Born 1925, Vera Brittain
Though I read Vera Brittain's three Testaments (Youth, Friendship and Experience), along with England's Hour, her account of London in the first years of World War II, in fairly quick succession, I haven't really looked for her fiction. I came across this novel, published in 1949, at Half Price Books. I was intrigued by the jacket copy:
Vera Brittain ended her famous Testament of Youth with the year 1925. It was the story of her own youth, shipwrecked in the sudden whirlpool of World War I. She has chosen the same year for the birth of Adrian Carbury - representative of a new generation, whose youth in turn was wrecked by World War II.
The subtitle of this book,"A Novel of Youth," is a bit misleading. The story opens on a Prologue, with Adrian, aged three and a half, waiting for a surprise, which turns out to be a new baby, his sister Josephine. It then circles back to his parents, particularly his father, Robert Carbury, who to my mind is the dominating figure of the story. The only child of a Liberal MP from Staffordshire who rose to a Cabinet position, Robert disappointed his father by showing no aptitude for a political career. With the outbreak of war in 1914, he joins the Staffordshire Light Infantry. He finds himself unsuited to army life, and accuses himself of cowardice, even after he leads a desperate assault on a machine-gun nest that wins him the Victoria Cross. Severely wounded in the attack, he is invalided out. During his long convalescence, he agonizes over the men he killed, recognizing them as fellow human beings caught in a war they did not make. His spiritual and psychological struggles lead him to embrace pacifism, and to decide to enter the Anglican priesthood.
Wars, thought Robert, came as a consequence of man's disobedience to God's Will. Surely, then, the only work for a man who was free, and qualified to do it, was to try to teach God's Will, and persuade his fellow men to accept it?
He is assigned first to a settlement in the London Docks, and then to a parish in Battersea. To his surprise, he finds he has a gift for preaching, and as word spreads his congregation grows quickly, drawing people from around the city. Among them is the noted stage actress Sylvia Salvesen, still mourning her young husband, killed in action just after their wedding. Robert falls in love with her as he counsels her in her grief and persuades her to return to the stage. When he asks her to marry him; she accepts, though there is no room in her heart for another love, and her career will always be more real to her than her marriage. Soon after their marriage, Robert is appointed to St Saviour's, a parish in the West End with only a small congregation. His preaching and his spiritual leadership transform the parish. It is there that Robert founds a group to work for peace, the Builders of Jerusalem. Through the turbulence of the 1930s, he will continue to advocate for peaceful solutions to the crises, even after war breaks out. He will then come under increased scrutiny from officials worried about his influence and suspecting treason.
The birth of two children has little effect on Sylvia's life, which remains in the theater. Yet Robert, who loves them both dearly, finds it much more difficult to relate to them. Adrian reacts to the constant crises and the bustle of his father's parish by shutting himself off emotionally to everyone but his sister. Both children are embarrassed by Robert's love for them and by his pacifism. In the second section of the book, the children are sent to the United States, to live with friends of their parents. They return in 1942 almost as strangers, who constantly bait and needle their father, worn out with the years of war and his continuing work for peace, which eludes him even in his own home.
This novel seems to echo much in Vera Brittain's own life, paralleling her Testament of Experience. She herself was from Staffordshire. Like Sylvia, Brittain lost her first love, Roland Leighton, in the war. She later married George Catlin, who apparently believed for years that she like Sylvia was still in love with the dead. Her own son John was born in 1927, followed by her daughter Shirley in 1930. In 1936, Brittain met Canon H.R.L. Sheppard, who after serving as an army chaplain in the Great War was assigned to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, where "Within months he transformed a moribund city church into England's most vital Christian centre." The model for Robert Carbury, Canon Sheppard founded a "Peace Pledge Union," of which Vera Brittain became a sponsor. Brittain's own work for peace brought her, like Robert, under government scrutiny during the war. It was a factor in the decision she and her husband made to send their children, like Adrian and Jo, to friends in America. The Carburys end up at Cayuga University in New York, standing in for Cornell where George Catlin was on the faculty. In Testament of Experience, Brittain writes candidly of her difficult relations with her children after their return to England in 1942. She addressed the autobiographical elements of the book in a letter to a friend: "In this book I have sought to work out some of my own problems vicariously and it is to me the most important novel that I have written (which does not mean that I regard any of my novels as important)." She also tried to reassure her son John that the character of Adrian was not a portrait of him, though it included elements of his life. "Like most fiction characters Adrian is a complete hybrid and what matters about him is that he should be typical of his generation." Brittain's daughter Shirley Williams wrote in her autobiography that as children, John was clearly her mother's favorite, and in this book the author clearly prefers Adrian, with Jo a minor character.
As interesting as it was to read this book through Vera Brittain's life, I also enjoyed it as a compelling story. True, there are times that her polemics almost take over the story, and I found the internal monologues that she wrote for her characters very unconvincing. But she created a great character in Robert, who to me is the heart of the book. I came to care very much about him, and I missed him in the sections that follow Sylvia and the children. He has a great capacity for love, which is frustrated by the emotional distance of his wife and children. He commits himself completely to his ministry and to his peace work. There is much discussion of the difficult relations between the generations, though the younger Carburys seem to make little effort to understand their father's mind or heart. This is a familiar theme from Angela Thirkell's novels, both during and after the war. As with England's Hour, Brittain also paints a vivid picture of London in the war, particularly after Adrian is called up and joins the bomb-disposal squads.
After reading this book, I'll be keeping an eye out for more of Vera Brittain's fiction.
Showing posts with label Vera Brittain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vera Brittain. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
A life in politics
Climbing the Bookshelves, Shirley Williams
I can't remember where I came across mention of this book, but when I realized Shirley Williams is Vera Brittain and George Caitlin's daughter, I immediately went looking for a copy. Over the past two years, I have read all three of Vera Brittain's "Testaments" (Youth, Friendship and Experience) as well as England's Hour, her 1941 book about the Battle of Britain. I admit, I thought of this book primarily in terms of Vera Brittain. From the first pages, though, I found Shirley Williams interesting and engaging in her own right. Now Baroness Williams of Crosby, she has spent much of her life in politics and in public service, with a particular focus on social justice issues. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'm not giving it back to interlibrary loan and the Grinnell College Libraries until I get my own copy.
Born in 1930, Shirley Williams spent her first years in the unusual family unit described in her mother's books, comprising her parents, her brother John, the household staff Amy and Charles Burnett, and her mother's closest friend Winifred Holtby. John uncannily resembled their uncle Edward Brittain, Vera's dearly-beloved only sibling, killed in the Great War, and she doted on him. The young Shirley in turn shared a special bond with her father, George Caitlin, an intellectual who longed to play an active role in politics but was completely unsuited for its rough-and-tumble reality. The bookshelves of the title were his, which he encouraged her to climb, unbeknownst to her mother.
When the Second World War broke out, her parents made the difficult decision to send the children to friends in the United States, not because of the bombing but because they feared arrest if the Nazis invaded England. John and Shirley spent four years of the war in Minnesota, in a Midwest strongly isolationist until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Both children would return to England in 1943. After taking a degree at Oxford Shirley came back to America in 1952, as a Fulbright scholar studying at Columbia University. She would return to the United States again in the 1970s, as a Fellow and later professor in he John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Her American experiences are interesting in themselves, and they also give her something of an insider's perspective.
Williams gave up the last few months of her Fulbright to return to England to stand as a parliamentary candidate. She lost that election, but in 1964 won a seat representing a district in Hertfordshire, as a Labour candidate. Most of the book focuses on her career in the Labour Party, in Parliament, and as a minister in successive Labour governments. As she discovered in 1964, Parliament was very much an "old boys' club," and changes were slow in coming. Gender equality and women's rights would be important issues for her, both in and out of government. In 1981, she joined other prominent Labor politicians in forming the new Social Democratic Party, which later merged with the Liberal Party to form today's Liberal Democrats. Williams was raised to the peerage in 1993. In her later years, she has focused on nuclear non-proliferation and on international cooperation, particularly in crises like the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
As an American, I don't feel that I could fully appreciate (or understand) Williams' analysis of British politics. Many of the politicians she mentions were unfamiliar to me. I did resort to google for some terms, like "quango" and "shadow cabinet." Much of her work as a minister involved education, and though I briefly attended school in England in the early 1980s, I sometimes found her analysis there difficult to follow as well. Her observations on American society and politics, on the other hand, are both pertinent and interesting. I found her discussion of the state of modern both depressing and inspiring.
I can't remember where I came across mention of this book, but when I realized Shirley Williams is Vera Brittain and George Caitlin's daughter, I immediately went looking for a copy. Over the past two years, I have read all three of Vera Brittain's "Testaments" (Youth, Friendship and Experience) as well as England's Hour, her 1941 book about the Battle of Britain. I admit, I thought of this book primarily in terms of Vera Brittain. From the first pages, though, I found Shirley Williams interesting and engaging in her own right. Now Baroness Williams of Crosby, she has spent much of her life in politics and in public service, with a particular focus on social justice issues. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'm not giving it back to interlibrary loan and the Grinnell College Libraries until I get my own copy.
Born in 1930, Shirley Williams spent her first years in the unusual family unit described in her mother's books, comprising her parents, her brother John, the household staff Amy and Charles Burnett, and her mother's closest friend Winifred Holtby. John uncannily resembled their uncle Edward Brittain, Vera's dearly-beloved only sibling, killed in the Great War, and she doted on him. The young Shirley in turn shared a special bond with her father, George Caitlin, an intellectual who longed to play an active role in politics but was completely unsuited for its rough-and-tumble reality. The bookshelves of the title were his, which he encouraged her to climb, unbeknownst to her mother.
"My father gave me the single greatest gift with which a child can be endowed, self-confidence . . . That I was a girl was irrelevant to his ambitions for me. I could be anything I wanted to be. His feminism was not an intellectual construct. Quite simply, he saw no reason to think that women were lesser beings than men. Until I was sixteen or so, it never occurred to me that this was a rare attitude for a man born in the nineteenth century to take."Caitlin also passed on to his daughter his Catholic faith, shared by the Burnetts, who took her to church with them and who also provided much of the warmth and human contact of her childhood. I wondered if her commitment to social justice issues was shaped at all by her Catholic faith. She does note that she became aware of and disturbed by inequality as a young child. She was particularly struck by one family of children attending her elementary school, who had to take turns coming to school, because they had only two pairs of boots shared among them all.
When the Second World War broke out, her parents made the difficult decision to send the children to friends in the United States, not because of the bombing but because they feared arrest if the Nazis invaded England. John and Shirley spent four years of the war in Minnesota, in a Midwest strongly isolationist until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Both children would return to England in 1943. After taking a degree at Oxford Shirley came back to America in 1952, as a Fulbright scholar studying at Columbia University. She would return to the United States again in the 1970s, as a Fellow and later professor in he John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Her American experiences are interesting in themselves, and they also give her something of an insider's perspective.
Williams gave up the last few months of her Fulbright to return to England to stand as a parliamentary candidate. She lost that election, but in 1964 won a seat representing a district in Hertfordshire, as a Labour candidate. Most of the book focuses on her career in the Labour Party, in Parliament, and as a minister in successive Labour governments. As she discovered in 1964, Parliament was very much an "old boys' club," and changes were slow in coming. Gender equality and women's rights would be important issues for her, both in and out of government. In 1981, she joined other prominent Labor politicians in forming the new Social Democratic Party, which later merged with the Liberal Party to form today's Liberal Democrats. Williams was raised to the peerage in 1993. In her later years, she has focused on nuclear non-proliferation and on international cooperation, particularly in crises like the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
As an American, I don't feel that I could fully appreciate (or understand) Williams' analysis of British politics. Many of the politicians she mentions were unfamiliar to me. I did resort to google for some terms, like "quango" and "shadow cabinet." Much of her work as a minister involved education, and though I briefly attended school in England in the early 1980s, I sometimes found her analysis there difficult to follow as well. Her observations on American society and politics, on the other hand, are both pertinent and interesting. I found her discussion of the state of modern both depressing and inspiring.
"Several things attracted me to politics when I was young . . . I wanted to make the world a better place . . . Dedication, idealism, enthusiasm, excitement; these are not words most people today associate with politics. The loss of trust in politicians has been as dramatic as the more recent loss of trust in bankers . . . "It is good to be reminded that there are still those striving to make their community, their country, their world a better place - Shirley Williams among them.
Monday, May 23, 2011
A last testament
Testament of Experience, Vera Brittain
I can just remember watching some part of Testament of Youth on PBS, probably in the early 1980s. Though I didn't watch the whole series, I always remembered Vera Brittain, and in the back of my mind was the idea that someday I would read Testament of Youth. Then, last year, I found her book England's Hour, about the Battle of Britain, at Half-Price Books. That prompted me to check Youth out from the library, because of course I had to read her books in order; but I didn't get much past the first chapter. That didn't stop me from buying my own copy of Youth a few days later, again at HPB.
On starting Youth a second time, I was immediately swept up into the story. And when I learned there were two other testaments, of Friendship and Experience, I went on-line to find copies before I'd even finished the first. I read both Testament of Friendship and England's Hour and then put the last book aside for the moment to read other things.
As I mentioned in a recent post, I finally read E.M. Delafield's I Visit the Soviets, and that reminded me that I still had Testament of Experience on the TBR pile. Experience picks up just where Youth ended, with Vera Brittain's marriage to "G" (political scientist George Caitlin). Marriage is one of the main themes of Experience, as she struggles to balance her work, the demands of her aging parents, her husband's career first in America, and later their two children. Their unconventional solution was to spend part of each year apart. Vera remained in England, sharing a home with her closest friend and fellow writer Winifred Holtby (the subject of Testament of Friendship), which made all three the focus of gossip ("Too, too Chelsea," Winifred would say). I found it incredibly poignant that "G" believed for so many years that Vera's love was buried with her first fiancé Roland Leighton, killed in France in 1915; and that Vera, who had mourned Roland but moved on in life, was unaware of this chasm in their marriage.
A second major theme is Vera Brittain's writing career. A poet and a journalist, she became famous with the publication of Testament of Youth in 1933. But her conversion to pacifism, and her increasing prominence in the cause, meant a loss of reputation even before World War II began. Thus pacifism is a third major theme of her book, and I found those parts sometimes difficult reading. I kept wanting to argue with her that Hitler had to be stopped, that pacifism could not be an option in the face of Nazi evil. But I have to concede her point that statesmanship failed in the 1920s and 1930s, that the League of Nations on which she pinned such hopes was betrayed by politicians who might have prevented what came later.
I have a suspicion that Vera Brittain would have found me frivolous and light-minded. I find her inspiring, energizing, and very good company.
I can just remember watching some part of Testament of Youth on PBS, probably in the early 1980s. Though I didn't watch the whole series, I always remembered Vera Brittain, and in the back of my mind was the idea that someday I would read Testament of Youth. Then, last year, I found her book England's Hour, about the Battle of Britain, at Half-Price Books. That prompted me to check Youth out from the library, because of course I had to read her books in order; but I didn't get much past the first chapter. That didn't stop me from buying my own copy of Youth a few days later, again at HPB.
On starting Youth a second time, I was immediately swept up into the story. And when I learned there were two other testaments, of Friendship and Experience, I went on-line to find copies before I'd even finished the first. I read both Testament of Friendship and England's Hour and then put the last book aside for the moment to read other things.
As I mentioned in a recent post, I finally read E.M. Delafield's I Visit the Soviets, and that reminded me that I still had Testament of Experience on the TBR pile. Experience picks up just where Youth ended, with Vera Brittain's marriage to "G" (political scientist George Caitlin). Marriage is one of the main themes of Experience, as she struggles to balance her work, the demands of her aging parents, her husband's career first in America, and later their two children. Their unconventional solution was to spend part of each year apart. Vera remained in England, sharing a home with her closest friend and fellow writer Winifred Holtby (the subject of Testament of Friendship), which made all three the focus of gossip ("Too, too Chelsea," Winifred would say). I found it incredibly poignant that "G" believed for so many years that Vera's love was buried with her first fiancé Roland Leighton, killed in France in 1915; and that Vera, who had mourned Roland but moved on in life, was unaware of this chasm in their marriage.
A second major theme is Vera Brittain's writing career. A poet and a journalist, she became famous with the publication of Testament of Youth in 1933. But her conversion to pacifism, and her increasing prominence in the cause, meant a loss of reputation even before World War II began. Thus pacifism is a third major theme of her book, and I found those parts sometimes difficult reading. I kept wanting to argue with her that Hitler had to be stopped, that pacifism could not be an option in the face of Nazi evil. But I have to concede her point that statesmanship failed in the 1920s and 1930s, that the League of Nations on which she pinned such hopes was betrayed by politicians who might have prevented what came later.
I have a suspicion that Vera Brittain would have found me frivolous and light-minded. I find her inspiring, energizing, and very good company.
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