Image: amazon.co.uk
It is a
compelling and layered account of the childhood and adolescence of a young girl
growing up during World War II. What distinguishes this book from many other
biographies is the candid yet casual trajectory of her highs and lows against a
checkered, poverty-riddled backdrop, told in a wistful yet witty tenor. The
importance of family and school in forming the emotional template of a child’s
mind and preparing it for the journey of life is reinforced through the
feelings of the narrator as she strives to express her struggle for a place and
person/s to call her own. One cannot but identify at various points with the
narrator as her adult retrospection is mellowed by attempts to analyse yet
empathise with the constraints and considerations that were inescapable factors
in her parents’ mediocre lives. Her rebellious rants against class are subtle
yet stubborn in their understanding of how the best of potential in man can be
subdued, stemmed and subjugated by a lack of love or lucre.
To
generations born amidst war and strife, the book cannot but fail to touch a
chord with its Cinderella undertones as the protagonist conquers pain and
poverty to present a stolid façade to a judgemental society. However, it is to the
author’s credit that at no point of time does the book either glorify
poverty/war or directly descend into a pathetic critique of life and its general
bleakness. Be it at home or at school or even later, at work, the protagonist
finds enough variety or novelty around her to justify her renewed efforts to revitalise
and review her own circumstances. Her adolescent awakening into sexuality and
her unfortunate encounters with aberrations and perversions in this aspect of
life is reviewed through the filter of maturity and even a certain level of
detachment. Her preference of certain family members, her foster parents during
the war and her future husband is so well scripted that it unconsciously yet
subtly draws into it the sympathy of the reader. Through graphic description
yet nuanced perspective, she resurrects in the topography of one’s imagination
the violence, waste and horror of the Second World War which practically ripped
London apart, literally as well as metaphorically.
As a vivid-
almost at times visual- depiction of a life that shall surely inspire the
individual in each of us, the book shall stay with me for a long time to come
and perhaps, possibly help in the personal realization of a more generous perspective
of life in the post-war age.
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