Earthly Creatures

by Stevie Davies

A riveting, epic historical novel set in 1940's Germany.

For all her life, idealistic 20-year-old bookworm Magdalena Arber has been split down the veering wildly between fidelity to indoctrinated Nazi beliefs, and her father's humanist values. Then comes the summons–the Nazi War Labour Service is conscripting her into a teaching position in East Prussia. Magda is elated. It's a release from the cosy cage of childhood, and a chance to form young minds.

She enters a lush rural world of forests, lakes, and meadows where order prevails. Yet there are monstrous hands out to shape the whole continuum of earthly creatures. The Gestapo are a lurking darkness. There is bombing further East, and news of a moving Russian front. Will Alt Schönbek burn as well? Can Magda survive?

402 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2024

About the author

Welsh born Stevie Davies is a novelist, literary critic, biographer and historian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Academi Gymreig and is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Wales, Swansea.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest novel from Stevie Davies, in my opinion one of the best living writers and one who is certainly not well enough known. This latest novel is set in Germany during the war covering the years 1941 to 1946.
The main protagonist is Magdelena Arber who lives in Lubeck. She lives with her father Max, her Aunt Ebba and cousin Clem and is nineteen years old. Her father is a child of the Enlightenment and quotes Diderot and Voltaire. He has spent time in Dachau in 1933 for his views. Magda finds herself torn between which she is taught at school and in the Nazi youth groups and the views of her father: as does her cousin Clem. Magda is called to serve the Fatherland and is sent to East Prussia to be a teacher, whilst Clem has to join the army and is sent to the Eastern Front. In 1941 East Prussia is something of a rural idyll. Magda lives with her senior teacher Ruth and Ruth’s children Julia and Flora (who has a disability). The rural idyll is not all it seems, given the presence of the Gestapo, party officials, and conscientious party members who are not averse to reporting those not following party rules. As time goes on the war encroaches more and more.
This is a powerful exploration of living in a climate of fear. How does one manage the internal conflicts? How does one survive in a hostile and paranoid environment. It looks at courage and what it takes to stand up to a hostile and evil authority. It also looks at how the Nazis looked at disability. Davies looks at opposites and contrasts and how ideas that are inhuman develop and gain traction in ordinary lives. Remembering Voltaire’s famous dictum:
“Truly, those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
This is an excellent historical novel which examines how women fare in war; how some resist evil and some accommodate it. The characterisation is good and the reader does become invested in the characters. There are plenty of parallels with what is happening today and yet again women and children are casualties.
This isn’t just a good novel, it’s a great novel. It ends with the Nuremburg Trials, but Davies provides potted biographies of most of the main characters (historical and imagined).

[Andrew H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earthly Creatures stretches from 1941 to 1946 and the Nuremberg Trials. The Third Reich has reached the peak of its powers and Germany is about to experience the disastrous effects of war for the first time. In Lubeck, the close family group of Max Arber, his daughter, Magdalena, his sister, Ebba, and her son, Clem, are about to face changes that will upturn their relationships. Clem and Magdalena are summoned to serve the Fatherland. This, Clem does without reservation, but Magdalena is not so certain. Stevie Davies’s latest novel follows Magdalena as she embarks on her new career in the pastoral world of East Prussia, as a schoolteacher. Alongside her mentor and friend, Ruth Daschke, Magda faces incompatible strains, how to balance her love of knowledge with a curriculum that despises thinking, how to align her humanitarian beliefs with the inhuman views of the Third Reich, and, most of all, how to balance her devotion to all earthy creatures with a poisonous regime intent on murder and genocide.

Earthly Creatures gains its power from exploring opposites. The beauty of East Prussia is viewed as an Eden into which the evil of the Third Reich and the the Red Army insinuate themselves like Sin and Death in Paradise Lost. The tenderness of East Prussia’s motherland is raped metaphorically and literally as the war proceeds. Davies’s writing is extraordinary because of how it balances hope against despair: the writing never shrinks away from horror and always keeps in touch with the depths of human feeling. Like Max Arber, who is presented as a fictional friend of the real Victor Klemperer, and an advocate of Voltaire, Davies writes as a modern Humanist, one who is well aware of the dangerous conflict between Fanaticism and Reason. The epigram to Chapter 6 suggests much: “Truly, those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities” (Voltaire, Concerning Miracles). The absurd miracle of genetic science is at the dark heart of Earthly Creatures – the bringing back of animals from extinction and the extermination of children who are deemed to be “useless eaters”.

In many ways, Earthly Creatures is the culmination of Davies’s earlier novels: the terror of war in Boy Blue; the abuse of women by militarism in Arms and the Girl; the guilt of war in The Element of Water. But Earthly Creatures speaks more than them to the times in which we now live. The looting of the deprived Red Army echoes in the recent plundering of Israel. And the destruction of innocent women and children in Germany looks forward to Gaza. Earthly Creatures is a novel that never preaches. How could it when its main concern is the wrong-headedness of ideology? Instead, the novel upholds with powerful tenderness its belief in the goodness of friendship and the rightness of human love. And it presents this through the mind of Magda as she refuses to relinquish her belief in knowledge.

[Emma Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earthly Creatures is a historical novel by Stevie Davies.
❤️Blurb-
For all her life, idealistic 20-year-old bookworm Magdalena Arber has been split down the veering wildly between fidelity to indoctrinated Nazi beliefs, and her father's humanist values. Then comes the summons–the Nazi War Labour Service is conscripting her into a teaching position in East Prussia. Magda is elated. It's a release from the cosy cage of childhood, and a chance to form young minds.
She enters a lush rural world of forests, lakes, and meadows where order prevails. Yet there are monstrous hands out to shape the whole continuum of earthly creatures. The Gestapo are a lurking darkness. There is bombing further East, and news of a moving Russian front. Will Alt Schönbek burn as well? Can Magda survive?
💜 Review -
I loved this book. I found the story beautiful and interesting. I couldn't put it down and kept reading until the end as I wanted to know what happened. I found the story easy to follow and inspiring. Plus the pacing was just right and I loved the great mix of characters. The author's attention to detail of the time period was spot on. I highly recommend it to other historical fiction readers. I look forward to reading more by the author.
❤️ Thank you to Random Things Tours, the author, Stevie Davies and the publisher for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[Sian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly powerful novel. Set in 1940s Germany and Prussia, it is both beautiful and disturbing. From the outset there is a growing tension as Magda questions the Nazi beliefs she has been taught through the Hitler Youth movement. There is a sense of menace as we see how all levels of the community are becoming indoctrinated with Nazi fanaticism. The oppression and genocide we read of is not often graphic yet is even more chilling for that lack of detail. I will definitely be reading more by this Swansea author.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to WW2 literature, it’s not very often you get to see things from the German perspective. The result has to be one of the most powerful and moving books I have read all year. The story follows Magdalena Arber, a young woman brought up in the Hitler youth who is conscripted to work as a teacher in East Prussia. Working and living in the small, seemingly idyllic village of Alt Schönbek, she slowly comes face to face with the truth of the Nazi regime.

Immaculately well researched, with compelling characters and beautiful prose, it is clear that the author Stevie Davies is passionate about this subject and really knows her stuff. While it is often difficult to read and sometimes downright shocking, the author has done an incredible job of presenting the hard facts of this horrendous time to the reader. You find yourself drawn into the story and while you never forget that it’s based on truth, it is hard to comprehend this actually happened.

I would thoroughly recommend for those wishing to explore this time further, but also warn you that it is not an easy read!

[Staceywh_17 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earthly Creatures is a stunning piece of historical fiction that had me well and truly riveted from beginning to end.

The author's research and attention to detail is meticulous, and their descriptions allowed me to visualise the scenes vividly as they unfolded from the pages.

Magda was a fascinating character. I loved her zest for life and her determination. She wasn't letting something as trivial as a war come between her and her love of teaching, being able to impart her knowledge and her passion for books.

Sombre and evocative, Earthly Creatures is a powerful coming of age story.

[Nessa’s Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stevie Davies’ Earthly Creatures is a hauntingly beautiful exploration of a young woman’s struggle to find her place in a world teetering and darkening on the edge of war. Set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, this novel delves deep into the conflicting ideologies that tug at the soul of its FMC, Magdalena Arber.

Magda, has always been caught between two worlds. On one hand, she is bound by the Nazi beliefs she has been taught; on the other, she is drawn to her father’s humanist values. When she’s conscripted by the Nazi War Labour Service and sent to teach in East Prussia, she views it as a chance to escape the stifling confines of her childhood and make a real difference. But the world she enters is one where the serenity of the natural landscape is overshadowed by the lurking menace of the Gestapo and the encroaching horrors of war.

Davies expertly portrays the lush rural settings with its forests, lakes, and meadows, creating a sense of beauty that starkly contrasts with the darkness slowly consuming the region. The tension is strong as the Russian front draws nearer, and the looming threat of destruction becomes a constant undercurrent and fear in this storyline.

Magda’s journey is one of self-discovery and resilience. As she navigates the perils of her new life, she must confront the monstrous forces seeking to mold her into something she’s not. In a time where there is much suffering and little appreciation or value for women.

What was soul grabbing was the portrayal of Magda’s internal conflict, her struggle to reconcile the teachings of her youth with the harsh realities of the world around her.

Earthly Creatures is more than just a historical novel; it’s a profound meditation on the power of human agency and the courage it takes to stand against the tide of oppression. Magda’s story is beautiful, empowering and deeply moving, reminding us that even in the darkest times, there is hope to be found in the steadfastness of the human spirit.

This novel may not be for everyone given the setting and time period but it is truly an inspirational read that I recommend to anyone that has an interest in historical novels. It’s a novel that will stay with you long after the final page.

[Brian Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

No one could take issue with the way this novel is written: the pacing, the clarity, the characterisation. Today left-leaning authors such as Davies are drawn to themes of battling tyranny - particularly historic Nazi tyranny - because they feel it chimes with what they see as Europe's and the US's slide into authoritarianism in our own day. What they most often fail to appreciate is that many things that characterised right-wing politics in the mid-twentieth century have become associated in the early twenty-first with the Left. Examples of Nazi excess in this book - such as the use of school books to indoctrinate children, the denigration of "knowledge", racialized politics, antisemitism, euthanasia, even medical experiments on children (think of "gender affirming surgery" for minors) - have reappeared today in the politics of "progressives". Still, this is a book that is worth reading, as Davies, despite her own views, seems alert to the dangers of preaching, and of seeing the world in starkly black and white terms.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engrossing novel by a very good author. It captures unerringly the moral equivocation felt by many in the face of evil, when the evil seems to be received wisdom.
It also portrays well the degradation and horror of flight from invading armies.

Highly recommended.

[Sarah Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this historical novel setting in World War II, which tells the story of a very young German girl Magdalena who grows up in a family where her father is a humanist and author. She is sent by the Nazi government to work as a school teacher in East Prussia then part of East Germany .
The story follows‘s early adulthood as she discovers that her upbringing is in contradiction to what she is expected to believe by the Nazi party of the time.
Some of the horror in reading books about the war and Nazi Germany is knowing in advance what’s going to happen. When a new character is introduced a small girl with disabilities we know that this is not going to end well and it becomes horrifying to read on to what you know must be the outcome
The families in the east of Germany are living a pretty normal life throughout most of the war and it becomes even more shocking when towards the very end they are thrown straight into the horror of warfare when the Russians invaded eastern Germany.I thought the section where the rape
Of German women by Russian soldiers was dealt with extremely well. I’m very sensitively. It was nonetheless shocking.
I’ve read quite a lot of World War II novels and this is one of the best that I’ve read
The characters are perfectly described and their characters learn and develop and grow with the novel they seem like real people and you really care for what happens to them
The author has a clear flowing prose style making the novel an enjoyable read , I particularly enjoyed the language used in the sections towards the end of the novel where the atrocities of war become more apparent the author uses a different tone sections and there are some starkly bleak but beautiful sections
I’d recommend the novel for those who like a good historic World War II novel with great characterisations . If you like All the light, we cannot see by Anthony. Doerr for the English patient by Michael Ordeatje then I think you would like this novel.
I was sent an electronic copy of the novel for review as part of a book blog tour organised by random Random Things Tours the book was published on the 5th of September 2024 in the UK by honno books

[Kelly Hollingworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful Second World War read from the perspective of Germany and its people rather than the more common angle of Britain and her allies. The descriptions of the East Prussian landscape are extraordinary as are the relationships between Magdalena and her family and with fellow teacher Ruth Daschke and her twin daughters. At times a difficult read the book tells the shocking story of inside Germany and the treatment of some of its own citizens by its own citizens. The conditions, the hunger, the evil are juxtaposed by the beautiful forests, the wildlife and the love. This is an important book that is wonderfully written. Magdalena’s story will stay with me for a long time.