| Title | : | The Lie |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0099559285 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780099559283 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 |
| Publication | : | First published January 16, 2014 |
| Awards | : | The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize (2015), Walter Scott Prize (2015) |
Cornwall, 1920, early spring.
A young man stands on a headland, looking out to sea. He is back from the war, homeless and without family. Behind him lie the mud, barbed-wire entanglements and terror of the trenches. Behind him is also the most intense relationship of his life.
Daniel has survived, but the horror and passion of the past seem more real than the quiet fields around him. He is about to step into the unknown. But will he ever be able to escape the terrible, unforeseen consequences of a lie?
The Lie Reviews
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DNF @ 23%
I'm just not feeling this one. The story seems pretty flat and although the topic of the devastating effects of the WW1 experience is described well, neither the story nor the characters or the storytelling is engaging me enough to want to spend more time with this book. -
This is a beautifully written tale about the sacrifices of the WW1 generation. It's been marketed by the line "Can love survive the war?" but this is no simple love story. It's far more complex and layered than that involving a triangle of people who all love each other in such different ways. And the love theme is but one strand and it mostly just simmers under the surface of the story and remains ambiguous to the very end.
The three main characters have known each other since childhood and have grown up in an isolated Cornish coastal village. Frederick and Felicia are middle class siblings with Daniel being the son of their family cleaner. The boys have been best friends from an early age despite their differing social standing. The novel begins with Daniel having returned from the war tortured by what happened to Frederick who appears in the opening passages as a mud encrusted inhabitant of his friends sub-conscious mind. The narrative moves seamlessly backwards and forwards from the wild, unfettered Cornish coast - a metaphor for their lost youth perhaps - to the fewer passages in the sinking mud and stench of the trenches in Daniel's fevered mind. The author plays throughout with the themes of friendship, fear, guilt, loss and love & at times it reads like a stream of fevered unconscious thought. I'm always a bit suspicious of much hyped novels but this one far exceeded my expectation. It is on a par with Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and that's about the highest praise I can dish out. -
Another find in the local library. I have been meaning to read more Dunmore for a while - my only previous one was her Women's Prize winner
A Spell of Winter.
I rather liked this historical novel, whose main protagonist Dan is the orphaned child of a poor Cornish widow. The story is set shortly after the Great War. Dan has been living on the smallholding of an old woman Mary Pascoe, and helping her tend the land. Mary is dying but has no heirs, and asks Dan to bury her on her own land rather than in the church. This sets up the plot, as Dan finds himself unable to admit that Mary is dead without admitting his part in her illegal burial.
He is also haunted by his war experiences, and in particular the death of his best childhood friend Frederick, the child of one of the richer neighbours Dan's mother used to work for. Frederick was Dan's commanding officer in the trenches, and Dan was unable to get him to safety after he was badly wounded on a raid. Another subplot is his developing relationship with Frederick's younger sister Felicia, who is also a war widow with a young child, and has inherited the big house.
This may all seem rather fanciful, but Dunmore's writing is very enjoyable to read and she manages to balance the conflicting elements very well, and the resolution is moving and poignant. -
This was an idea spread too thin with not enough plot and or originality. The writing was certainly good, and where the passages handled strong emotion it was very affecting. But not enough seemed to be done with the idea.
There are two halves to the narrative: the passages set in the trenches and a later time when the character is trying to readjust to normal life, with little success. The wartime scenes are well realised, although a little meandering. But the sections back in this country are agonisingly slow. The character buries an old hermit who lives near his makeshift home, drifts around and visits the brother of his friend who was killed in France, repairs her boiler and goes for a picnic. Now some writers can invest such non-events with much meaning and resonance; the minutiae of a slow day are the journey the characters go on, or the illumination of a difficult and unimaginable life. But these didn't grab me this way. They simply seemed slow, as if they were padding so that there could be as many scenes in the post-war strand as there were in the trenches. The flashbacks to the war carry some very arresting details, but the War Poets did it better.
And there lies the problem. The Lie contains nothing new in terms of themes, treatment or ideas - although there could have been. It seems to have been written only to tick a few boxes for the 1914 anniversary. -
Helen Dunmore is on top form with her latest novel. It’s a beautifully written and accomplished novel set in Cornwall in 1920. Daniel Branwell arrives home from the trenches, physically unscathed but emotionally and psychologically damaged. His mother died while he was away and he finds refuge with old and solitary Mary Pascoe, who lets him build a shelter on her small-holding in exchange for some practical help. But although the war is over, he can find no real peace here, for he remains haunted by the loss of his childhood friend Frederick. He reconnects with Frederick’s sister Felicia, but she too is grieving and the losses of war are not easily forgotten.
The story develops slowly and quietly, perfectly paced, alternating between Daniels’ day-to-day life and his wartime memories. It’s a short book, but powerful and brilliantly imagined. The descriptions are vivid and atmospheric and the characters real and sympathetic. The first person narrative allows the reader to fully engage with Daniel and his attempts to rebuild his life and keep his sanity, but the individual tragedies of war transform lives in ways that are sometime impossible to deal with. There will be many books about WWI and its aftermath during 2014 no doubt, but this will surely be rated one of the best. -
Amazing. Helen Dunmore's writing is rich, powerful and compelling. She is the master of the crescendo ending, fantastic at pacing and overall just so outstanding.
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I've read a lot of both fiction and non-fiction around the First World War as it loomed large in my family.
I'd not come across Helen Dunmore before, but her skill at vividly evoking the horror of the trenches and the tortured soul that is the tragic and shell-shocked survivor Daniel is remarkable.
Her prose is poetic and deserves lingering over, but I found myself unable to put it down as I raced towards the end of the book. I've visited some of those muddy fields only recently and her words continually brought them to mind as I read.
She's clearly a fantastic writer and I can't wait to get my hands on more of her work.
Highly recommended. -
"They say the war's over, but they're wrong. It went too deep for that"
Dunmore has become one of our great contemporary writers: this short, sharp story revisits WW1, both the trenches and the dreadful aftermath as Daniel Branwell tries to rebuild some kind of life for himself after the war.
This is a very literary novel which deliberately uses literature itself to frame both this text, and the story contained within it. From the opening scene the ghosts of Homeric warriors invade this book as Dan wakes to find himself haunted by the restless shade of Frederick Dennis, his boyhood friend, companion and, later, officer. And books, especially poetry (not least Homer), play a role in delineating both their relationship as well as the social and cultural world which shapes them. Dan is working class, leaves school at 11, but devours the unread books contained in the library of the Dennis family's house, while Frederick himself struggles to learn his declamation tasks. Some very moving moments are articulated through poetry, especially Matthew Arnold's `Dover Beach' ("Ah, love, let us be true | to one another!") which is used to great and poignant effect.
Told through Dan's first-person narration, this is a novel of great sensitivity and delicacy, deliberately slow in parts, but moving inexorably towards an almost inevitable climax. This isn't the first time that Dunmore has visited war and post-war periods, and this has elements of the elegiac atmosphere of The Greatcoat about it. This doesn't, perhaps, have the richness and emotional grab of The Betrayal, but it is a superbly controlled and, ultimately, very quiet and moving evocation of the impact of war.
(This review is from an ARC courtesy of the publisher) -
I have long been an admirer of Helen Dunmore and am pleased to say that I greatly enjoyed her latest work. Obviously it is the Centenary of the First World War and so there are bound to be many books about such a cataclysmic historical event which changed Europe, and the people involved, forever. This is a moving read, but events and memories are unravelled slowly – almost poetically – and it is not a book to rush, but to savour and think about.
Daniel Branwell returns to his home in Cornwall after the war. His mother has died and Daniel is, although not physically damaged, suffering from vivid flashbacks of his time in the trenches. He finds himself taken in by his mother’s friend, Mary Pascoe, an elderly woman who has a small cottage where she keeps a goat and chickens and grows vegetables. Before the war, Daniel had been forced by circumstances to leave school and work as a gardener and he now takes over the small holding, retreating to the comfort of physical work.
During this novel we learn, gradually, about Daniel’s childhood. His resentment at having to leave school when he was obviously extremely intelligent; plundering the library of his friend Frederick’s father, the volatile Mr Dennis, and his relationship with Frederick’s sister, Felicia. Almost everyone we meet in this novel has lost someone in the war, or knows someone who has been damaged. Indeed, Felicia herself has lost both her brother and her husband in the conflict. Daniel has to try to come to terms with what happened to him, and to Frederick, as well as try to rebuild his shattered life. Yet, how can he do so when Frederick keeps appearing to him and the dead will not seem to lie in their graves?
This is a book which discusses the trauma of war; guilt, suffering and the world that war left behind – shattering families and devastating communities – and yet it is also a novel about hope and re-growth. For a work with such huge themes, the story unfolds slowly and almost gently. An excellent choice for book groups, with much to discuss and, like all Helen Dunmore’s novels, one I am sure I will be re-reading before long. -
This was pretty close to 5 stars for me, something I rarely award fiction. My first Helen Dunmore, but I already have another on my wish list. Beautifully written, told in the first person, it is a poignant and moving story which flows seamlessly between events during the Great War and the aftermath. Usually when a story flicks backwards and forwards in time, the changes are delineated by chapters or scene markers. In this story, because we hear it through the main protagonist's thoughts, the changes are not marked, and they are done so incredibly well that I was about half-way through the book before I realised what was happening.
I'm writing this as if what I admired was Ms Dunmore's technical skill, and I really did, but what I loved was this story. I'm not going to say anything about it, because I don't want to give anything away, save that it is great. Sad, very darkly-comic in some places, and heart-wrenching in others, it's got that mix of hope and despair about the world after the Great War that for me seems just perfectly pitched. The guilt and the antipathy of those left behind. The guilt and the disgust of those who fought. The ones who want to forget and can't. The ones who want to pretend it never happened. The ones who recognise the world has, in Yeat's words, changed utterly, and the ones who want it all to go back to how it was before. All of this is encapsulated in the little Cornish village where the story takes place, and all of it is both right and wrong. We want to hope but we, who know the future, know that it was pointless. We feel pity and we feel horror and we feel immense gratitude that we have not had to endure such things, and we're pretty sure that if we had, we'd not have coped so well.
All of this, but above all, a beautifully written story that I couldn't put down. Highly recommended. -
A brilliant book. It was a page-turner, but not in the typical sense. I found myself having to stop reading at times, in order to digest the mood and fully appreciate the prose. Helen Dunmore captures the post-WW1 trauma quite magnificently. The protagonist's experience of the war and his relationship with Frederick is delivered in droplets through memories and flashbacks.
It's 1920 now, but is the war really over? He still lives it every day; it's just a different kind of battle. He still sees, feels, smells, breathes the war and all the horrors. Is it ever possible to move on, to really live again when surrounded by the ghosts and vivid memories of the recent past? WW1 came alive in this book. In relatively few descriptive passages, Helen Dunmore says it all. Set in the beautiful scenic backdrop of the Cornish coast, The Lie is a harrowing read about a young man trying to survive in adverse circumstances. Post-war survival being just as real and immediate as surviving the war itself. Like every good book should, this book tutors in the mystery of human nature. It taught me something about the essence of life and survival. It taught me something about subtle, imaginative and colourful writing. It taught me something about myself.
Wonderful. -
Twelve hours after finishing, my thoughts are still somewhat scattered. I'll try to be coherent, and I apologize if I fall short.
Each chapter opens with a sentence or paragraph from what appears to be some sort of military manual, mostly pertaining to how the men should behave under war conditions. I expected these would relate in some way to the rest of the chapter, but I usually forgot all about them as I immersed myself in the actual story.
This is told in the first person by Daniel Branwell. Many novels have multiple time lines as does this one. We are never told exactly when the present is, but I think it isn't too long post war, so probably about 1919 or 1920. The two other timelines are Daniel's war experiences and his life as a child when about 10 to 12 years old.
My experience with multiple timelines is that it is clear when they change and to when. Such is not the case in this novel. Daniel's thinking could change in the middle of a paragraph, and I think there was a time or two when it changed in the middle of a sentence. Daniel clearly has some lingering issues with his war experiences. It shouldn't be a surprise, therefore, that I sometimes wondered whether or not Daniel was an unreliable narrator. Especially so, given the title of the novel.
There isn't much plot. I like the way Dunmore writes and I'm glad I have another of hers on hand, though I don't have any immediate plans to read it. I think only Daniel's characterization is fully-fleshed, but it is he that is telling the story so that is to be expected. I am counting this as one that contributes to my overall understanding of WWI. For that and the writing this is a low 4-stars for me, but I don't think this is a must read for most. -
So far there seems to only be one other review of this book, and to be honest the only point at which I can concur with the other reviewer is in the comparison with The Absolutist; the two books really are rather similar in tone. Apart from that point I disagree with every other aspect of my rival reviewer's opinion. This is a rather lovely, heartbreaking book, which focuses mainly on the aftermath of years spent in the trenches. Daniel has returned 'home' to the far west of Cornwall, and has found that not only is he now alone, but that he is quite literally haunted by what he has experienced. Through a series of scenes set during the war we discover the traumas that Daniel went through during his time in the trenches. The story revolves around several 'lies' told both during and after the war, and ultimately it is the consequences of one of these coming to light which result in the tragic end of the story. The characters are beautifully drawn, and the relationships seem genuine. Everyone has been shattered by the events of the four dreadful years of war, however there are still moments of tenderness to be found.
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I didn't finish this one simply because it skipped around so much I couldn't get into it enough. The story was interesting to a point but just not enough. I made it 32% through within a week and a half. I normally don't take that long to read/listen to a book. (Listened via Libby/Overdrive)
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Daniel returns from the trenches of World War I to his hometown in Cornwall. He struggles to cope and finds some measure of comfort in tending the gardens of Mary Pascoe, an elderly recluse. Haunted by the ghost of his beloved friend, Frederick, he also finds himself drawn to Frederick's sister, Felicia, a war widow with a young child.
From the moment I read the sample for The Lie on my Kindle, I was convinced I would love it. The writing was utterly fantastic, the visuals arresting. When I finally got my hands on the book, I devoured it, loving every moment of it – the astonishing writing, the fantastic visuals. And then I got to the final chapter and I just sat there for a long moment, contemplating throwing the book across the room.
I mean, seriously, everything in the book was meant to lead up to that?
I can't talk about this without delving into spoilers so please beware that the resolution and most of the mysteries in the book will be spoiled if you continue to read on.
Frederick is Daniel's commanding officer in the war and leads them on a raid of a German trench that goes horribly wrong and Frederick is badly wounded. Daniel tries to get him back to the British trenches and, at the final stage, makes the decision to leave Frederick in No Man's Land while Daniel goes back to the trenches and gets help to recover Frederick. Daniel does, but just as he identifies Frederick's location, a shell hits and Frederick is killed.
Daniel comes home believing himself to blame for Frederick's death, that he should have left Frederick closer to the trenches or continued to struggle on with him. Daniel stays with Mary Pascoe for a time and nurses her as she too dies from pneumonia and then buries her on her land at her request.
For some reason – a wish for solitude? – Daniel doesn't tell anyone what happened to Mary and when asked, he lies and says she's still alive. These lies grow more and more elaborate as her absence goes noted and Daniel grows closer to Felicia, Frederick's sister.
Eventually, Daniel tells Felicia everything, about Frederick's death – she assuages his guilt – and about Mary's death and his cover-up of it. As they grow closer, Daniel decides to listen to her and go to London and build himself a new life. The penultimate chapter has him planning for this new life in London, with the promise that Felicia and her daughter will come and visit him once he's settled.
Ah, I think, he's finally healing and ready to get on with life.
No.
The final chapter has the townspeople coming to the house en-masse, a scene of mob violence, apparently to bring Daniel to justice for his lies about Mary Pascoe, and the book ends with Daniel committing suicide.
And I sit there and think: what. Seriously? What is the point of Daniel going through everything in this book and looking forward to the new stage of his life if the next chapter of Helen Dunmore's novel features him chased by a mob and jumping off a cliff to his death?
Is the point is that World War I veterans can't and shouldn't heal in any small way, and if they do, they should be hounded to their death? That's a disgusting message. I suppose I could buy that it shows how society treated WWI survivors as something not to be talked about. But if that is the case, then Dunmore failed to actually illustrate it.
It just seemed to me like it was bad storytelling, as though Dunmore had written a more optimistic story and had to find some way to make it all come crashing down. The plotline about Mary Pascoe's death and Daniel's lie seemed unnecessary to me – sure, there's drama in it, but the compelling parts of the narrative were Daniel's experiences in the war, his friendship with Frederick and his relationship with Felicia. But, judging from the title and the final chapter, the important part of the novel was the lie about Mary's death?
I just don't understand and I want to, so I can stop feeling so angry and short changed. The sheer beauty of everything beforehand can't make up for the ending. -
I will also do a video review here at my channel:
http://www.youtube.com/magicofbooks
"The Lie" by Helen Dunmore takes place in 1920s Cornwall, following Daniel Branwell who has survived the trenches of war. He lives his days in solitude, working on the land, but he cannot forget the horrors that he survived and the best friend that he lost.
First, I won this through Goodreads Giveaways.
I was really hoping this would be a 5-star book. Let me say this: this is not a bad book. If anything, the writing is beautifully done. Helen Dunmore handles the trauma (or PTSD) of Daniel Branwell incredibly well and makes it believable. Even the location of Cornwall is atmospheric and haunting. And for the most part I enjoyed reading from Daniel's point of view and getting introduced to the characters of his past. I think where this book failed was with how short it is and the fact that there's nothing really going on. It's less than 300 pages long and I kept waiting for the narrative to go somewhere, but it never did. The novel simply explores Daniel as a character, his trauma from the war, and his relationship with his friend Frederick and Frederick's sister, Felicia. And that would be fine and all, but I needed something more to flesh out the story. This is a novel with character, but no plot. The novel also hinges on it's title: "The Lie." Maybe I missed something, but what exactly was the lie? For the whole book I thought the lie had to do with Daniel lying about the death of Mary Pascoe, an old woman who he was living with until she died of sickness. For some reason, Daniel lies to everybody that she's sick and lying in bed healing. I didn't entirely understand why he lied about that. Couldn't he tell the authorities she died, he buried her, end of story? Instead he felt like everybody was out to get him and that he would be hanged for her death which made no logical sense to me. The title of the book could also have further meaning too, I suppose. Daniel not only lying about Mary Pascoe's untimely death, but also lying about his trauma. Lying about his secret love towards his friend Frederick. I'm a bit confused about what I'm supposed to be feeling about this novel and I feel like I've misunderstood something.
But just to remain positive, like I said, I liked how Helen Dunmore handled Daniel's PTSD. It was believable, it was terrifying, it was done tastefully. I also liked the use of Frederick's spirit form haunting Daniel. I think my favorite parts of this novel were the flashbacks to the war, and quite honestly, I would have liked the book to have been just the war. Helen Dunmore did a fantastic job displaying the grittiness of trench warfare and the relationships between the men who needed to watch each other's backs. I think that's where the plot needed to rest rather than the aftermath of the war. I haven't spoken of Felicia much yet, Frederick's sister, but I did like her as a character. She's a character with her own demons and issues, a woman trying to make her way in the world now that her husband is dead. Her and Daniel definitely have a complicated relationship.
Overall, this novel was a bit of a disappointment, which I hate saying because I think there was some great stuff going on but it just lacked a moving plot. Also, it was called "The Lie." I think I went into this novel expecting something crazy about a lie that Daniel was covering up. I'm still glad I read this though and won it through Goodreads. World War II doesn't have the same amount of coverage compared to World War II so it was nice to read something different. I wouldn't recommend not reading this book. I think I would still recommend it, but don't head into it with grand expectations like I did. Read it for the character of Daniel and for Helen Dunmore's beautiful writing, but don't expect more than that. -
The title of this book can be interpreted in many ways, as revealed by the poignant quotation at the beginning;
'If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied'.
This beautiful novel is about the aftermath of war particularly for the main protagonists, Dan and Felicia, both doubly bereaved. Dan, the narrator, a 'survivor' of WW1, although physically unharmed was mentally traumatised. Despite this he was clearly a very able and gifted person in many ways and the sense of his missed opportunities was one of the tragic elements of this book. Felicia, although equally vulnerable was much less competent, incapable of running the fine house left to her and doubting her capacity as a mother. They provide perfect foils for each other. As a voracious reader and retainer of poetry, Dan's descriptions of the wild west Cornish coast were full of lyrical beauty, sharply contrasting with the sparse harsh details of the failed trench raid in which his friend and Felicia's brother ultimately died. But even in the peace and isolation of Cornwall, as in the trenches, there are dangers, in the shape of busybodies, gossips and villagers holding on to old resentments who cause the ultimate tragedy- or release. It has been stated 'there is not much of a plot'. The plot is not the issue. The beauty and strength of this book for me was how quickly I became involved in the struggle of two young people trying to maintain normality and even reforge relationships when their world has turned upside down in a most horrific fashion. -
It seems it’s not possible to read The Lie without comparing it to Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy, which I think is one of the finest attempts to render the horror of World War I in fiction. Malcolm Forbes, who reviewed it for The Australian, thought that:
Pat Barker matches her for historical accuracy and the ability to delve deep into the human psyche, but Dunmore’s haunting, lyrical and mesmeric prose to describe carnage and loss elevates her into a different league. (The Weekend Australian, March 1-2, 2014)
But while I thought The Lie was well written and quite interesting, I didn’t find it as compelling as Barker’s Regeneration (the first of the trilogy) which I read more than a decade ago. With its avoid-the-issue ending, the plot of The Lie is a bit simplistic, and the novel wears its architecture too noticeably, flickering back and forth between the returned soldier’s flashbacks to the trenches and his musings in the present. It’s been done before, and despite the prolific quotations from other people’s poetry, it needs to be done better than this to ‘elevate her into a different league’. -
I've read most of Helen Dunmore's novels, but her recent ones haven't bowled me over, this one included. I found it a depressing read. I didn't feel much empathy for Dan and regarded his actions as rather foolish. His relationship with Felicia left me frustrated, urging him to 'just get on with it'! I didn't find his feelings for Frederick particularly convincing either. There is very little plot here and the ending left me feeling 'so what'? It's very well written, as you'd expect from Dunmore and it's most certainly a 'literary' novel, but I've read better novels about the First World War and its aftermath (most notably, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, The Boy I Loved, Regeneration and of course, Birdsong). I'm not sure I dare try Helen Dunmore's next novel for fear of being disappointed once again.
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Daniel is a survivor of WWI living with his nightmares and his memories of his seemingly single love of Frederick a childhood friend from a much wealthier family. Daniel has returned to Cornwall and lives on a rundown farm that is near Frederick's old home now owned by his sister Felicity who was briefly married and has a child.
Daniel has haunting flashbacks to the trenches and of the day Frederick dies. This is when the writing is at its best. The sights, sounds and smells of this horrible time were distinctively described. But was the story of a returned soldier original, probably not. -
Hypnotic and haunted. There's a thin narrative, but it's broken up by memory, hallucination and ghosts. A poem of a novel.
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I so wanted to love ‘The Lie.’ I have loved her writing for years, ever since curiosity led me to pick up a copy of ‘Burning Bright.’ I was captivated by a story that was a little out of the ordinary, and by words that were used so well, to create such vivid images. I knew then, and the books that followed confirmed, that she was a special author, and author to seek out …..
And I did love ‘The Lie’, but not quite as much as I hoped that I might.
It tells the story of Daniel, who fought in the Great War, who survived, and who came home to his native Cornwall. He is shell-shocked and he is alone. His mother died while he was away and he saw Frederick, the childhood friend who became his commanding officer, die. He has no home, but Mary Pascoe, an elderly recluse, allows him to build a shelter and scratch a living from her land. They understand and help each other.
As he works on the land Daniel’s mind wanders. It takes him back to his childhood, when he was friends with the children from the big house, Frederick and his sister Felicia. His mother was the cleaning lady, but the children didn’t see the class barrier. And it takes him back to the horror of the trenches, where there are ghosts that will not let him go.
Helen Dunmore manages all of this beautifully. The shifts in time are subtle, with each painted differently and yet so clearly by the same hand. And Daniel’s character holds everything together; it is easy to understand why his mind wanders, why he sees Frederick at the foot of his bed, why he is what he is, why he does what he does …..
And the writing, enriched by the poetry that Daniel read in the library of the big house, that he loved, that he learned, is every bit as special as I hoped.
Frederick meets Felicia again; she was a little girl the last time he saw her, but now she is a war widow with a child. They are drawn together, because they are both alone, because they have shared memories, because they both desperately miss Frederick. But they have changed, and life will take them in different direction.
The portrayal of Felicia, shifting from the girl she was to a woman who has learned how she must live is sublime. Details handled so very, very well. This book is full of such wonderful details, but there were moments when my attention was pulled away.
If you set a story in Cornwall, if you change the names of places, you really shouldn’t use real place names for your characters. If you set out to write a novel set in the aftermath of the Great War, elements often found in gothic novels will seem out of place. Such small things, but they took me away from the heart of the story.
I suspect that if I didn’t live in West Cornwall I wouldn’t have been distracted at all; but I do, and I was. And I suspect that if so much of this book hadn’t been so very good then I wouldn’t have minded so much.
The seeds for the ending were planted early. A misjudgement led to a lie, and that led to tragedy. It was so sad, knowing for so long that an unhappy ending was inevitable, and it was heart-breaking when it happened.
That pulled me right back into the story, and it is still in my head, with none of the things that bothered me seeming to matter any more. -
Inevitably when we are writing reviews we are in danger of reducing complex stories, rich characterisation and psychological dramas to simple sentences. It would be a gross over simplification to say ‘The Lie’ is a novel about PTSD or ‘survivor guilt’ or to try and provide a 'catch-all' phrase - a novel showing that Love outlasts Death- so any analysis of the effectiveness of this absorbing and distressing story must run the risk of belittling the author’s amazing acheievement in recreating the profound horrors of trench warfare that was to inflict so much irreparable damage - physical, emotional and psychological- and transform millions of lives irrevocably in the post-war world.
Helen Dunmore’s evocative narrative focuses on the lives of three great friends from a small Cornish community, who must leave behind the tranquility and insularity of the their rural village to test the bonds of love and friendship under challenging circumstances. Traumatised by the horrific experience of combat that love is to be put to the test.
The sudden wrench that enlistment brought for volunteers and conscripts is vividly recreated - civilian lives disrupted, careers fractured, families dislocated, and friendships torn apart as loved ones went to war. Then the deluge and the further wrench, and agonising pain, of irretrievable loss and unrelieved grieving that must be endured by families confronting death and disfigurement.
Helen Dunmore creates a living hell that is now indelibly stamped on another reader’s imagination. A tour de force from a superb novelist.
And how appropriate to pen this review on the day the author was awarded posthumously the Costa Book Prize for 2017 for her final poetry collection, Inside The Wave. -
The Siege is the only one of Dunmore’s novels which I have really enjoyed, despite reading an awful lot of her tales. Her prose style and storylines seem rather inconsistent from one book to the next, and that is certainly true when one reads The Lie.
The novel is told from the first person perspective of Daniel Branwell, a young man who has returned from France after a stint in the Army. His narrative voice from the start is not a realistic male one, and it certainly sounds far too feminine to be anything close to plausible at times. Both of Daniel’s parents are dead, and his only company is an elderly woman named Mary Pascoe who lives nearby -‘Even with her milky eyes she still seemed more like a bird than a woman… I was glad that the humanness in her seemed to have been parched away, so that she was light enough to fly’ – and his memories.
Whilst Dunmore’s descriptions are nice enough for the mostpart, the characters are not built up enough to seem realistic, and the story is not original enough to stand out. The relationships formed also seem rather awkward and stilted at times. On the whole, it has much in common with John Boyne’s The Absolutist, another First World War novel which I was sorely disappointed with. -
"The Lie" is a beautifully crafted novel, set in 1920 amidst the aftermath of the Great War. I normally avoid books from this period as they can be too harrowing and I primarily read fiction to be entertained. However, in view of this year being the centenary of the outbreak of war, I decided to mark the occasion with this book.
This is a short book, easily readable in a weekend, but it actually took me a lot longer to finish it because the story just didn't grip me. As I've already commented, the writing was excellent and the characters well drawn, it's just that, for me, the pace was too slow and the plot lacking in substance. And I'd figured out the ending exactly very early into the story! Also, as I suspected, the tone was quite maudlin. -
Cornwall, England, 1920. Daniel has returned from the war to his poor hometown. His mother has died, he lost his best friend in the war and he has no where to live. He helps out an elderly woman with her farm and camps out there. When the old woman dies, he takes over the cottage. He is reunited with an old childhood friend and things start to turnaround, a little. Very sad, very profound. Writing was excellent. Very heartfelt.
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Esta história passada em Inglaterra na altura da Primeira Guerra está cheia de altos e baixos, mas a escrita de Helen Dunmore tem o primor que procuro, portanto, fica na lista de escritores a explorar melhor de futuro.
