Books (#SFWApro)

The “Miracle of Dunkirk” was one of the legends of World War II: After the Nazis kicked the butt of the initial British forces in France, driving them back to the coast, hundreds of private boats crossed the English Channel to bring the boys home. DUNKIRK: The Men The Left Behind by Sean Longden argues that the official story was great for rallying the country at the time, but overlooks a great many things, such as the incompetence that made the evacuation necessary. As Longden shows, the British military went into battle with what would have been adequate equipment for WW I (and training that probably wasn’t that adequate) and were hopelessly smashed by the better-equipped, better trained Wehrmacht forces. And despite the countless soldiers who returned home others had to make their way alone to Spain or Switzerland or Sweden (or in one case Sierra Leone) to find a way back. Thousands more did not, either dying or ending up as POWs for the duration. A good, grim revisionist work.
Rereading Island of the Mighty prompted me to reread British author Alan Garner’s Y/A THE OWL SERVICE, in which three teens accidentally stir up the spirit of Blodeuwedd the flower woman and find themselves caught in a quasi-re-enactment of the Mabinogion love triangle. Looking back I’ve often assumed I didn’t like the book because I didn’t know the story it was based on when I first read it. Reading now, I think the book (despite glowing reviews and despite me liking Garner’s earlier work) just isn’t that good. While Garner mentions the original legend, it’s in passing, not enough to endow the events of the story with any mythic or destined feel. And for some reason, this is unbelievably dialog-heavy and description light. There are, for instance, a couple of scenes I think involve a romantic encounter but we get so little description it’s hard to tell. I rank it as I ranked it originally, the weakest of his first few works.
A VIRTUOUS WOMAN by Kaye Gibbons is the slight by winning novel built around the twin stories of a new widower grieving for his wife and periodically slipping into his flashback booth, and the late wife looking back over her life and disastrous mistakes before finding True Love. In the Not My Cup of Tea But I Liked It Anyway category.