Tag Archives: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society

See the Movie, Then Reread the Book – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

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8110V2WqqLL   After finishing reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society years ago, I remember thinking how sad the author had died and I would never read another of her stories.  The book stands as one of my all time favorites, and I eagerly anticipated the film version with three actresses from Downton Abbey in the cast – Lily James and Penelope Wilton, and Jessica Brown Findlay — perhaps better known as Downton Abbey’s dearly departed Lady Sybill.

Of course, I remember the feeling of the book but, as usual, I’ve forgotten all the details.  It was a pleasure to read it again after almost ten years.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, see it first – then reread the book.  Both are enjoyable and a comfort.

The movie and the book are the same, but different.  Of course, the book has all of the author’s quirky notes and asides required to be missing in a condensed film version, but the movie has lush images of the scenic English countryside to compensate, and it does select the most important moments to keep.  Although the book introduces the characters through letters, fewer appear in the movie and the letter-writing is replaced by getting Juliet to the island faster.  In the movie the description of Guernsey under occupation has less importance than the mystery of the missing Elizabeth – the fearless founder of the book club.

The characters retain their core values and tone but not always in the same form.  Handsome boyfriend Mark is an American publisher trying to woo Juliet away in the book; in the movie he is an American intelligence officer, still trying to get her to marry him, but a key role in finding Elizabeth is invented for him.   Romance gets more time in the movie, making the handsome staunch Dawsey more appealing for the happily ever after ending.

I missed the funny episode with Oscar Wilde’s letters to Granny Phhen and a few of the colorful characters who were eliminated,  but I’m not sure how the short movie could have accommodated them without a sequel. I liked the movie (how could I not) and appreciated its faithfulness to the story.

Rereading the book was a pleasure, and I found a few phrases I had forgotten  – some made me laugh:

  • I thought of my friends who own independent book stores with:   “Noone in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and noone in their right mind would want to own one…so it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it.”
  • I thought of myself with:  ” so far my only thought is that reading keeps you from going gaga. You can see I need help.”
  • I thought of book clubs with: “We took turns speaking about the books we’d read. At the start, we tried to be calm and objective, but that soon fell away…”

and my favorite:  “I deny everything.”

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Dear Mrs. Bird

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dear-mrs-bird-9781501170065_lg   When I heard The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society book was soon to be a movie, it motivated me not only to read the book again but to read Dear Mrs. Bird, a book with a similar vibe. The books have a lot in common – letters, Britain, World War II, romance, and characters I would pick as friends. 

Young women in Emmeline Lake’s time usually tried to keep busy until they were married, and her best friend and flat mate, Bunty, does just that as she works as a secretary in the war office.  But Emmy has hopes of becoming a brilliant journalist and when she answers an ad for The London Evening Chronicle, she expects to be on her way to war correspondent.  To her surprise, the job is no more than typing for the paper’s Dear Abby, a huffy overbearing woman who would rather cut up letters sent to her than respond.  Her advice, when given, is harsh and unforgiving – not at all as sympathetic as her readers’ hopefully expect.

As Emmy begins to surreptitiously answer some of the more earnest enquiries, she gradually moves the advice column into a better place, until she gets caught.  The story includes vignettes of romance and correspondence with a promising beau and Emmy’s erstwhile social life, but Pearce does not shy away from describing the horrors of the bombing in London.  She deftly weaves the characters’ strength into a frivolous plot as they bravely survive everyday in a blitzed city while managing to keep hope and aspirations alive.

If you enjoyed Guernsey and other similar books (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, 84 Charing Cross, The Summer Before the War), Dear Mrs. Bird will be a pleasure to read.

 

The Truth According to Us

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9780385342940If you loved The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, you probably are also a fan of Downton Abbey and maybe Jane Austen,  so when Annie Barrows, co-author of Guernsey wrote her first adult book alone, The Truth According to Us, the bar was set high in anticipation.

My first foray into the book left me lacking and I put it aside, until a friend encouraged me to try again – and glad I did.  The writing echoes some of the aspects I enjoyed in Guernsey with smatterings of letters between characters and the historical facts – this time about the a New Deal program called the Federal Writer’s Project before World War II.  The style is the same yet different; Annie Barrows wrote Guernsey with her Aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, she wrote The Truth According to Us alone.

The plot is not a page turner but easy to follow: 

“In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, and destined, in her opinion, to go completely mad with boredom. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty.” Penguin Random House Publishers

But I am a sucker for child narrators – Flavia de Luce from The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Jack from Room, Susie in The Lovely Bones, Rosie in The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Eleven year old Willa’s voice, until she loses it, in The Truth According to Us reminds me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Willa’s perspectives shares the spotlight with Layla, a young fallen debutante who has been banished from the country club set to earn her own living in West Virginia and Jottie, the bright local woman who knows about “fierceness and devotion,” the town motto and the underlying theme of the story.  

It’s easy to be charmed with the romance, some adventure, a lot of soul-searching, and a good dose of humor.

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