Anna Apparent

by Nina Bawden

Who is Anna? Is she Anna-May Gates, the war-time evacuee who encounters neglect and unwitting abuse on a Welsh farm? The reticent, dutiful daughter of her foster-mother, Crystal? Giles's shy child-bride? Conscientious mother and housewife? Or Daniel's undemanding but sophisticated mistress? It takes catastrophe for Anna to emerge as an individual, claiming her own identity. Nina Bawden, as ever both acute and generous, delves skilfully into character and offers the richly textured story of a woman's life and stratagems, and of the flawed, kindly people who surround her.

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1972

About the author

Nina Bawden was a popular British novelist and children's writer. Her mother was a teacher and her father a marine.

When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.

A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.

Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a perfectly enjoyable reading experience. I loved Carrie’s War when I was a child and the first section is like an adult rated version of that. However as the book wore on it did feel a bit as if Bowden was shoe-horning in characters and experiences in a way that felt odd for the story that was being told (in particular the story of Tottie who has survived Auschwitz) and although it did make some sort of coherent whole in the end, there was something that felt slightly unnatural (I recognise the irony of saying that about a work of fiction….). I would still happily read another of her books to compare as it was a diverting enough read., or maybe even take a look back at Carrie’s War again.

[Jim Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel starts off promising. Two girls survive traumas that effect how they interact with the world. Anna is left on a farm during the Blitz and, when her mother disappears, she becomes a virtual slave to an ugly, incestuous family before being rescued by a selfish, embittered, and self-important neighbor. Meanwhile, the neighbor’s son marries Tottie, a survivor of the Nazi death camps. He has inherited his mother’s sense of self-importance, a need to “save” wounded girls, and his father’s wandering eye. I felt this was a great set up to explore the long-term effects of trauma and examine the motives of people who need to rescue wounded birds. Unfortunately, the last third of the book veers off in a direction I did not find illuminating. A disappointment.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked about this novel was the sense of beng alive in the 1940s/50s/60s in England. Who is Anna? We first meet her as a war-time evacuee who is treated very badly, she is then rescued by Crystal who becomes her foster mother, her "good" girl. She married young, to Giles, the son of Crystal and becomes his compliant wife. Then Daniel's mistress. Throughout all this story we are told of Anna and who she is by others. However in the last section Anna emerges and tries to discover who she really is and what she really wants when she isn't being who someone else wants her to be. What are we but who we appear to be? Thought provoking.