Literature and War Readalong - 'Coventry' by Helen Humphreys

Hello to all who are visiting from Caroline's Literature and War Readalong - and welcome to my blog.  As I explained in my previous post, I have a personal connection to the story (Coventry, by Candian writer Helen Humphreys), so I was very interested in taking part this time.  Was it worth it?  Well, let's find out...

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We begin on the night of the 14th of November, 1940, and Harriet, a woman in her mid-forties, has found herself on fire-watching duty on the roof of St. Michael's, the Anglican cathedral in Coventry.  After a brief journey into the past, taking in the departure of Harriet's husband for the front in the First World War (and his subsequent death), we return to the roof of the cathedral.  And, as any Coventrian knows, this was not a good evening to be gazing up at the night sky...

The 14th of November marked the climax of the Coventry Blitz, a series of air raids on the industrial city, and the first real attack by the German Luftwaffe on civilian targets.  Whereas earlier raids attempted to distinguish between military and civilian areas, Hitler had decided that this time the whole city was fair game.  What followed was the greatest aerial destruction the war had seen up to that point.

As Harriet and Jeremy, a young fellow fire watcher, escape from the roof and attempt to make their way through the rubble-strewn streets, briefly stopping to help out in air-raid shelters and bombed houses, the unlikely couple come to depend on each other more and more.  Little do they know that there is a lot more which connects them than this one fateful night ...

Sadly, I would have to say that I wasn't particularly impressed by Coventry.  There were some good points: the idea and setting; the descriptions of the bombing and the impassable streets; the scenes which had Harriet and Jeremy attempting to flee the city centre.  The scene centring on a man who decided to have a shave in the middle of the bombing was one which worked particularly well.

Overall though, I couldn't help thinking that it was a very slight attempt at a story.  There were numerous, clumsy info dumps, particularly in setting up the back stories of Harriet and Maeve, another woman caught in the crossfire.  The romance between Harriet and Jeremy wasn't particularly convincing, even in light of (or because of?) what was happening outside.

I also had a very strong feeling that the writer had no real connection to, or affinty with, the city being described.  The idea of using two women who didn't come from Coventry seemed like a convenient way to avoid using any kind of identifiable dialect or accent, one which rather annoyed me as nobody really stood out in conversations.  Oh, and trust me on this - Coventry is not, I repeat, not in the north of England...

The ending though was beautiful and poignant, and I think the last couple of sections showed where Humphreys' strength lies - in description.  Both the final scene in the cathedral, and the later scene of reflection on the night of the bombing are wonderfully done.  Unfortunately, the novel as a whole doesn't measure up to the ending.

The great story of the night of the 14th of November, 1940, then has yet to be written (the classic Coventry story, of course, most definitely has...), and I'd like to see someone attempt it.  Coventry is along the right lines, but it is too slight, too sentimental and not focused enough on the city itself.  I would prefer to see a more substantial novel, building up slowly to the destruction of the cathedral, introducing us to real characters, using local language and painting a vivid picture of the city which was to suffer from the attack of the Luftwaffe.  That's not too much to ask now, is it? ;)

For those who were more impressed with the book than I was, I found a link to Humphreys talking about her novel, in which she answers questions relating to how and why she wrote it.  I'm still not convinced, but it is interesting to see what she says about the book :)

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While the book isn't all I would have wanted, don't let that put you off visiting the location!  As you may know, the old cathedral was partially destroyed by the raid, a new building being constructed across from the ruins of the bombed church.  A common joke in Coventry is that what the Germans couldn't destroy, 1950s city planners managed to finish off, an ironic reflection on the wind-swept concrete wasteland which replaced the bombed-out centre of the city. 

Luckily, Coventry is undergoing a transformation, and it's a much nicer place to visit than used to be the case :)  While the new cathedral (especially the exterior) doesn't agree with everyone, there is no doubt that the connection of the roofless ruin with the imposing new building is an impressive one.  I hope the book has made you curious enough to want to visit the cathedral one day...

In our Coventry homes...

I'm not overly fond of books about war, but when Caroline announced that the April book for her Literature and War Readalong would be Helen Humphreys' Coventry, I was immediately on board - for the obvious reason that it's my home town :)  I'll be posting a review of the book on the thirtieth, along with everyone else, but today I thought I'd take a little trip down memory lane and talk about some personal experiences, especially in connection with the cathedral.

The cathedral is the focal point of Coventry, the one real icon at the heart of the city.  It's a place we all visited as schoolkids, and it's cemented in local culture in many ways.  It's one of the famous 'three spires' which appear in tourist guides and on various signs, and it's even mentioned in a football chant sung by fans of the local team, Coventry City:

"We speak with an accent exceedingly rare,
If you want a cathedral we've got one to spare"

And you all know (or soon will know) why...
 
The Old Cathedral, burnt out in the Coventry Blitz in November 1940, is a stunning memorial, cleared of rubble, but otherwise left in its post-bombing state.  There is a cross of nails, made from nails recovered from the ruins, and the two pieces of wood fashioned into a cross on the morning after the bombings still stand at the far end of the church, with the words 'Father Forgive' emblazoned behind them.  I actually missed my school trip to the cathedral (my little sister was being born at the time...), so my uncle took me a couple of weeks later.  This turned out to be a good thing as we were able to climb the tower, something the schoolkids weren't allowed to do (and which for many years was actually impossible).  I remember the view from the top, looking down onto the bare floor of the exposed church and then across to the left...

...where the new St. Michael's Cathedral is connected to the old one by a covered walkway.  It's best to approach the new cathedral from the ground-level steps though, taking in the size of the imposing building and pausing in front of the statue of St. Michael and the Devil, hovering above the wary visitor as both a welcome and a warning.

The moment you step inside the new cathedral, your eyes are drawn to one thing, and one thing only.  Directly opposite is the enormous Tapestry of Christ, designed by Graham Sutherland.  It has to be seen to be believed, taking up the whole wall behind the altar, grabbing the attention of everyone who walks through the doors.

There are other, more trivial, details I remember about the new building though.  On the floor, there is a trail of coins, pennies from 1962, the year the new building was completed and opened.  Children often walk slowly down the aisles, heads down , following the large coins embedded at frequent intervals in the tiles.  There are also several stained-glass windows along the sides of the church, which remind me of another personal experience...

You see, when I was a young boy, I was in the cubs for a few years, and every year we had a service at the cathedral for all the packs in the city.  Each pack had a flag, and one year I was chosen to be a flagbearer, a position of great prestige, but also one of immense responsibility.  The flag was mounted at the top of a pole, with the other end resting in a small holder strapped around my waist.  Unfortunately, it was a long pole, and I wasn't the biggest of boys, so as I stood at the side of the church, it overbalanced several times, almost toppling me off my feet, and coming perilously close to plunging through one of the beautiful windows.  Luckily, I just about managed to make it hit the wall instead...

There's one final part of the cathedral I'd like to talk about, and it's situated under the new building.  There is a museum displaying artefacts from the history of both the cathedral and the city, and, as is to be expected, a major focus is the night of the destruction of the cathedral.  There is a short film about Coventry, which has recordings from the night of the attack and interviews with survivors.  Although the film as a whole is a little kitschy, the parts detailing the events of November 1940 are harrowing...

...as, no doubt, you have already discovered if you've finished Humphreys' book.

So, that's enough about me and the cathedral(s).  In a couple of days, I'll be back with the real review.  Does the book live up to the story behind it?  You'll just have to wait and see ;)

Review Post 16 - The Road Less Travelled

Tanabata, who hosts the monthly themed posting challenge Hello Japan, decided that this month would see everyone (appropriately) post around the topic of Cherry Blossom, or Sakura. For those of you unaware of its importance in Japanese life, the Cherry Blossoms bloom across Japan every (Northern) spring, travelling from Okinawa in the south right across the country before falling into the sea off the northern expanses of Hokkaido. The beautiful, but temporary, blossoms embody the concept of mono no aware, the fleetingness of things, symbolising the ephemeral nature of existence. A time to stop and reflect on the brevity of life (or sing loudly and drink bucketloads of sake in local parks - your call).

Will Ferguson, a Canadian working in Japan as an English teacher (which does not necessarily mean that he has any qualification - or aptitude - for teaching), got drunk one night and declared that he would follow the Sakura Zensen (Cherry Blossom front) across the country from south to north, adding that he would make it even harder by hitchhiking. Remarkably, he actually did it too. His story is related in Hokkaido Highway Blues (later renamed - shudder - Hitchhiking with Buddha), a wonderful travel book which anyone who has lived in Japan, or just likes sushi, would enjoy.

Like any good travel book, this one has the right mixture of well-constructed humorous tales, a wide cast of supporting characters, some helpful, some not so, and the odd serious and (at times) poignant moment. Ferguson's reason for hitchhiking the journey was not only to save money (although one suspects that this was more true than he's prepared to let on), but also to experience the country and the people in a different way. He theorises that cars are part of people's personal spaces and that by letting him into their car, the people who pick him up are actually accepting him into their lives, if only for a short time.

At the start, Ferguson is full of bravado and good humour, and his quest seems heroic, if somewhat quixotic. However, the further he follows the elusive blossoms up the country, the more he, and the reader, starts to question his motives. Just why is he hell-bent on making it to the northern tip of Hokkaido? What will happen after that? More importantly, is his quest to prolong what is meant to be a brief moment of perfection actually perverse and doomed to failure?

Whether his journey is magnificent or mad, I, like many westerners who have lived in Japan, envy Ferguson a little. Just setting sail and letting the momentum carry you onwards, town by town, car by car - it's a seductive idea. But what happens when the momentum stops? How do you get yourself started again? Ferguson describes a moment near the end of his journey where he gets stuck, unable to move on: momentum has deserted him. I remember experiencing the same sensation myself when I travelled around Europe during my university days. One day, I got to Rotterdam and walked, as usual, around the town, seeing what there was to see (which, in Rotterdam, was not a lot). All of a sudden, I stopped walking; my legs, literally, decided to give up. A month of constant pounding the streets of European cities had finally caught up with me and the momentum had disappeared. I never really got it back...

The cover of my edition has praise by Bill Bryson (which, in the world of travel writing, is about as good as it gets). Like Bryson, Ferguson manages to present the best and worst of a country, exposing the warts without ruining the overall picture. Like Bryson, Ferguson is actually writing a last love letter to a country which is a part of him but of which he is not a part. The whole journey is a metaphor for his experiences in the far-east, written in the knowledge that the time to go home may be just around the corner. Mono no Aware indeed...