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Wendy Earle
posted 18 July 2006

Britain can seem so obsessed with World War II that we might be well advised to avoid anything connected with the period. This novel offers an interesting take on it though – an exploration of its impact on the lives of two young people in post-war Britain. 

As they fall in love, Mood creates a complex patchwork of memories, dreams and folktales, as Clem, a conscientious objector working in the Ambulance Corps, and Lou, a young woman who grew up in war-ravaged Britain, come to terms with their experiences.

Dreams and memories overlap as Clem remembers his brother who fought and died in the war as a fighter pilot, and recalls scenes of devastation in bombed out cities where he meets Germans as shocked as he is about what is happening to them. Many of these experiences take on an almost mythic quality in the way they are told. A raven, presumably Clem in his dreams, flies over German cities and observes the carnage. Meanwhile, Lou’s memories of her adolescence by the sea with her best friend are interwoven with the folktales they tell each other.

Some people may love this book. There is a gentle and whimsical quality to the way Mood evokes the internal lives of her characters and the relationships between them. But I just felt irritated by it. It reflects, too much for my liking, contemporary clichés which deplore war because it destroys people’s lives. And the title, which reflects a theme in the book and (I think) Clem’s childhood ambitions, implies the abandonment of the aspiration to control and shape events. 

The novel’s predominant sentiment is that of victims surviving what has been done to them. This is exemplified in Fern, Lou’s best friend, who becomes pregnant after being raped and, as a single mother, loves and nurtures her ‘not quite right’ baby. Where do stories of admirable resilience against the odds turn into a mawkish preoccupation with a destructive period of our history? I don’t know, but this novel is teetering on the brink.