G1215 Book Review of Dont you know theres a war on? By Janet Todd

Name of Book: Don't You Know There's a War On?

Author: Janet Todd

ISBN: 978-1909572072

Publisher: Fentum Press

Type of book: England, 1920s-1976, WW2, LGBTQ+ themes, hiding self, mother/ daughter relationship, incest, lesbianism, being single, living, year in England, survival, 

Year it was published: 2020

Summary:

The Second World War is over. England is losing its empire, world status and old elite values. The Empire strikes back with mass immigration, while the government soothes its people with welfare, the NHS, televisions and refrigerators.

At the centre of the novel is the contemptuous Joan Kite, at odds with all the changes imposed on the country in the post war period. Shut up in a house with her only daughter, she refuses to compromise and adapt, pouring vitriol on anyone who seeks to enter their lives. After years of frugality, patriotism, service and excitement, she is angry at the contracted existence she’s been delivered and at the manner in which her aspirations to upper-middle-class culture have been thwarted.

When her daughter is threatened, she begins a diary to investigate her past before and during the war. In it she gives rein to a flamboyant imaginary life and to an energetic loathing for the reality of a diminished England.

During the freak hot summer of 1976, as water is rationed and ladybirds invade their home, the intimacy of mother and daughter intensifies. Their lives unravel within the claustrophobia of their semi-detached house behind closed velvet curtains.

Characters:

Main characters include Joan, Maud and Phyllis. Joan is a widow who seems to resentful towards people and couples. All she does is complain, a lot, not very happy with anything or anyone. She also tends to burn bridges a lot. Maud is Joans only daughter, an anxious spinster ( as described in Joans diary) who is a failed school teacher and has a strong friendship/ relationship with Phyllis. Phyllis is Joans enemy for some odd reason and both detest each other. Phyllis did get married late but she always cares for Maud.   

Theme:

I did read the story and enjoy it, but I honestly am not sure what lesson i should have taken away from it. Maybe about how difficult it is to be a woman during the war? Or that during the war the women are not seen as human or equal but instead are dolls? 

Plot:

The story is written in first person narrative from Joans point of view in both past and present (1975-1976) in 1975, Joans daughter Maud is going through some sort of a threat which caused her to stop eating, and she urges her mother to begin a diary. Joan does and writes about her past, from living with parents who cared very little for her to living through war years where it seemed as if she has to sacrifice everything about her for the  cause. ( okay, a very gritty version of Gone with the wind..) 

Author Information:
(From the book)

Janet Todd is a novelist, biographer, literary critic and internationally renowned scholar, known for her work on women's writing and feminism,. Her most recent books include JANE AUSTEN'S SANDITON; RADIATION DIARIES: CANCER, MEMORY AND FRAGMENTS OF A LIFE IN WORDS; APHRA BEHN; A SECRET LIFE and A MAN OF GENIUS. A co-founder of the journal WOMEN'S WRITING, she has published biographies and crtiical work on many authors, inlcuding Jane Austen, Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughters, Maryt (Shelley) and Fanny, and the Irish-Republican sympathiser, traveller and medical student, Lady Mount Cashell.

Born in Wales, Janet Todd grew up in Britain, Bermuda and Ceylon/Sri Lanka and has worked at schools and universities in Ghana, Puerto Rico, India , the US (Douglass College, Rutgers, Florida,) Scotland (Glasgow, Aberdeen) and England (Cambridge, UEA) A former President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge she is now an HOnorary Fellow of Newnham College. CLose to her home in Cambridge, the College's gardens provide a pleasant interruption from teh other pleasure of writing novels. 

Opinion:

In a good way, this novel has left me shocked and speechless, at a loss for words. In other words, i dont know  where to start. First of all, it takes talent and grit to write a realistic novel of a woman whom you never truly liked. ( and this is not Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the wind.) And this isn't a novel that shies away from her ugliness. ( in fact it seems nothing but ugliness...) throughout the story, there is a miasma of resentfulness and anger from her towards life, failures and desperation. 

This was given for a review 

5 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)