A Town Like Alice: (Vintage Classics Shute Series)

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Here is another winner by Nevil Shute. I am very happy to have listened to it narrated by Robin Bailey! I DO love books! I love immersing myself in other worlds….and learning a bit along the way. One day, the eldest Holland child, a young boy, wanders off into the jungle and is fatally bitten by a snake. At one stop, a Japanese officer likes Jean's looks and offers to let her and the baby remain, while the rest travel another 200 miles to Kuantan on the east coast. Jean turns away but another young woman is not so choosy after four months of walking and the deaths of four women and the boy so gets into the officer's car. More die, including four-year-old Jane Holland. There are books we can't be entirely rational about. For good or bad, they push our personal buttons, and we adore or detest them beyond their own merits. Shute's portrayal of Jean and her fellow English women and their children is a tribute to the courage and endurance of those individuals who have come to be called the collateral damage of war. The Japanese have no use for these women and children. Nor do they want to waste precious resources on keeping them alive when there is the Imperial Army to feed. BOOM IN FILMS ABOUT AUSTRALIA". The Australian Women's Weekly. 21 September 1955. p.60 . Retrieved 17 May 2012– via National Library of Australia.

I do hope that if you are reading this for the first time that you too love its gripping tale. If you are revisiting it, I hope a re-reading brings an increased appreciation of its excellent story-telling and that it makes you think about how much Australia has changed in the last seventy years. I've owned a copy of A Town Like Alice for more than ten years now, and I've always stopped short of reaching for it because... it just didn't sound that interesting to me. On the whole, I'm not a huge fan of war books, especially those set within the conflict itself. But I made a mistake waiting to read this one. I've been missing out. The story is based on a true story and therefore can be expected to be treated with utmost respect. Fact and fiction is entwined here in such a way that the distinction between tale and truth becomes impossible. However, the impact of the story is very real and very striking. I have to confess this book gave me a lump in my throat. I am English and I love anything telling of life in the colonies i.e. Somerset Maugham et al. Shute does wonderful job in his unaffected way of storytelling. The plotting is masterful, the characters uplifting. I’d like to see a remake of this on film. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute National Library of Australia free public access to books in Australian libraries.Masterpiece Theatre – The Archive – A Town Like Alice". mpt-legacy.wgbhdigital.org. Archived from the original on 4 February 2019 . Retrieved 3 February 2019.

Drama, suspense, romance and superb story-telling! Would I recommend it to a potential reader? Oh my word, yes! Too right! I'm not sure exactly where I'd rank it but I am quite certain I'd add it to my list of best lifetime novels. Yes, it's THAT good. In comparison with the novels, "Garden of Evening Mist' , as well as "The Gift of Rain", authored by Tan Twang Eng, as well as numerous others, this tale softened the experiences of the prisoners considerably. Nevil Shute portrays the ground level Japanese troops as humane towards these wandering innocent victims of the war. It is probably one of the outstanding features in the tale.inevitably homosexuals can't operate heavy machinery (assuming any such persons exist outside of medical speculation - which is obviously highly unlikely especially in Australia), As he decides to travel to visit Jean to help her with some legal matters, one of his law partners is concerned for his health: "I only wish you hadn't got to put so much of your energy into this. After all, it's a fairly trivial affair." The money Jean inherits does not come to her without complications, since her uncle did not believe women were capable of handling money. She will get an allowance until she is thirty-five, after which time she will inherit a sizeable sum. The book tells the story of what she does with the money and with the careful management and advice of the old solicitor (who becomes her best friend and admirer). The story takes place over a period of more than ten years, between Malaya, England and Australia, but is never dull. As time goes by, Jean’s courage and unexpected talents are revealed. Nevil Shute: A Biography by Julian Smith National Library of Australia free public access to books in Australian libraries. Here is a book that I have always enjoyed and is probably a good representative of its time – which of course is no guarantee that you will find it easy to get through. At least I have worked out its appeal for me – it’s because it covered my ERA and I can understand the MORES & MORALS of the time.

As a bit of an aside, I found Shute's depiction of Japanese troops and their behavior toward the British women and children one of the most sensitive and humane portrayals in literature and history. Interestingly, it is the line soldier who exhibits the greatest humanity to their charges. It is the Imperial Officer who turns a blind eye to the plight of non-combatants. and that if a white man marries a non-white woman (or meta-white) we should feel sympathy and sorrow for his desperate state,Meanwhile, Joe has met a pilot who helped repatriate the women, from whom he learns that Jean survived the war and that she was never married. He travels to London to find her, using money won in the Golden Casket lottery. He finds his way to Strachan's office, but is told that she has gone travelling in the Far East. Disappointed, he gets drunk and is arrested, but is bailed out by Strachan. Without revealing Jean's actual whereabouts, Strachan persuades Joe to return home by ship and intimates that he may well receive a great surprise there. There are calls at the moment to ban books and films that are not politically correct. I am 100% against this and I feel it is extremely important to read novels which depict racism so that we can learn from the lessons of the past. You may disagree, but the place of fiction in giving us history lessons is, in my view, vital. As writer George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it”. I believe that fiction helps us to avoid that mistake. Over the years we have, on occasion, exchanged books. Having inherited my love of France from my father, I was keen for him to read one of my favourite authors, Joann Harris, most of whose novels are set in France, and he seemed to enjoy most of her books. On the whole though, my father tends to read fact-based books, whereas I’m a fan of fiction. The story's narration is directed by an elderly British attorney, Noel Strachan, who is put in charge of a trust Jean's uncle leaves her. Even with the narration in his control, most of the story is told through Jean sharing her memories to Noel. Eventually, I found Noel's involvement and third party perspective very satisfying, mostly because it allowed the author to cover a greater amount of time without seeming overly jumpy. A Town Like Alice (1980) – David Stevens – Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie. Archived from the original on 4 February 2019 . Retrieved 3 February 2019.