A blog of my running thoughts while reading. *Warning: Spoilers*
I really enjoyed this book a lot. It gave a good sense of the time period and of Houdini and his organization. It’s interesting how much of what we know about him is little more than legend. Houdini was certainly an interesting man. I actually found his wife even more interesting. I’d love to read an actual biography of her, but I’ve never heard of one. Do any exist? If not, one should!
So far I’m enjoying this. I kind of wonder why this was specifically published as a book for children since it reads more like an adult book that happens to be perfectly appropriate for children. The art especially isn’t typical of children’s books. It really feels like the authors simply told their story with little real regard for the age for their eventual audience. And that’s good.
This book is just amazing. Brittain conveys so much loss and pain as she talks about the war and nursing and those she lost, but she also shows how she was able to live again and find love again. She never forgets or lets the lessons fade, but she is able to go on. It’s an amazing testament to the human spirit. I’m just so in awe of her and so happy that she did create such a successful writing career for herself (obviously - I’m here reading her work more than seventy years later) and a family. It’s amazing.
It’s fascinating to read about the fight for women’s rights. What I was most struck by was the expectation for a woman was that she would get married, regardless of whatever else she did, or at least that she would try very hard to do so. It was assumed that this was true because it was understood that all women wanted to get married and become mothers. What struck me was that this is nearly as true today as it was then! We can tell ourselves we’ve come so far, but when you look around at how our culture is still making these same assumptions and only sees balancing a career and family as a problem women struggle with, you have to wonder - how much progress have we really made?
It must have been amazing to have lived when women first got awarded degrees at university. To have watched college presidents being awarded diplomas alongside their students and to know that those were the women who made it all possible. Even knowing that it should have come long before and there was still more work ahead, it must have been incredible! I have so much respect for the women who made that possible, the women who fought and the women who became students without knowing if they would ever receive any official recognition for their work. I, and the women of my generation as well as our mothers, grandmothers and female descendants, owe them a lot!
This book is really incredible. I know that I keep saying that, but I can’t help it. I’m not only in awe of Vera Brittain’s writing, but of everything that she went through and of the fact that she had the strength to share it with the world like this. I think that I’m in awe of anyone who was ever that close to such a war, in any way. It’s a history that’s so important, but so often lost (and not only because many of those who are that close don’t survive). How do human conflicts get like that? How do we let it happen over and over? Will we ever learn?
I found this quote very moving: “When the sound of victorious guns burst over London at 11 a.m. on November 11th, 1918, the men and women who looked incredulously into each other’s faces did not cry jubilantly: “We’ve won the War!” They only said: “The War is over.”
I can’t believe how stupid it is that Vera Brittain, and doubtless numerous women like her, was expected to drop everything in the middle of a war and rush home simply because her father was uncomfortable. Just because she was a woman she was considered, by her parents anyhow, fully at their beck and call regardless of how she was serving the army as a nurse or anything. How aggravating and illogical it all was!
So much tragedy came to Vera Brittain’s life during the war. It’s almost hard to believe that it would just happen to work out that way, but it did. I rather admire and kind of envy her relationship with Edward. It’s just so special and close. I can’t imagine how comforting that must have been (and then, later, how painful to lose).
As descriptive as Vera Brittain is about her feelings and everything so far, it stands out that she’s very fuzzy on what happened after Roland died and even pretty hazy on how she felt about it (comparatively, anyway). I can understand that, though. That must have been and incredibly painful time to remember and probably a lot of the memories are fuzzy. When you’re mourning everything else goes away and later it’s hard to remember that time because you’re barely aware of what’s going on when it’s happening. I think Brittain did an amazing job with this book.
Roland and Vera’s letters back and forth are so intricate and interesting. I can’t imagine going through that, though. I wonder if, later, it was difficult for her to write about him and all of that in this book? It seems like to write this book this vividly, she would have had to almost force herself to relive it all. That would have been so hard! This is certainly an amazing book, though!