards between the sexes. Geoffry has an affair with a prostitute (and a Jew no less, even though he looks down his nose at the Jews!); but that's all right, it's his frustration, it'll end up bringing him and Evelyn closer together, tra-la-la-la-la. But when he catches Evelyn with Otto, he calls her a Jew-bitch. I can't say I took to Geoffry; he was a bit of a stiff upper lipped hypocrite, who hid behind rules and the natural order of things, because heaven forbid he should think out opinions of his own.
Update 22 March 2014: Penguin have very kindly resent - arrived today and going to the top of the TBR pile.
2013: Well, I did win this at the end of September but never recieved it =(
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2013
This was one of the books long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. I hadn't read Alison Macleod before this. She has also written The Wave Theory of Angels and The Changeling. I do remember hearing some murmuring about The Wave Theory, so I might look that one up now. The Man Booker website tell us that Macleod was "raised in Canada and has lived in England since 1987". She lives in Brighton, where this latest novel is set, but in a different time period - May 1940 to be exact. England is at war with Germany and Geoffrey, Evelyn and their young son Philip explore what it means to live in fear; how relationships change and the choices you make in those conditions. Oh and it's about art. What does art make of all this or what do we make of art?
So it is above all a thoughtful book. It is not a gazillion pages long, thank heavens. Some of the writing is great. Evelyn, in the madness of war, is seeking consolation or answers in literature - namely Virginia Woolf. She attends a lecture given by Woolf and is fascinated by the author's appearance, describing her ink-stained lips as "stained as if she'd been feeding herself on words." I liked the intersection of war-time propaganda phrases cut into the story like subconscious thoughts e.g. "She strode higher, towards the course, watching her step a a matter of habit, on the lookout for the wild orchids and moon daisies of late summer, but only the rangy husks of toadflax clung on. (Is your journey really necessary? Think before travelling!) It is a somewhat different take on the Jewish question than many I have read to date - a complex weaving of the clash of typically restrained English personalities and rigid class structures in a resort town "closed for the war", uncomfortably hosting a labour camp which houses "foreign" "degenerates".
Yes, Unexploded is a tragedy. And I think it is cleverly crafted, as tragedy often is, keeping you on the edge of your seat - knowing it is not going to end well, but not quite sure how.
So it is above all a thoughtful book. It is not a gazillion pages long, thank heavens. Some of the writing is great. Evelyn, in the madness of war, is seeking consolation or answers in literature - namely Virginia Woolf. She attends a lecture given by Woolf and is fascinated by the author's appearance, describing her ink-stained lips as "stained as if she'd been feeding herself on words." I liked the intersection of war-time propaganda phrases cut into the story like subconscious thoughts e.g. "She strode higher, towards the course, watching her step a a matter of habit, on the lookout for the wild orchids and moon daisies of late summer, but only the rangy husks of toadflax clung on. (Is your journey really necessary? Think before travelling!) It is a somewhat different take on the Jewish question than many I have read to date - a complex weaving of the clash of typically restrained English personalities and rigid class structures in a resort town "closed for the war", uncomfortably hosting a labour camp which houses "foreign" "degenerates".
Yes, Unexploded is a tragedy. And I think it is cleverly crafted, as tragedy often is, keeping you on the edge of your seat - knowing it is not going to end well, but not quite sure how.
July 29, 2014
How disappointing, when mentally you progress through a book and find yourself knocking stars off until you are left with one. It may have got two, but when you hover over it, Goodreads suggests that "it was ok".
It really wasn't. How can a book make WWII boring? This one managed it hands down.
It starts off OK - interesting location - Brighton, rather than London and intersting characters - Evelyn and Geoffrey - Struggled to have their child Phillip and then have to be careful not to have another. Upper / Middle class people coping without their domestic help. The sense of paranoia at an incoming invasion. The fact that there is a feeling of pro-german sentiment makes a change.
A great start.
Once Otto the German appears, the book flounders terribly. Partly appalling plotting - just doesn't work. Partly appalling characterisation - don'know what drives them, don't care. Mainly flouncy pseudo literally clap tracks. At one point I laughed out loud, a child holds a tortoise (quite where he got it from, I dont know, it wasn't there before)and wants to "retreat his head into his shell".
Blimey.
Chuck in a few bombs "falling like Autumn leaves" and you have a truly woeful book.
Couldn't wait to put it down.
It really wasn't. How can a book make WWII boring? This one managed it hands down.
It starts off OK - interesting location - Brighton, rather than London and intersting characters - Evelyn and Geoffrey - Struggled to have their child Phillip and then have to be careful not to have another. Upper / Middle class people coping without their domestic help. The sense of paranoia at an incoming invasion. The fact that there is a feeling of pro-german sentiment makes a change.
A great start.
Once Otto the German appears, the book flounders terribly. Partly appalling plotting - just doesn't work. Partly appalling characterisation - don'know what drives them, don't care. Mainly flouncy pseudo literally clap tracks. At one point I laughed out loud, a child holds a tortoise (quite where he got it from, I dont know, it wasn't there before)and wants to "retreat his head into his shell".
Blimey.
Chuck in a few bombs "falling like Autumn leaves" and you have a truly woeful book.
Couldn't wait to put it down.
June 20, 2016
This is a WWII novel with a difference. Middle class banker Geoffrey, his better class wife, Evelyn and their young son, live a conventional happy enough existence in Brighton. It starts to disintegrate in a climate of threat of imminent invasion through a series of dreadful connected and unconnected events.
It took a while to connect with the oppressive atmosphere beautifully portrayed in this book, but once established, it was difficult to put down. It is essentially a study of how the restrictions and prejudices of class and convention, without which Geoffrey and Evelyn flounder, become warped and inappropriate. As they both spiral towards misery in their elusive search for the way forward, Evelyn has the more difficult route, but makes a better shape of it.
The back story of young Philip and his friends Orson and Tubby, with their games based on fantasies born of Lord Haw Haw’s radio transmissions, and their mission to get revenge for Orson’s older brother Hal , is even darker and more tragic.
A thought provoking and interesting read
It took a while to connect with the oppressive atmosphere beautifully portrayed in this book, but once established, it was difficult to put down. It is essentially a study of how the restrictions and prejudices of class and convention, without which Geoffrey and Evelyn flounder, become warped and inappropriate. As they both spiral towards misery in their elusive search for the way forward, Evelyn has the more difficult route, but makes a better shape of it.
The back story of young Philip and his friends Orson and Tubby, with their games based on fantasies born of Lord Haw Haw’s radio transmissions, and their mission to get revenge for Orson’s older brother Hal , is even darker and more tragic.
A thought provoking and interesting read
May 6, 2014
The big value of this book was to educate me on how frightening it must have been living in Brighton during the Second World War. I did not know that if the Germans came ashore and took over the town, bank managers were ordered to 'disappear' with as much cash as they could and abandon their families to their fate - even cyanide tablets are left if they would be needed. Similarly, although I knew Germans were sent to prison, I did not know that German Jews were treated so poorly.
As to the story-line, I was less than convinced by each of the relationships - mother to son, father to son, mother and father, and mother to lover. I seem to be in the minority here, given the book was chosen as Book at Bedtime by BBC Radio 4. It was all good enough, but not as compelling, say, as my favourite war book, Alone in Berlin.
As to the story-line, I was less than convinced by each of the relationships - mother to son, father to son, mother and father, and mother to lover. I seem to be in the minority here, given the book was chosen as Book at Bedtime by BBC Radio 4. It was all good enough, but not as compelling, say, as my favourite war book, Alone in Berlin.
September 22, 2014
How can you trust a book to tell us about what people are feeling when telling details are wrong? Set in Brighton shortly after Dunkirk, Alison MacLoed's book has a major character thinking about getting penicillin to cure a dental abcess and taking some parcetemol to counter the pain.
Since neither drug was commercially available until after the War, it looks like MacLoed was a sleep at the switch and her editors weren't paying attention either.
Couple that with the fact that there are far too many World War II novels out there, and you should consider yourself warned that this isn't worth your time.
How it made the 2013 Man Booker long list is beyond me!
Since neither drug was commercially available until after the War, it looks like MacLoed was a sleep at the switch and her editors weren't paying attention either.
Couple that with the fact that there are far too many World War II novels out there, and you should consider yourself warned that this isn't worth your time.
How it made the 2013 Man Booker long list is beyond me!
August 11, 2013
Average Booker longlisted title which will play very well if it shortlists. Obviously wasn't my thing but was very well observed and the characters were very distinct from one another which is a highlight of the kind of middle class family novel it hails from, they all seemed to be from utterly different universes which is how we truly navigate our lives.
October 13, 2015
Perhaps hard work in places, but overall very good and very interesting (and shocking) portrayal of war time Brighton and British attitudes. Ranks with Hangover Square and (of course) Brighton Rock as great Brighton literature. Exploding Tortoise a highlight (sorry... hope that's not a spoiler...).
November 22, 2020
I have rated it 3/5.
Now, why am I giving it a 3? Let me try to give a reasonable explanation here.
Usually when I rate any book 3, it's either because the plot wasn't good, or this book didn't get enough attention from my side for me to finish this book in few sittings.
So was it the former or latter?
It was.. kinda both :|
Usually when I take time to 'read' a book, I totally blame myself because maybe it's me who has to get 'used' to such writing, and for most part of reading, this was true.
But later I'm not sure even the plot took a different turn, and it got me wondering.. yes, this indeed does deserve a 3.
So there's this Beaumont family. Evelyn, Geoffrey and Phillip.
The war has started, and Geoffrey becomes superintendent of the enemy alien camp.
Geoffrey is prepared for everything, he even lets Evelyn know that he may have to leave them.
Leave them, which he has never done before.
He even gives her 2 pills, to make use of as a last resort.
It's for.. we know what.
Evelyn is naturally devastated. Because it's war.
It changes everything, and it actually did.
It slowly took this family apart.
Evelyn meets Otto, a German-Jewish painter in her husband's camp, and their initial distrust turns into something else later. Her husband, I'm not sure, got tired of this war and everything? He almost thought he's in love with someone else, until he realised he didn't at all. Did that make sense to you?
Yeah, not to me either.
And Phillip. Their 9 year old kid, takes up friendship with the other kids who have gone lil wild amidst this war. Their company ruined his innocence so much, he couldn't distinguish what is right and isn't right anymore.
So entire book was pretty much about it. How this war had completely changed his family.
Evelyn realises her husband had been keeping a mistress. She refuses to forgive him. Eventually does, but decided to not forget.
She thought she loves him, but I guess the moment her husband cheated on her, the last knot which connected their bond was weakened for good. She couldn't love him again.
And why couldn't she? Because she had fallen for someone else by then. Otto Gottlieb. Her husband is shattered by this revelation, but at this point, he only begs and hopes Evelyn "loves" him again.
But before that, we are not sure if this was done intentionally or otherwise, he let's Otto find a job for himself, which ends up being the reason he lost his life.
(AANND, I realized this while writing this review the the title of the books makes sense at THIS point! "Unexploded". The unexploded bomb which ended up killing Otto. But why was this the title? Not sure. Any hidden meaning behind this, at this point my brain cannot think of much)
Evelyn is devastated. And so is Geoffrey, as he realises Evelyn isn't his anymore.
And poor Phillip's childhood is pretty much ruined as well. Being in the wrong company, ending up killing a human being (Clarence, and not being accounted for that at all!) and observing how his parent's relationship is slowly falling apart.
That was it. The entire story. I was trying to figure out any hidden meaning behind this. The only conclusion I came up with is.. that War changes everything.
People, life, everything.
The writing was poetic though, no doubt. Loved when I found many relatable quotes in here.
Will drop one of them which I liked the most.
________________________________________________________
"There must be another life, here and now. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves."
Now, why am I giving it a 3? Let me try to give a reasonable explanation here.
Usually when I rate any book 3, it's either because the plot wasn't good, or this book didn't get enough attention from my side for me to finish this book in few sittings.
So was it the former or latter?
It was.. kinda both :|
Usually when I take time to 'read' a book, I totally blame myself because maybe it's me who has to get 'used' to such writing, and for most part of reading, this was true.
But later I'm not sure even the plot took a different turn, and it got me wondering.. yes, this indeed does deserve a 3.
So there's this Beaumont family. Evelyn, Geoffrey and Phillip.
The war has started, and Geoffrey becomes superintendent of the enemy alien camp.
Geoffrey is prepared for everything, he even lets Evelyn know that he may have to leave them.
Leave them, which he has never done before.
He even gives her 2 pills, to make use of as a last resort.
It's for.. we know what.
Evelyn is naturally devastated. Because it's war.
It changes everything, and it actually did.
It slowly took this family apart.
Evelyn meets Otto, a German-Jewish painter in her husband's camp, and their initial distrust turns into something else later. Her husband, I'm not sure, got tired of this war and everything? He almost thought he's in love with someone else, until he realised he didn't at all. Did that make sense to you?
Yeah, not to me either.
And Phillip. Their 9 year old kid, takes up friendship with the other kids who have gone lil wild amidst this war. Their company ruined his innocence so much, he couldn't distinguish what is right and isn't right anymore.
So entire book was pretty much about it. How this war had completely changed his family.
Evelyn realises her husband had been keeping a mistress. She refuses to forgive him. Eventually does, but decided to not forget.
She thought she loves him, but I guess the moment her husband cheated on her, the last knot which connected their bond was weakened for good. She couldn't love him again.
And why couldn't she? Because she had fallen for someone else by then. Otto Gottlieb. Her husband is shattered by this revelation, but at this point, he only begs and hopes Evelyn "loves" him again.
But before that, we are not sure if this was done intentionally or otherwise, he let's Otto find a job for himself, which ends up being the reason he lost his life.
(AANND, I realized this while writing this review the the title of the books makes sense at THIS point! "Unexploded". The unexploded bomb which ended up killing Otto. But why was this the title? Not sure. Any hidden meaning behind this, at this point my brain cannot think of much)
Evelyn is devastated. And so is Geoffrey, as he realises Evelyn isn't his anymore.
And poor Phillip's childhood is pretty much ruined as well. Being in the wrong company, ending up killing a human being (Clarence, and not being accounted for that at all!) and observing how his parent's relationship is slowly falling apart.
That was it. The entire story. I was trying to figure out any hidden meaning behind this. The only conclusion I came up with is.. that War changes everything.
People, life, everything.
The writing was poetic though, no doubt. Loved when I found many relatable quotes in here.
Will drop one of them which I liked the most.
________________________________________________________
"There must be another life, here and now. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2021
After enjoying the skilled writing of Tenderness I thought I’d try another of Alison Macleod’s books. Unexploded made it on the long list for the Booker prize in 2013 and I could see why. Set in England, Brighton during WW11 (1940), it focuses on the family of George and Evelyn Beaumont and their young son Philip. Life is predominantly seen from Evelyn’s perspective and as the war progresses and her husband becomes more involved she questions who he is and who she has married. Very early in the narrative George prepares her for his role in the war: as Bank Manager he is prepared to leave Brighton with the bank’s money to keep it safe. In doing this George tells her he will leave her and Philip indefinitely and he has left a tin buried in the garden with money for them. When Evelyn digs it up she is shocked by what she finds and immediately begins to question her husband’s love. From this moment Evelyn turns away from her husband and their marriage becomes strained and superficial. George seeks intimacy with a prostitute who he wonders whether he loves. George is a weak character who seems to bumble along in life. On the outside he is in control, he is the Superintendent of the war camp, but beneath the surface he is morally suspect and a coward really.
Evelyn is a lost woman searching for her place in the world and in the war. She becomes involved with Otto, a Jewish artist, and the narrative ends just when she seems to give over to her ‘true’ self.
The son, Philip, gets up to many naughty things. His parents let him run wild. He too faces moral dilemmas and we meet one of his friend’s brothers who has returned from the war with a bullet lodged in his brain.
I thoroughly enjoyed Unexploded and recommend it to those who love deeply drawn characters in a historical context.
Evelyn is a lost woman searching for her place in the world and in the war. She becomes involved with Otto, a Jewish artist, and the narrative ends just when she seems to give over to her ‘true’ self.
The son, Philip, gets up to many naughty things. His parents let him run wild. He too faces moral dilemmas and we meet one of his friend’s brothers who has returned from the war with a bullet lodged in his brain.
I thoroughly enjoyed Unexploded and recommend it to those who love deeply drawn characters in a historical context.
June 9, 2023
I wish there were a 3.5 rating ...there isn't so I will give it a 4 star rating.
The story takes place in Brighton, England in 1940-1941 during WWII about a family of Geoffrey, Evelyn and their 8-year old son Philip.
Evelyn is becoming bored with her life, is trying to figure out what her life should be like, having past thoughts of things that Geoffrey did in the early days of their courtship and now realizing that he has another lady in his life.
She realizes that he hates Jews and blames them for the war...Hitler certainly disposed of many of them before the War was actually declared after Germany invaded Poland. Geoffrey becomes the head man of an internment camp in their area...the men were badly used, had little food and poor accommodations.
In this camp, Evelyn decides to read to some of the men and she meets Otto Gottlieb who is a German-Jew listed as a 'degererate' and is a painter. He has seen such horrible things done to Jewish children as 'experiments'; he himself has been beaten badly before being sent to England.
I found the book hard to follow at times with not very clear suggestions instead of straightforward English which I found rather annoying.
The story takes place in Brighton, England in 1940-1941 during WWII about a family of Geoffrey, Evelyn and their 8-year old son Philip.
Evelyn is becoming bored with her life, is trying to figure out what her life should be like, having past thoughts of things that Geoffrey did in the early days of their courtship and now realizing that he has another lady in his life.
She realizes that he hates Jews and blames them for the war...Hitler certainly disposed of many of them before the War was actually declared after Germany invaded Poland. Geoffrey becomes the head man of an internment camp in their area...the men were badly used, had little food and poor accommodations.
In this camp, Evelyn decides to read to some of the men and she meets Otto Gottlieb who is a German-Jew listed as a 'degererate' and is a painter. He has seen such horrible things done to Jewish children as 'experiments'; he himself has been beaten badly before being sent to England.
I found the book hard to follow at times with not very clear suggestions instead of straightforward English which I found rather annoying.
July 26, 2018
While this book is well written it is, for this time in my life, a bit dreary. Nonetheless I finished it and am not sorry I read it.
It is hard to imagine what it might have been like living in Britain during the war. This book gives great insight from the perspective of a married woman of privilege, her husband and their young son. What they grapple with on a day to day basis and how they learn to cope. One always thinks that because the allies were fighting a demon who wanted to exterminate a race of people and take over the world that anti Semitic sentiments would not have been common in England but apparently such was not the case.
I often wonder what our perspective of the issues in the middle east would be were we required to spend a month living in the conditions of war. It is all well and good to judge when you aren't in the thick of it. Seeing your neighbourhood and neighbours being blown apart. Your entire world and how it is meant to work upended....for years.
That is the great thing about books is it not? They plant you where you have never been and in doing so broaden your perspective.
It is hard to imagine what it might have been like living in Britain during the war. This book gives great insight from the perspective of a married woman of privilege, her husband and their young son. What they grapple with on a day to day basis and how they learn to cope. One always thinks that because the allies were fighting a demon who wanted to exterminate a race of people and take over the world that anti Semitic sentiments would not have been common in England but apparently such was not the case.
I often wonder what our perspective of the issues in the middle east would be were we required to spend a month living in the conditions of war. It is all well and good to judge when you aren't in the thick of it. Seeing your neighbourhood and neighbours being blown apart. Your entire world and how it is meant to work upended....for years.
That is the great thing about books is it not? They plant you where you have never been and in doing so broaden your perspective.
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