Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers

At the moment we have on display in our library a wonderful travelling exhibition from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It tells the story of Anne Frank and through her story and other personal narratives talks about human rights, various prejudises of our time and discrimination. The Anne Frank House and the Finnish Peace Education Institute co-operated in educating a group of Finnish youngsters to act as quides for their peers and this month we've had numerous school classes visiting the exhibition. So, I thought it fitting to read something relevant to the exhibition. I read Anne Frank's diary years ago, but did not feel I wanted to reread it at this point. However, Ana's post on a novel partly set in WWII Holland had caught my eye in January and luckily our library system had a copy. The novel was Postcard's from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers.

Postcards from No Man's Land, the winner of the Carnegie Medal in 1999, tells two connected stories, one set during the last months of World War II and the other set in 1990s Amsterdam. In more contemporary story 17-year-old Jacob (Jack) Todd arrives in Amsterdam to learn more about his grandfather, a soldier who died in a nearby town during the war. In 1944 another teenager, a girl named Geertrui, meets a British soldier named Jacob Todd and helps him hide as the Brits retreat from the Germans.

I have read a fair share of novels and nonfiction about WW II, but this was my first book about resistance in Holland. I liked the story of Geertrui and the soldier Jacob, but found Jack's story even more interesting. Jack faces some big questions about who he is, about love, identity, life -and death- during his stay in Amsterdam and in my opinion Chambers manages extremely well in making his story believable and interesting. My only criticism is that the ending was almost too neat! :)

Ana mentions in her review that Postcards from No Man's Land includes a great representation of bisexuality. I wholeheartily agree with her. Actually, it is great to simply find a bisexual character in a novel, they come wide and far apart, but in Postcards from No Man's Land sexuality in all its forms is represented very matter of factly and without angst which I found refreshing.

Postcards from No Man's Land is a wonderful novel and I would hightly recommend you to go and find yourself a copy to read!



The Godless Boys by Naomi Wood

Naomi Wood is a London based writer whose debute novel The Godless Boys was published last April. I first learned about the book only some weeks ago and immediately wanted to read it. Luckily my library had a copy.

The Godless Boys is set in the 1980s in a world where England is ruled by the Church and non-believers have been expelled to a remote island somewhere in the north. The book is subtitled "a story of love and violence" and yes, there is violence there. The island folks are being bothered by Malades, a gang of local boys, who are determined to find everyone who as much as thinks of religion. The Malades are lead by Nathaniel, whose world is turned upside down when a stowaway from England arrives on the weekly boat delivering provisions to the Islanders.

The stowaway is Sarah, who for the past ten years had been told her mother had run away with another man. By chance Sarah has learned that, in fact, her mother had been a member of the Secular Movement and had been involved in a church burning. Sarah has reason to believe her mother was expelled to the Island and she is determined to find her.

I love alternate histories. I love the aspect of what if. In her novel Wood has created an interesting world that for someone like me, who grew up in the 80s, feels intriguingly familiar and at the same time -luckily- totally alien. Wood has said in an interview that she chose to set the story in the 1980s, because "that decade felt like the high point of post-war secularisation". It was, at least in Finland and I guess in most of the western world, a decade of immense optimism, anything and everything was possible, things could only get better. Money was the new religion. The England of Wood's novel has been ruled by the Church since 1950. You believe or at least you act like you do, if you don't want to get in trouble.

However, not the English nor the Islander society is portrayed as totally either or. What is good or evil? Is the English society really as bad as the Malades think it is? Are the Islanders really as oneminded in their thinking as it seems at first? Actually Wood leaves a lot untold. I loved the book. My only criticism, or not really a criticism, more like a wish, is that I kept hoping to learn more about the Church ruled England. On the other hand I do admire writers who know what not to tell and leave some things to the imagination of the reader. In that aspect the ending of The Godless Boys was pretty much perfect! And one more thing  about that bit about love and violence. There is much more love, and so beautifully told, or the love shines through more brightly, than violence in the book. Though, violence in different forms also plays an integral part in the story.

As I already said, I loved this book, so much so that I might reread it at some point. I will definitely look forward to any other books by Naomi Wood. I'll leave you with a few thoughts by my favorite characher in the book. She is Eliza Michalca, a baker turned whore and undertaker, who is hopelessly in love with Arthur the fish monger and has a habit of writing words on her forehead, under her fringe.

"She wondered - would a girl of English origin - brought up by the Church and fostered in its teachings - look different to the Island girls here? Would God somehow strenghten the whites of her eyes so that they were brighter than her own? Make her hair more flaxen, her nails less soft, her skin more luminious? Eliza had not seen the girl up close: only the red length of hair and the freckled skin. Eliza tought it wonderful: to be brought up in believing in some kind and gently steering presence; to have a much stronger stake in some infinitely wiser thing than youself. Nothing could be wasted, not in God's eyes; no. Eliza imagined that the girl would be boundlessly positive, since isn't that what the Church made you believe in, in the irresistible rightness of every act? Eliza had never believed in God - how could she, she had never been taught - but she had always thought that - given a different life in England - she would have been a natural in it. But it was too late for it now." [p. 42]