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Mrs. Miniver
MEET MRS. MINIVER
"I can think of a hundred ways already in which the war has 'brought us to our senses.' But it ought not to need a war to make a nation paint its kerbstones white, carry rear-lamps on its bicycles, and give all its slum children a holiday in the country." That's just one sample of Mrs. Miniver's homespun philosophy.
Meet Mrs. Miniver. She is the universal, heart-warming symbol of the endurable and pleasant sides of existence. Against the shadow of the present she holds up to view the everyday domesticities, the comings and goings of family life, and finds them good.
Mrs, Miniver at tea, Mrs. Miniver trying to discover what the windshield wiper is really saying, Mrs. Miniver and her three unpredictable children and her altogether too-predictable husband, Mrs. Miniver and the woman who said she could only accept the Really Nice Children as évacués—the writing and characters in these thumbnail sketches are disarmingly simple and recognizable, and yet, by the author's gift of intense observation, the ordinary becomes extraordinary and important.
"I can think of a hundred ways already in which the war has 'brought us to our senses.' But it ought not to need a war to make a nation paint its kerbstones white, carry rear-lamps on its bicycles, and give all its slum children a holiday in the country." That's just one sample of Mrs. Miniver's homespun philosophy.
Meet Mrs. Miniver. She is the universal, heart-warming symbol of the endurable and pleasant sides of existence. Against the shadow of the present she holds up to view the everyday domesticities, the comings and goings of family life, and finds them good.
Mrs, Miniver at tea, Mrs. Miniver trying to discover what the windshield wiper is really saying, Mrs. Miniver and her three unpredictable children and her altogether too-predictable husband, Mrs. Miniver and the woman who said she could only accept the Really Nice Children as évacués—the writing and characters in these thumbnail sketches are disarmingly simple and recognizable, and yet, by the author's gift of intense observation, the ordinary becomes extraordinary and important.
119 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1939
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 311 reviews
June 1, 2015
Ok finished the book. One final thought to complete the review. Mrs. Miniver did have something rather excellent to say on marriages and social life. She said that there was often one of a pair that you liked less than the other, or that one of them would always outshine the other (don't we all know couples like that?) and it was such a shame that you always had to invite both for dinner and couldn't have them over separately.
She said that a friend always had two dinner parties. One for the people she liked and one for all the people she had to invite but didn't like. Imagine how awful it would be to find out you were on the latter list!
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Winston Churchill once said that Mrs. Miniver did more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. I can't say it would have that effect on our troops in the Middle East or anywhere else these days.
Can you imagine why soldiers would cherish the stories of a stonkingly wealthy middle-aged woman with a house and servants in a very posh area of London who amuses herself by visiting her son at Eton once a month (the other three weeks she goes to her country house for shootin', dinner parties or whatever). Her reflections on life are very positive. She really doesn't have anything to be negative about. No housework, plenty of money, husband takes care of bills and such, all she has to do is swan around smelling the chrysanthamums and thinking faux deep thoughts in a shallow, passing way as she goes about her daily round of doing... nothing.
I suppose WWII was still in the time of when the peasant touched his forelock and the man in the street raised his hat to a 'lady of quality'. Times have moved on! There is nothing to identify with here.
It could be read as memories of a gentler time when women knew their place and acted not-too-bright and always, at least out loud, agreed with the man who kept them. For men knew their place too, out in the world bringing home money to give his wife a clothing allowance and the satisfaction of knowing she would always be respected as his wife, and always be known as Mrs. Clem Miniver (and never Caroline Miniver, only divorcees - horror of horrors - would be known by their own first name).
What elevates this book is the writing. The writing is wonderful. I like reading books just because of the writing sometimes, and this writing elevates the rather awfully smug Mrs. Miniver and her stories into an enjoyable read.
She said that a friend always had two dinner parties. One for the people she liked and one for all the people she had to invite but didn't like. Imagine how awful it would be to find out you were on the latter list!
----------
Winston Churchill once said that Mrs. Miniver did more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. I can't say it would have that effect on our troops in the Middle East or anywhere else these days.
Can you imagine why soldiers would cherish the stories of a stonkingly wealthy middle-aged woman with a house and servants in a very posh area of London who amuses herself by visiting her son at Eton once a month (the other three weeks she goes to her country house for shootin', dinner parties or whatever). Her reflections on life are very positive. She really doesn't have anything to be negative about. No housework, plenty of money, husband takes care of bills and such, all she has to do is swan around smelling the chrysanthamums and thinking faux deep thoughts in a shallow, passing way as she goes about her daily round of doing... nothing.
I suppose WWII was still in the time of when the peasant touched his forelock and the man in the street raised his hat to a 'lady of quality'. Times have moved on! There is nothing to identify with here.
It could be read as memories of a gentler time when women knew their place and acted not-too-bright and always, at least out loud, agreed with the man who kept them. For men knew their place too, out in the world bringing home money to give his wife a clothing allowance and the satisfaction of knowing she would always be respected as his wife, and always be known as Mrs. Clem Miniver (and never Caroline Miniver, only divorcees - horror of horrors - would be known by their own first name).
What elevates this book is the writing. The writing is wonderful. I like reading books just because of the writing sometimes, and this writing elevates the rather awfully smug Mrs. Miniver and her stories into an enjoyable read.
February 4, 2021
The Introduction to this book explains that it is really a compilation of short pieces originally published in The Times over the period 1937-1939. Jan Struther was asked to contribute a series imagining the life of an “ordinary” woman, although her definition of “ordinary” was doubtless a reflection of her own background. Mrs Miniver has both a town and a country house, with servants in both. Her eldest boy is at Eton, and every August she motors up to Scotland for the grouse-shooting season (or should that be “grice-shooting”?) In other words, she lives a lifestyle that was representative of a tiny minority in 1930s Britain. I will grant that Struther was writing for The Times, which would have had a readership heavily skewed towards the middle and upper classes, and who may not therefore, have been aware of just how unrepresentative Mrs Miniver’s circumstances were.
For the first third or so of this book Mrs M potters about harmlessly with shopping and attending dinner parties, her adventures laced with gentle humour – so gentle in fact, that you don’t always notice it’s there. About 60 pages into the book there’s a sudden change of tone when she and her family go to collect their gas masks. This was in relation to the Munich crisis of September 1938, when war looked on the cards but was postponed for a year when Britain and France ended up giving Hitler what he wanted. Mrs Miniver explains the conflict to her two older children because she is determined that, if war comes;
“…these children would at least know that we were fighting against an idea, and not against a nation.”
On the whole I enjoyed the book. Mrs M has a pragmatic approach to life and a positive “do something” mentality. I can see why the character was used as the basis for a wartime film intended as a morale-booster. Jan Struther was quite a sharp observer. The book ends at Christmas 1939, so it covers the start of the war, but not events like Dunkirk or the Blitz. Because the various segments were written across a period starting from 1937, you get a sense of how the coming war gradually affected people’s thinking. It’s a decent read, even if we doubt quite how “ordinary” Mrs Miniver actually was.
For the first third or so of this book Mrs M potters about harmlessly with shopping and attending dinner parties, her adventures laced with gentle humour – so gentle in fact, that you don’t always notice it’s there. About 60 pages into the book there’s a sudden change of tone when she and her family go to collect their gas masks. This was in relation to the Munich crisis of September 1938, when war looked on the cards but was postponed for a year when Britain and France ended up giving Hitler what he wanted. Mrs Miniver explains the conflict to her two older children because she is determined that, if war comes;
“…these children would at least know that we were fighting against an idea, and not against a nation.”
On the whole I enjoyed the book. Mrs M has a pragmatic approach to life and a positive “do something” mentality. I can see why the character was used as the basis for a wartime film intended as a morale-booster. Jan Struther was quite a sharp observer. The book ends at Christmas 1939, so it covers the start of the war, but not events like Dunkirk or the Blitz. Because the various segments were written across a period starting from 1937, you get a sense of how the coming war gradually affected people’s thinking. It’s a decent read, even if we doubt quite how “ordinary” Mrs Miniver actually was.
November 21, 2021
Another one on the list of Middle Brow classics, I have been reading and really not my cup of tea. This is a series of short essays on the pleasant life of an upper middle class woman in London before World War Two. She is very happy, which I found refreshing at first, but then it became enervating to read of her going down to their house in the country and then back to their house in London. No wonder she's happy, Mrs. Miniver has servants to do all the dirty work, so she can enjoy herself shopping and smelling the roses.
The only genuine thing she thinks about which resonated with me is her love of and appreciation for her children and their different personalities. I was interested in them. Other thoughts she has on life and nature are not so unique that you gain by reading them. She is amusing at times, talking about how most couples have a fun half and a dud half, but you can't invite just the charming one to your dinner party.
The only genuine thing she thinks about which resonated with me is her love of and appreciation for her children and their different personalities. I was interested in them. Other thoughts she has on life and nature are not so unique that you gain by reading them. She is amusing at times, talking about how most couples have a fun half and a dud half, but you can't invite just the charming one to your dinner party.
Read
June 5, 2019DNF so far. Too tame for my tastes?
Never saw the film. Not too impressed with this series of short stories.
Good.
Q:
If only all governments would spend the price of a few bombers on exchanging for the holidays, free of charge, a certain number of families from each district. (c)
Blech.
Q:
On the windowsill she read:—
Ne pas se pencher en dehors.
Nicht hinauslehnen.
E pericoloso sporgersi.
Exactly, she thought. “What I tell you three times is true.” But the trouble was, it still had to be said in three different languages. … (c) There's absolutely no trouble whatsoever in reading a sentence in 2 languages. Mrs is a neurotic.
Never saw the film. Not too impressed with this series of short stories.
Good.
Q:
If only all governments would spend the price of a few bombers on exchanging for the holidays, free of charge, a certain number of families from each district. (c)
Blech.
Q:
On the windowsill she read:—
Ne pas se pencher en dehors.
Nicht hinauslehnen.
E pericoloso sporgersi.
Exactly, she thought. “What I tell you three times is true.” But the trouble was, it still had to be said in three different languages. … (c) There's absolutely no trouble whatsoever in reading a sentence in 2 languages. Mrs is a neurotic.
July 28, 2019
What a lovely book! While it’s very different from the movie, I felt like the movie really captured the character as she would have been a year or two later than this book’s setting. The time frame is 1938-1939 as war breaks over England for a second time in Mrs. Miniver’s life. Each short character sketch goes unexpectedly deep for just a few pages of writing. Highly recommended.
Content: a few swears
Content: a few swears
December 23, 2014
This book is told as a collection of vignettes from the life of a privileged woman in England just as WWII is breaking out. Books like these are almost a guilty pleasure for me - I love reading books set in London around the war, but I can't help feeling annoyed that Britain and the hallowed empire were still hanging on to many of their former colonies then, including my own country. However, those thoughts still need a little more watering. Struther writes BEAUTIFULLY: I had to catch my breath and reread sentences/thoughts in multiple places. Here is one that I found perfect for our over-sharing age (and it is horrifying that this was written more than seventy years ago):
“[M]rs. Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when the ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that we can pick them judiciously, present them with a bow, and watch them unfold in the warmth of each other's understanding: but there is far too much nowadays of pulling up the wretched little things just to see how they are growing. Half the verbal sprigs we hand each other are nothing but up-ended rootlets, earthy and immature: left longer in the ground they might have come to something, but once they are exposed we seldom manage to replant them. It is largely the fault, no doubt, of the times we live in. Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feels, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.”
And this:
“Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.”
And so many many more. Read it for the intelligence and sheer poetry.
“[M]rs. Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when the ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that we can pick them judiciously, present them with a bow, and watch them unfold in the warmth of each other's understanding: but there is far too much nowadays of pulling up the wretched little things just to see how they are growing. Half the verbal sprigs we hand each other are nothing but up-ended rootlets, earthy and immature: left longer in the ground they might have come to something, but once they are exposed we seldom manage to replant them. It is largely the fault, no doubt, of the times we live in. Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feels, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.”
And this:
“Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.”
And so many many more. Read it for the intelligence and sheer poetry.
January 28, 2025
Five stars for the Persephone edition of Mrs Miniver, which was just released in the autumn of 2024. It includes an introduction by Jan Struther’s granddaughter, additional Mrs Miniver “letters”, a talk Jan Struther gave about how the Mrs Miniver columns came about, and two rather scathing reviews of Mrs Miniver by E.M. Forster and Rosamund Lehmann. (To them I say HA!)
Mrs Miniver itself is a collection of the columns Jan Struther wrote for The Times of London from 1937 to 1939. Mrs Miniver was a persona created by Jan and her columns are delightful: short, pithy, funny, sometimes wise, sometimes irreverent, always wry. The topics are very every-day and at the same time give a glimpse into a long-ago 1930s upper class world and remind one that human beings never really change. I can see myself pulling this off the shelf frequently and opening to a column at random to enjoy Mrs Miniver’s plucky observations and her indomitable humor.
Mrs Miniver itself is a collection of the columns Jan Struther wrote for The Times of London from 1937 to 1939. Mrs Miniver was a persona created by Jan and her columns are delightful: short, pithy, funny, sometimes wise, sometimes irreverent, always wry. The topics are very every-day and at the same time give a glimpse into a long-ago 1930s upper class world and remind one that human beings never really change. I can see myself pulling this off the shelf frequently and opening to a column at random to enjoy Mrs Miniver’s plucky observations and her indomitable humor.
September 24, 2017
I just finished reading two very intense and emotional books back to back, and needed something to read that was calming and undemanding. Not a mystery, or essays, or non-fiction, nothing that I had to think about at all. What I wanted in print form was a long, contented conversation with a good friend. I perused my bookshelves for about 30 minutes, pulling out one book or another, and rejecting them all. Then I spotted "Mrs. Miniver". Not sure why I had it, or when I purchased it, but there it was.
It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Mrs. Miniver is an upper middle class housewife in London, with an architect husband and three children. She has a cook and a nanny and a parlor maid, and a house in the country for getaways. The only fly in the ointment is that it's 1939, and a war is just getting underway. She stays unruffled, has a philosophical outlook, tries to remain positive, and best of all, shares her feelings on everything in a series of short chapters in down to earth language that shines with little pearls dropped into her prose every few paragraphs. Here is a sampling:
"A day without a chunk of two of solitude in it is like a cocktail without ice".
" Constructive destruction is one of the most delightful employments in the world, and in civilized life the opportunities for it are all too rare".
"She reflected once more how much of the fun of parenthood lay in watching the children remake, with delighted wonder, one's own discoveries."
"She's got fatty degeneration of the soul".
So, yes, I got my long conversation with a friend, even if it was separated by 77 years. Note to readers: There is absolutely no plot here, just observations on life and it's joys and irritations. It was made into a highly successful film in 1942, and won several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Greer Garson, but it was adapted by Hollywood into a WWII drama that bore little resemblance to the book.
It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Mrs. Miniver is an upper middle class housewife in London, with an architect husband and three children. She has a cook and a nanny and a parlor maid, and a house in the country for getaways. The only fly in the ointment is that it's 1939, and a war is just getting underway. She stays unruffled, has a philosophical outlook, tries to remain positive, and best of all, shares her feelings on everything in a series of short chapters in down to earth language that shines with little pearls dropped into her prose every few paragraphs. Here is a sampling:
"A day without a chunk of two of solitude in it is like a cocktail without ice".
" Constructive destruction is one of the most delightful employments in the world, and in civilized life the opportunities for it are all too rare".
"She reflected once more how much of the fun of parenthood lay in watching the children remake, with delighted wonder, one's own discoveries."
"She's got fatty degeneration of the soul".
So, yes, I got my long conversation with a friend, even if it was separated by 77 years. Note to readers: There is absolutely no plot here, just observations on life and it's joys and irritations. It was made into a highly successful film in 1942, and won several Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Greer Garson, but it was adapted by Hollywood into a WWII drama that bore little resemblance to the book.
October 13, 2014
Can't remember when I acquired this old book but it bears a 1940/1942 publication date.
If you’re familiar with the 1942 Mrs. Miniver film staring Greer Garson, the book, Mrs. Miniver, by Jan Struther is much better, mostly because its missing the propaganda aspect so appreciated at the time and since deplored by film critics.
The writing varies from light social repartee to family romps to more somber reflections on the early dark days of World War II in Great Britain with each ‘chapter’ a separate vignette, beginning as a newspaper column, later collected together and published in book form.
Ms. Struther delights in describing life’s simpler but richer pleasures such as: listening to and trying to capture the precise sound of windshield wiper blades, savoring and reviewing past Christmas shopping lists and appreciating the transient beauty of fireworks. From marriage, to gas masks, trips to Scotland, Hampstead Heath or the dentist, Mrs. Miniver provides a glimpse of a bygone age and world. I enjoyed the visit.
If you’re familiar with the 1942 Mrs. Miniver film staring Greer Garson, the book, Mrs. Miniver, by Jan Struther is much better, mostly because its missing the propaganda aspect so appreciated at the time and since deplored by film critics.
The writing varies from light social repartee to family romps to more somber reflections on the early dark days of World War II in Great Britain with each ‘chapter’ a separate vignette, beginning as a newspaper column, later collected together and published in book form.
Ms. Struther delights in describing life’s simpler but richer pleasures such as: listening to and trying to capture the precise sound of windshield wiper blades, savoring and reviewing past Christmas shopping lists and appreciating the transient beauty of fireworks. From marriage, to gas masks, trips to Scotland, Hampstead Heath or the dentist, Mrs. Miniver provides a glimpse of a bygone age and world. I enjoyed the visit.
February 13, 2021
I chose this book for my Book Hour on local radio (www.siar.fm), and it was a sheer delight to read aloud, especially the chapter where she makes her first flight (but I can't give too much away!). I'd heard that this book was highly acclaimed for its effect on people during World War II, and it's a very small book, so before starting it I did wonder how this remarkable influence was achieved. Now, when I try to sum it up without spoiling the experience for anyone who hasn't read it, the expression "tell it slant" comes to mind. Mrs Miniver takes us through her family life, in entertaining detail; but the cameos that form the chapters touch lightly on a context of human values and the destruction of them; they illumine, not spell out, what is important to each of us, and they show us the poetry of the moment. If you wished to do so, you could regard some aspects of it as dated; the Minivers belong to a certain class or elite of British society and you could seek to diminish the book's intrinsic worth because they seem, to a certain extent, protected by their easy circumstances; but, in a horrific chapter where Mrs Miniver visits the dentist, she could be either a resistance agent, or a Jew, and the analogy is not spelt out, but subtly hinted at.
The letters that end the book take on a new note. They do spell out what it means to stand against brutality, against tyranny; to quote Mrs Miniver's friend Badger, "We must live on stored beauty, like a squirrel on nuts." The tone is light, and Mrs Miniver's observations witty, charming and, for me, entrancing; each chapter brings fresh insight. At one point, Mrs Miniver searches behind a loose tile for a coin she has placed there many years earlier. In the book we find it; a coin of irreplaceable value.
The letters that end the book take on a new note. They do spell out what it means to stand against brutality, against tyranny; to quote Mrs Miniver's friend Badger, "We must live on stored beauty, like a squirrel on nuts." The tone is light, and Mrs Miniver's observations witty, charming and, for me, entrancing; each chapter brings fresh insight. At one point, Mrs Miniver searches behind a loose tile for a coin she has placed there many years earlier. In the book we find it; a coin of irreplaceable value.
April 2, 2017
I picked this book up out of the library on a kind of whim. I'd heard of it, and the movie, and was curious. What it turned out to be was a delight in many ways and yes, it's about a privileged woman from a privileged class, living at a time when privilege still ruled, and yet her sentiments, her concerns, her 'foibles' are remarkably, and stunningly, completely down to Earth. She knows what she has is special; she's grateful for it - home and health, family and loving husband, a secure place in society which is not questioned - but she also knows what she might so quickly lose and as a result, appreciates things all the more.
This novel is actually a series of essays, written over time, concerning small events in this woman's life, with her three children and husband, assorted servants, nannies, etc. She owns two homes, city (London) and countryside (Kent), and has few problems negotiating through life, until there is a war, and though the war is distant, it's also very near. She fears it, yet reconciles herself to it and like the English do, fords on and 'makes do.' Her essays concern small things, however, like moving into or out of the country house; or the odd smell in that country house; or her encounters with others of 'her class' who seem disconnected from what's going on in the world. One snobbish woman says she'll only take refugee children into her home who are well-behaved. Where do the others go, Mrs. Miniver asks? The snobbish woman answers, 'into the camps.'
There's a delight Mrs. Miniver has with ordinary things, with objects and trees, the countryside, the streets of the city, the toys her children own or the games they make up and play. She takes immense pleasure in just the odor from a bunch of shaggy chrysanthemums, because - and this is my opinion - she knows how much their loss will mean and signify. She sees life through a clear, clean lens, but it has a dark outer edge, that edge being the end of things, which of course, is something which many of us also fear. So if at first glance her essays and concerns seem light-hearted and frivolous, they really aren't. They tap deep into the human heart, its joys and small concerns, its wonder and its losses. The writing is crystal-clear, succinct, the kind which makes you look up now and then and consider what's being said.
I enjoyed this little book very much so.
This novel is actually a series of essays, written over time, concerning small events in this woman's life, with her three children and husband, assorted servants, nannies, etc. She owns two homes, city (London) and countryside (Kent), and has few problems negotiating through life, until there is a war, and though the war is distant, it's also very near. She fears it, yet reconciles herself to it and like the English do, fords on and 'makes do.' Her essays concern small things, however, like moving into or out of the country house; or the odd smell in that country house; or her encounters with others of 'her class' who seem disconnected from what's going on in the world. One snobbish woman says she'll only take refugee children into her home who are well-behaved. Where do the others go, Mrs. Miniver asks? The snobbish woman answers, 'into the camps.'
There's a delight Mrs. Miniver has with ordinary things, with objects and trees, the countryside, the streets of the city, the toys her children own or the games they make up and play. She takes immense pleasure in just the odor from a bunch of shaggy chrysanthemums, because - and this is my opinion - she knows how much their loss will mean and signify. She sees life through a clear, clean lens, but it has a dark outer edge, that edge being the end of things, which of course, is something which many of us also fear. So if at first glance her essays and concerns seem light-hearted and frivolous, they really aren't. They tap deep into the human heart, its joys and small concerns, its wonder and its losses. The writing is crystal-clear, succinct, the kind which makes you look up now and then and consider what's being said.
I enjoyed this little book very much so.
November 20, 2025
It's a collection of short stories about life in the late 1930's. Mrs Miniver is sensitively written and is about her life both pre and after the outbreak of WW2. She observes life and the book is splattered with her meandering thoughts that stick in your mind. eg with couples there is always one you like more than the other. It was a morale boosting tool when it was published. The writing is dated and parts were uncomfortable to read, I especially didn't like the casual racism. Its terribly upper middle class, with Mrs Miniver having servants and a house in the country, and grouse shppring in Scotland. There is no plot as such just a series of musings. I liked it but I didn't love it
February 13, 2012
What may come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the beloved 1942 film adaptation is that Mrs. Miniver is not really about World War II. But it's one of the loveliest pieces of writing you'll find anywhere. It's not a novel but a collection of short stories, originally published in the Times. I originally supposed that the filmmakers must have drawn different incidents from the stories and woven them together into a plot for the movie, but there is far less connection than that. I'd say they took the characters of the Miniver family and wrote an original story for them. The family is much the same in the book, with the notable exception of oldest son Vin, who is not college-age but in his early teens.
The stories are beautiful little vignettes of daily life, each capturing through Mrs. Miniver's observant eyes a day, an incident, a moment, in writing that can be savored as she savors each experience. Everyday things become like a simple flower under a magnifying glass, revealing unexpected detail and beauty. As Mrs. Miniver herself muses, "Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion." When you think about it, that sentence pretty much encapsulates a writer's task—to craft the net of words that catches thoughts and feelings and display them to the reader; who recognizes them, but may not have been able to put such feelings into words themselves. In Mrs. Miniver author Jan Struther succeeds marvelously at this task.
The imminence of war does make itself felt in the second half of the book, though only the very last chapter is set after war is declared. Under this atmostphere Mrs. Miniver's ponderings have a slightly bleaker tone in certain stories. Particularly telling, I thought, was a reference to Guy Fawkes' Day that seemed in sharp contrast to the picture of that celebration in an earlier story. Yet she remains attentive to the beautiful as well as the painful moments of lives lived in difficult times. A passage in the final chapter, which is written in the form of a letter, particularly appealed to me as a student of history, as Mrs. Miniver muses over what it would be like to have ways of exactly recalling people's feelings and attitudes during momentous events. "The nearest approach to them, I think, are the poems and articles—and even the letters and chance phrases—which are struck out of people like sparks at such moments as this. So write all the letters you can, Susan, please (to me, if you feel like it, but at any rate to somebody), and keep all the ones you get, and put down somewhere, too, everything you see or hear which will help later on to recapture the spirit of this tragic, marvellous, and eye-opening time: so that, having recaptured it, we can use it for better ends."
This one falls among the number of library books that you wish didn't have to go back. Highly recommended!
The stories are beautiful little vignettes of daily life, each capturing through Mrs. Miniver's observant eyes a day, an incident, a moment, in writing that can be savored as she savors each experience. Everyday things become like a simple flower under a magnifying glass, revealing unexpected detail and beauty. As Mrs. Miniver herself muses, "Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion." When you think about it, that sentence pretty much encapsulates a writer's task—to craft the net of words that catches thoughts and feelings and display them to the reader; who recognizes them, but may not have been able to put such feelings into words themselves. In Mrs. Miniver author Jan Struther succeeds marvelously at this task.
The imminence of war does make itself felt in the second half of the book, though only the very last chapter is set after war is declared. Under this atmostphere Mrs. Miniver's ponderings have a slightly bleaker tone in certain stories. Particularly telling, I thought, was a reference to Guy Fawkes' Day that seemed in sharp contrast to the picture of that celebration in an earlier story. Yet she remains attentive to the beautiful as well as the painful moments of lives lived in difficult times. A passage in the final chapter, which is written in the form of a letter, particularly appealed to me as a student of history, as Mrs. Miniver muses over what it would be like to have ways of exactly recalling people's feelings and attitudes during momentous events. "The nearest approach to them, I think, are the poems and articles—and even the letters and chance phrases—which are struck out of people like sparks at such moments as this. So write all the letters you can, Susan, please (to me, if you feel like it, but at any rate to somebody), and keep all the ones you get, and put down somewhere, too, everything you see or hear which will help later on to recapture the spirit of this tragic, marvellous, and eye-opening time: so that, having recaptured it, we can use it for better ends."
This one falls among the number of library books that you wish didn't have to go back. Highly recommended!
January 25, 2011
My copy of Mrs Miniver is an original wartime edition of this famous little book, which began life as a puff-piece in The Times but when war came the story grew to become the voice of stoic Britain. The cover is austerity brown paper, there are no pictures – only text – on the front and back covers, and the pages are speckled with age. It feels like the very book that my mother would surely have read.
The Minivers are from the ‘professional classes’. There’s a boy at Eton, daddy is an architect. In chapter one an anonymous someone responds when Mrs M contentedly rings the bell for tea, and in chapter two an un-named ‘garage-hand’ brings the car round in the morning. Mrs M is comfortable and mildly complacent but not unaware of how fortunate she is to be able to take pleasure in the everyday. While naively believing that she understands what life is like for the Other, Mrs Miniver hasn’t forgotten their financial ups-and-downs when they were too hard-up to afford a taxi home after dinner out.
But the book is only deceptively twee: read carefully and you will find that Struther is a sharp observer.
To read the rest of my review please visit
http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
The Minivers are from the ‘professional classes’. There’s a boy at Eton, daddy is an architect. In chapter one an anonymous someone responds when Mrs M contentedly rings the bell for tea, and in chapter two an un-named ‘garage-hand’ brings the car round in the morning. Mrs M is comfortable and mildly complacent but not unaware of how fortunate she is to be able to take pleasure in the everyday. While naively believing that she understands what life is like for the Other, Mrs Miniver hasn’t forgotten their financial ups-and-downs when they were too hard-up to afford a taxi home after dinner out.
But the book is only deceptively twee: read carefully and you will find that Struther is a sharp observer.
To read the rest of my review please visit
http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
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November 19, 2016*sigh* I gave up. This is one of those rare situations in which I find myself liking the movie more than the book.
October 23, 2025
I absolutely loved this! Written as newspaper columns in the London Time in the 1930's, these fictional stories of Mrs. Miniver and her family take us back to a bygone era. Each chapter is it's own story or vignette in the life of Mrs. Miniver and for this reason this book can easily be picked up and read piecemeal rather than cover to cover. It will definitely be one that I pick up and just sit and re-read a chapter when I am in the mood.
I highly, highly recommend for a glimpse of what life was like during the interwar period in England. Wonderful.
I highly, highly recommend for a glimpse of what life was like during the interwar period in England. Wonderful.
August 21, 2016
This is the book which was the inspiration for the beautiful old film Mrs Miniver. The little stories of the life of an 'ordinary English housewife' were first published every few weeks in The Times. Each small chapter in the book is also a small chapter in the lives of the Miniver family. There are the usual domestic events of course, but with the outbreak of war Mrs Miniver has more to reflect upon than just the family and entertaining, such as black outs, evacuees and the prospect of life never being the same again. There is a comprehensive introduction about both the author and the book. I don't know however, whether I would recommend that you read it before reading the book or after as Valerie Grove gives away quite a few things that I would prefer not to have known before reading it for myself. There is a little vignette in each chapter, (due to the fact that it was originally published in instalments) and in her introduction Grove 'lets slip' the decision that Mrs Miniver made in a particular situation or her thoughts on a subject. Also in the stories we are tantalised by not knowing what Mrs Miniver's Christian name is. Grove points out in her introduction where the surname comes from and that the name ****** is 'teasingly withheld until almost the end of the book.' Obviously not if you read the introduction!
Winston Churchill exclaimed that Mrs Miniver had done more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. It became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.
If you are expecting exactly the same story as the one we have come to love in the film then you will find it slightly different. A couple of my favourite storylines from the film are completely missing. Also I do not remember the Minivers being quite so well off and high up in society, with servants and nannies, maybe that is just my memory.
Altogether a lovely, evocative and moving read.
Winston Churchill exclaimed that Mrs Miniver had done more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. It became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.
If you are expecting exactly the same story as the one we have come to love in the film then you will find it slightly different. A couple of my favourite storylines from the film are completely missing. Also I do not remember the Minivers being quite so well off and high up in society, with servants and nannies, maybe that is just my memory.
Altogether a lovely, evocative and moving read.
July 4, 2024
This wasn't quite what I was expecting, I thought it would be much more focused on the beginning of the war but that doesn't get much of a mention, perhaps people at the time wanted to be entertained and not reminded of what was happening. Instead we hear about Mrs Minniver's fairly ordinary family life; their Scottish holidays, their weekend trips to Starlings - the weekend cottage in Kent, hop picking for the neighbouring farm. There is a bit of philosophical - I think I'd have liked to know her, and quite a few laughs.
A lovely book; I think I'd like to see the film, though I'm not sure how it will work as a movie.
I believe Persephone Books are publishing this one in the autumn.
A lovely book; I think I'd like to see the film, though I'm not sure how it will work as a movie.
I believe Persephone Books are publishing this one in the autumn.
March 28, 2019
The ability to sketch a scene in only two or three pages - and not only to invest it with a universality, but also to underscore it with an elegant profundity or insight - is surely a rare gift. Jan Struther, whose fictional ‘alter-ego’ was Caroline Miniver, is remembered primarily for the popular essays she wrote for The Times in the lead-up and early years of World War II. While Mrs. Miniver never pretended to be of any other social milieu than that of the upper-middle classes, she had a tenderness of insight that enabled her to be a wonderful representative not just of Britishness, but of human society in its most ‘civilised’ form. In one of her essays, she describes her delight at meeting a charwoman who possesses “that most endearing of qualities, an abundant zest for life.” The reader feels that Mrs. Miniver, and her creator too, has that same zest - and because of it, finds a rare appreciation in not only the quotidian, even mundane, aspects of life, but also the more extraordinary ones.
This Virago edition of the Mrs. Miniver essays and ‘wartime letters’ is in some respects a dragonfly preserved in amber - describing, as it does, a family’s life in London before the war - but so many of the observations about the seasons, the weather, marriage, children growing up, holidays and rituals still give the reader all the pleasure of recogntion and shared experience. I wrote down pages and pages of favourite lines, but in isolation none of them completely catch the cleverness and magic of Struther’s writing. Still, a random selection of favourites are shared below:
”Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.”
“To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal.”
“Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back.”
“It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.”
. . . “A certain degree of un-understanding (not mis-, but un-) is the only possible sanctuary which one human being can offer to another in the midst of the devastating intimacy of a happy marriage.”
“Really, it was lamentable, the unevenness of most married couples. Like those gramophone records with a superb tune on one side and a negligible fill-up. On the other which you had to take whether you wanted it or not.”
“For in order that the game of dinner-table conversation may be played to its best advantage, it is essential that every player should have a free hand. He must at liberty to assume disguises, to balance precariously in untenable positions, to sacrifice the letter of the truth to the spirit of it. And somehow the partner’s presence makes this difficult.”
“ . . . and she wondered why it had never occurred to her before that you cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small, clear image of the past.”
“She went back into the house. It had already begun to acquire that out-at-grass, off-duty look which houses get as soon as their owners go away; it was quite obviously preparing to take off its stays and slip into something loose.”
“Enchanted, she put the incident into her pocket for Clem. It jostled, a bright pebble, against several others: she had had a rewarding day. And Clem, who had driven down to the country to lunch with a client, would be pretty certain to come back with some good stuff, too. This was the cream of marriage, the nightly turning out of th eday’s pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.”
This Virago edition of the Mrs. Miniver essays and ‘wartime letters’ is in some respects a dragonfly preserved in amber - describing, as it does, a family’s life in London before the war - but so many of the observations about the seasons, the weather, marriage, children growing up, holidays and rituals still give the reader all the pleasure of recogntion and shared experience. I wrote down pages and pages of favourite lines, but in isolation none of them completely catch the cleverness and magic of Struther’s writing. Still, a random selection of favourites are shared below:
”Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion.”
“To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal.”
“Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back.”
“It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch.”
. . . “A certain degree of un-understanding (not mis-, but un-) is the only possible sanctuary which one human being can offer to another in the midst of the devastating intimacy of a happy marriage.”
“Really, it was lamentable, the unevenness of most married couples. Like those gramophone records with a superb tune on one side and a negligible fill-up. On the other which you had to take whether you wanted it or not.”
“For in order that the game of dinner-table conversation may be played to its best advantage, it is essential that every player should have a free hand. He must at liberty to assume disguises, to balance precariously in untenable positions, to sacrifice the letter of the truth to the spirit of it. And somehow the partner’s presence makes this difficult.”
“ . . . and she wondered why it had never occurred to her before that you cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small, clear image of the past.”
“She went back into the house. It had already begun to acquire that out-at-grass, off-duty look which houses get as soon as their owners go away; it was quite obviously preparing to take off its stays and slip into something loose.”
“Enchanted, she put the incident into her pocket for Clem. It jostled, a bright pebble, against several others: she had had a rewarding day. And Clem, who had driven down to the country to lunch with a client, would be pretty certain to come back with some good stuff, too. This was the cream of marriage, the nightly turning out of th eday’s pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one.”
July 8, 2023
Anticipation:3- The movie is a guilty pleasure, but the book? Hey, here's a 1942 edition for 6.50.
Enjoyment:5- Oh my god, it's Lydia Davis meets Downton Abbey-- the latter stole liberally from the movie by the way. No Theresa Wright (sniff) or Walter Pidgeon getting strafed and going off to Dunkirk while sounding like the most Midwestern Brits ever, but a series of vignettes chock full of passages like these.
"Between a woman who thought that for her kitchenmaid to use face-powder was the beginning of Bolshevism, and a man who believed that the 30-mile speed limit was the thin end of the Totalitarian wedge, there could be no useful interchange of ideas."
"Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation."
Is Mrs. Miniver a little smug at times? Sure, but she's also hilarious and endearing, and makes one hell of a prescient case for the middle class. (Okay, upper middle class--Vin goes to Eton).
Retrospect: 4--still a great discovery and a great book. 5 stars, maybe not.
Enjoyment:5- Oh my god, it's Lydia Davis meets Downton Abbey-- the latter stole liberally from the movie by the way. No Theresa Wright (sniff) or Walter Pidgeon getting strafed and going off to Dunkirk while sounding like the most Midwestern Brits ever, but a series of vignettes chock full of passages like these.
"Between a woman who thought that for her kitchenmaid to use face-powder was the beginning of Bolshevism, and a man who believed that the 30-mile speed limit was the thin end of the Totalitarian wedge, there could be no useful interchange of ideas."
"Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation."
Is Mrs. Miniver a little smug at times? Sure, but she's also hilarious and endearing, and makes one hell of a prescient case for the middle class. (Okay, upper middle class--Vin goes to Eton).
Retrospect: 4--still a great discovery and a great book. 5 stars, maybe not.
March 21, 2013
Oh how I love reading about everyday people in Britain during WWII. The fact that there is so much material out there means I’m not alone. This book is in no way about action or adventure of war. Instead it is overflowing with observations about human nature that were amazingly accurate - the kind of thing that you never thought of before but once put into words you realize that so many feelings and actions are universal to the human race. Mrs. Miniver musings include trying to put words to the sound that her windshield wipers make and mustering up false urgency to Christmas shop early. She even contemplates the personalities of the people who go in with the swing of a swinging door vs those who push against the flow to try to enter faster. Somehow when I write them down they just don’t sound as brilliant but I can pick up the book now, turn to any page and find a little gem.
Meanwhile, the war is brewing and Mrs Miniver takes her children to be fitted for gas masks. She also goes to the dentist and watches the last autumn leaf fall from the tree outside her window…so life is going on while the world slowly boils.
Meanwhile, the war is brewing and Mrs Miniver takes her children to be fitted for gas masks. She also goes to the dentist and watches the last autumn leaf fall from the tree outside her window…so life is going on while the world slowly boils.
September 26, 2010
I really can't believe I haven't read this book before now. What was I thinking? For me, this was a little piece of book-heaven. Every new vignette hit home for me in a different way. Chapter one, was probably my favorite. It perfectly expressed my love of fall for me. I even copied it entire into my quotes journal. In another lifetime, I could've been Mrs. Miniver. Loved it!
January 21, 2020
Having wanted to read Jan Struther's Mrs Miniver for such a long time, I was thrilled when I found a copy of it in the wonderful Oxfam Bookshop in St Albans just before Christmas. First published in book form in 1939, Mrs Miniver is a collection of newspaper columns, originally published in The Times. The columns, and then the book and Academy Award-winning film which followed, was 'an enormous success on both sides of the Atlantic'.
In Mrs Miniver, Struther gives a 'startlingly unsentimental view of the loss of England's innocence in the early days of the war'. Struther was asked to 'create a character whose doings would enliven... an ordinary sort of woman who leads an ordinary sort of life'. Thus, Mrs Caroline Miniver, married to a wealthy architect named Clem, and the mother of three children - Judy, Vin, and the 'unfathomable' Toby - who lives in a large house at a smart London address, was born.
The Virago edition which I read included an introduction by Valerie Grove. She writes that Struther 'was not a novelist; she was happier making keen and accurate observations from everyday life - on a character she had met in the park, on the mysterious fish served for lunch in trains, on how to charm a small child into going to a concert.' She goes on to write about Struther's protagonist, commenting 'nobody would fail to be charmed by Mrs Miniver, who embraces domesticity, parenthood and social life alike with such positive enthusiasm. Mundane things fill her with delight...'.
In Mrs Miniver, Struther is perceptive from the first. She writes: '... Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties; it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.' Struther is highly understanding of her protagonist, and gives her all sorts of little quirks and foibles. With regard to the days of the week, for instance, Mrs Miniver reflects: 'Monday was definitely yellow, Thursday a dull indigo, Friday violet. About the others she didn't feel so strongly.'
In her columns, Struther does not tell the story of something from beginning to end. Rather, she focuses upon snapshots and anecdotes; for instance, a weekend spent at the country house of rather more well-to-do friends, or a busy Christmas shopping trip in central London. She writes about the grisly discussions about hunting around the dinner table during the first scenario, and the noise which Mrs Miniver's windscreen wipers make when she is driving back from Oxford Street in the second.
The structure of Mrs Miniver is relatively linear, but in quite a loose manner; one thing does not necessarily lead to another. Although not the main focus of the book at all, snippets of wartime life do creep in. Speeches from both the Far Right and Far Left are overheard one Sunday afternoon on Hampstead Heath; we learn about the family's experience of picking up their gas masks; and Mrs Miniver signs herself up as an ambulance driver, to name but three examples.
Mrs Miniver is far from ordinary. Her family's wealth means that as well as a main residence on a London square, they also have a large country residence named Starlings. The war, although in its early stages during these columns, does not affect Mrs Miniver as it would have some. Regardless, Mrs Miniver is amusing and to the point, often in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner.
Mrs Miniver feels like a fully-formed character very early on in the book; we get a real feel for who she is, what she thinks, and what she cares about. Mrs Miniver has been so well written and considered. In terms of plot, Mrs Miniver feels rather of its time, but the writing has quite a modern quality to it. It is a wonderful entry on the Virago Modern Classics list, and one which I highly recommend.
In Mrs Miniver, Struther gives a 'startlingly unsentimental view of the loss of England's innocence in the early days of the war'. Struther was asked to 'create a character whose doings would enliven... an ordinary sort of woman who leads an ordinary sort of life'. Thus, Mrs Caroline Miniver, married to a wealthy architect named Clem, and the mother of three children - Judy, Vin, and the 'unfathomable' Toby - who lives in a large house at a smart London address, was born.
The Virago edition which I read included an introduction by Valerie Grove. She writes that Struther 'was not a novelist; she was happier making keen and accurate observations from everyday life - on a character she had met in the park, on the mysterious fish served for lunch in trains, on how to charm a small child into going to a concert.' She goes on to write about Struther's protagonist, commenting 'nobody would fail to be charmed by Mrs Miniver, who embraces domesticity, parenthood and social life alike with such positive enthusiasm. Mundane things fill her with delight...'.
In Mrs Miniver, Struther is perceptive from the first. She writes: '... Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties; it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one.' Struther is highly understanding of her protagonist, and gives her all sorts of little quirks and foibles. With regard to the days of the week, for instance, Mrs Miniver reflects: 'Monday was definitely yellow, Thursday a dull indigo, Friday violet. About the others she didn't feel so strongly.'
In her columns, Struther does not tell the story of something from beginning to end. Rather, she focuses upon snapshots and anecdotes; for instance, a weekend spent at the country house of rather more well-to-do friends, or a busy Christmas shopping trip in central London. She writes about the grisly discussions about hunting around the dinner table during the first scenario, and the noise which Mrs Miniver's windscreen wipers make when she is driving back from Oxford Street in the second.
The structure of Mrs Miniver is relatively linear, but in quite a loose manner; one thing does not necessarily lead to another. Although not the main focus of the book at all, snippets of wartime life do creep in. Speeches from both the Far Right and Far Left are overheard one Sunday afternoon on Hampstead Heath; we learn about the family's experience of picking up their gas masks; and Mrs Miniver signs herself up as an ambulance driver, to name but three examples.
Mrs Miniver is far from ordinary. Her family's wealth means that as well as a main residence on a London square, they also have a large country residence named Starlings. The war, although in its early stages during these columns, does not affect Mrs Miniver as it would have some. Regardless, Mrs Miniver is amusing and to the point, often in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner.
Mrs Miniver feels like a fully-formed character very early on in the book; we get a real feel for who she is, what she thinks, and what she cares about. Mrs Miniver has been so well written and considered. In terms of plot, Mrs Miniver feels rather of its time, but the writing has quite a modern quality to it. It is a wonderful entry on the Virago Modern Classics list, and one which I highly recommend.
December 14, 2018
3.5 This series of short sketches of an upper class British family just before WWII has period charm, and is a quick read. I haven’t seen the movie, but will look for it now.
October 8, 2021
Nella prossima vita voglio essere la Signora Miniver, appagata, serena, acutissima osservatrice delle cose e delle persone e decisamente benestante.
November 19, 2024
4 Stars
Wonderfully funny and smart. I'm a little sad that the book ends just before Christmas 1939, and we don't get to see Mrs. Miniver through the war.
Wonderfully funny and smart. I'm a little sad that the book ends just before Christmas 1939, and we don't get to see Mrs. Miniver through the war.
March 13, 2014
This volume of short stories provides snapshots of the daily life of an ordinary Englishwoman with an ordinary family. She's enjoying her 40s more than her 30s because she feels "suspended between summer and winter, savouring the best of them both." She has an ordinary husband with whom she can share a look every now and again when something significant happens. She also has three ordinary children: Vin, away at Eton most of the year; Judy, age 11 and Toby. There's also Nannie, a cook and a housekeeper. The Minivers time is spent between London and their summer home in Kent. Mrs. Miniver prefers Starlings. It feels more like home to her. There the children spend lazy summer and early fall days fishing, collecting rocks and doing what children do. In London there are dinner parties to be gotten up, shopping, the children's school, holidays and birthdays. There are also visits to see relatives in Scotland and a quick trip to France. War is on the horizon but not a part of daily life just yet. Mrs. Miniver is relieved to know this time they're fighting against an idea and not a nation as they were in her childhood. Everything is as it should be, just as Mrs. Miniver likes it.
I couldn't really relate to Mrs. Miniver (whose first name is finally revealed in the final story). I'm not a wife or a mother and though I like my routine, I like to learn new things and see new places. I could relate to the children a bit better because I remember my own summer days spent at my grandparents' very fondly. I also wanted dolls at an age when most girls have given them up, like Judy. This is a pleasant little volume of stories. There's nothing really remarkable about it. I kept falling asleep and having to reread passages. There's a professor character who uses impossible language and a trip to the zoo featuring animals I didn't recognize. Sometimes the writing is beautiful like the quote above. Unfortunately, occasionally the author uses the "n word" to describe black people and it's very jarring and took me out of the calmness of the story. I know it must have been acceptable back then but it's still shocking to read. The book sails along very peacefully and using that word ruined the image I had in my head of a sweet middle-aged housewife. The last story, written in letter form, appealed to me the most. The war is just beginning and we get a hint of how it will affect the family. I'd like to know more about the evacuees at Starling. Wikipedia notes there are other stories published in later volumes but I read the original first edition without those war stories and the library doesn't seem to have any of the later stories.
I couldn't really relate to Mrs. Miniver (whose first name is finally revealed in the final story). I'm not a wife or a mother and though I like my routine, I like to learn new things and see new places. I could relate to the children a bit better because I remember my own summer days spent at my grandparents' very fondly. I also wanted dolls at an age when most girls have given them up, like Judy. This is a pleasant little volume of stories. There's nothing really remarkable about it. I kept falling asleep and having to reread passages. There's a professor character who uses impossible language and a trip to the zoo featuring animals I didn't recognize. Sometimes the writing is beautiful like the quote above. Unfortunately, occasionally the author uses the "n word" to describe black people and it's very jarring and took me out of the calmness of the story. I know it must have been acceptable back then but it's still shocking to read. The book sails along very peacefully and using that word ruined the image I had in my head of a sweet middle-aged housewife. The last story, written in letter form, appealed to me the most. The war is just beginning and we get a hint of how it will affect the family. I'd like to know more about the evacuees at Starling. Wikipedia notes there are other stories published in later volumes but I read the original first edition without those war stories and the library doesn't seem to have any of the later stories.
April 27, 2008
I love popping into a person's life through a book and then popping back out. Mrs. Miniver lives a middle class life in England (Kent is where her second home is) with her husband and three children right before World War 11 breaks out. The reader gets to see and understand how Mrs. Miniver (as she is called throughout most of the book) thinks and deals with her pretty much typical life. Don't expect action, adventure, thrills or chills in this one. But do expect to be privy to how a seemingly average woman of her time makes sense of the world around her.
November 8, 2021
Lovely writing, but a little too much of that slightly self-satisfied smugness that was wont to wend its slightly sickening way through this type of (upper middle-class) English writing in the first half of the century. Too many mildly patronising comments on the lower classes, too little awareness of the harsher lives of others, too much love of one's own intelligence and literary skill...Having a privileged perspective is fine, but failing to engage critically with it is distinctly less so.
But still. Really wonderful writing at the sentence level. Worth reading for that alone.
But still. Really wonderful writing at the sentence level. Worth reading for that alone.
April 1, 2011
Jan Struther's engaging stories of an English housewife, which first appeared in 'The Times' in 1937.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nm5ww
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nm5ww
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