readingthepast | Mod post: theme suggestions

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Mod post: theme suggestions

Please suggest themes you'd like to see covered here! Cut and paste the following into a comment:

ETA: please put your theme in the subject of your comment!

Theme:
Are you prepared to run it? Yes/No
Suggested books, if you have them already:

What does it mean to run the theme?

1. At least one month in advance, you'll let everyone know about the theme and your suggested reading for it. You need to suggest at least 3 works of fiction.
2. On the first of the month, you will post a welcome/introduction/kickoff for the theme.
3. Throughout the month, you'll take an active part in discussion of the theme.

You do not have to be an expert on the theme to run it. You just need to have an interest in it.

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Theme: the home front and/or women at the front during WWI

Are you prepared to run it? Yes

Suggested books:
Rilla of Ingleside, by LM Montgomery (available at Gutenberg and written only shortly after the war)

I would like to include a book from the German (or other Axis) perspective, and ideally either one from a non-European / non-Anglo perspective or set in one of the areas that were being fought over / through, if anyone has any suggestions!

Could include Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, as non-fic.

I'd like to look at stuff other than the basic "trench warfare" narratives, in particular; I can think of lots of home-front stuff from WWII, but not so much WWI, so suggestions would be really helpful.

I'd like to look at stuff other than the basic "trench warfare" narratives, in particular; I can think of lots of home-front stuff from WWII, but not so much WWI, so suggestions would be really helpful.

Do you know, I can't think of anything either, apart from Vera Brittain.

Good secondary sources can be found in the "war" section of Oxford's twentieth century social history paper...

http://www.history.ox.ac.uk/currentunder/bibliographies/fhs_fs_22_britsoc20C_october_2007.pdf

Can I put in a plug for "The Great War and Modern Memory" by Paul Fussell even though it isn't strictly speaking about the home front?

Ooh, "A Very Long Engagement" -- the film was based on a novel by Sebastien Japrisot, written in the 90s.

http://ask.metafilter.com/97129/Stories-about-WWIWWII-home-fronts has a whole list though I didn't find anything that really jumped out at me there.

OK, if we add in Jackie French's YA "A Rose for the ANZAC Boys" (see comment below under WW1 in general) this theme now has 3 novels and one autobiography that are clearly about women in ww1, so I'll add it to the list.

OH! And there's a Phryne Fisher novel that's all about her backstory as an ambulance driver in WW1 and in Paris afterwards. Wonder what other ambulance driver/nurse/etc novels there are?

We should probably do WW1 in general, too.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is an obvious choice.

One of the Richard Hannay novels would be a good comparison from the same period.

Not sure what to pick for a more modern perspective... we read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_Away_Peter in secondary school, and I hated it at the time, but wouldn't mind revisiting. It's short at least.

True!

I'd suggest Blackadder Goes Forth as an interesting TV series for this - it's ridiculous and hilarious, certainly, but it actually respects the context more than I expect.

Also, how about Regeneration, the Pat Barker series? I've heard a lot of good things about that, though I wasn't overwhelmed myself. That's actual historical fiction, go team me!

I'd like something from elsewhere in the world, but I don't know what to suggest, again. There's nothing obviously non-European in that category you linked, though I need to look more closely.

I liked Regeneration myself. I need to read the other two books however.

Fly Away Peter is Australian. And there's the movie "Gallipoli", of course, for more of that. Ooh, and here's a home front New Zealand YA novel: http://teen-historical-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_a_rose_for_the_anzac_boys

Midge Macpherson is a 16-year-old New Zealand girl enrolled in an English finishing school when her two brothers go off to war. Her best friends are Anne, the youngest daughter of an aristocratic British family and Ethel, the daughter of a Yorkshire wholesale grocer.

The three girls struggle with their inactivity and the irrelevance of their studies in deportment and home management skills while their brothers and loved ones are fighting in France, Belgium and Gallipoli. Stirred into action by a telegram telling her that her twin brother is missing in action, Anne rallies her friends to join her as she sets off for France with a plan to start a canteen to provide meals to the troops travelling to the Western Front.

As they deal with the tens of thousands of soldiers who pass through their lives, the girls discover hidden strengths and abilities. They unearth a sense of purpose in their desire to contribute to the well-bring of the soldiers and are impacted by the connections that they make with the local French villagers, other volunteers and the soldiers themselves

Wow, that sounds awesome! I want to read it!

*bets there will not be copies in Europe...*

That's what http://bookfinder.com/ is for ;)

Yeah, but they cost money *g*. Mostly I rely on my library system and Bookmooch, but that's obviously fairly limiting.

If there's no one who has volunteered to run this one, I'd be willing to do so. WWI is an area of interest of mine and I'm at least familiar with two of the books mentioned here.

Excellent, I've noted you down!

We should probably do WW1 in general, too.

That's kind of a big topic, isn't it?

Well, no more than eg. the US Civil War or the French Revolution, IMHO.

Fair enough. I suppose it was the contrast to "British women on the home front in WWI" that caught my attention...

Not just British women! Other nationalities would be even better.

Here's a list from Wikipedia that we could trawl for ideas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_I_novels

"Not so quiet..." by Helen Zenna Smith seems to be a classic re: women in ww1

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Not-so-Quiet/Helen-Zenna-Smith/e/9780935312829

This story offers a rare, funny, bitter, feminist look at war from women actively engaged in it. Published in London in 1930, Not So Quiet...(on the Western Front) is a novel in autobiographical guise that describes a group of British women ambulance drivers on the French front lines during World War 1. As Voluntary Aid Detachment workers, the women pay for the privilege of driving the wounded through shell fire in the freezing cold, on no sleep and an inedible diet, under the watchful eye of their punishing commandant, nicknamed Mrs. Bitch.

Lyn Andrews, Angels of Mercy, about two pretty young British women, twins, who join the Voluntary Aid Detachment and go to work at the front

Antonia Arslan, Skylark Farm, about a family trying to survive during the 1915 Armenian genocide

Emma Blair, Forget-Me-Not, historical romance about an actress and a journalist who becomes a pilot in the RAF

Margaret Dickinson, Suffragette Girl (2009), about a suffragette who signs up to serve as a nurse when the First World War begins.

Helen Dunmore, Zennor in Darkness, a novel about D.H. Lawrence and his German-born wife and their Cornish neighbors’ suspicion of them during the war years

Robert Edric, In Desolate Heaven, about a woman in 1919 Switzerland who meets two ex-officers who served in World War I and are trying to escape their memories

Audrey Howard, Whispers On The Water, historical romance about a young British woman in love with a man whose spirit is broken in the Great War

Audrey Howard, As The Night Ends, historical romance about a British suffragette in love with a surgeon and separated from him, first by a quarrel and then by war

Audrey Howard, All The Dear Faces, historical romance about two young women, one from a large Irish family and the other from an aristocratic family in Liverpool during the years before and during the First World War

Ami McKay, The Birth House, about a young midwife in Nova Scotia during the war years

Deborah Moggach, In the Dark, about the war's effect on the lives of ordinary Londoners

Michelle Paver, The Serpent’s Tooth, about a woman living with a tragic secret and her search for emotional peace during World War I

Piers Paul Read, Alice in Exile, about a free-thinking daughter of a radical publisher, rejected by her aristocratic lover when she becomes pregnant, who accepts a position as governess to a Russian family during the years of World War I and the Russian Revolution

Jody Shields, The Crimson Portrait, about doctors and nurses caring for men whose faces were destroyed in the war

Richard Skinner, The Red Dancer: The Life and Times of Mata Hari, about the Dutch woman who reinvented herself as an exotic dancer in Paris and was believed to be a spy for the Germans during World War I

Wilbur Smith, The Burning Shore, about a Frenchwoman’s struggles during World War I and her effort to make a new life for herself in South Africa

Thomas J. Fleming, Over There, a woman who is a feminist and former pacifist works goes to France to work as a nurse on the front lines

Nicole Helget, The Turtle Catcher (2009), about the only daughter in a German immigrant family growing up in rural Minnesota during World War I with the secret knowledge that her body is not like that of other girls.

Frances Itani, Deafening, about a deaf Canadian girl, from her childhood through her romance with a man who enlists to fight in the war

Michael Lowenthal, Charity Girl (2007), about a young Boston woman imprisoned for having a “social disease” during the war.

... all taken from http://www.historicalnovels.info/World-War-I.html ... I suspect that site may end up being a core resource for this community!

Wow, that's an impressive list! Should keep us going for a bit...

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Mod post: theme suggestions

Women At War, WWI

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WW1 in general

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Re: Women At War, WWI

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