Genre: Classic
Series: Barbara Buncle #3, final
Page Count: 276
Publication Year: 1943
Publisher: republished by Sourcebooks Landmark
Summary: The lives of small town villagers during WWII.
I wanted this to be so much better than it actually is. It’s not that it’s a bad book or a chore to finish, but it doesn’t have the same charm as the previous two.
One of the major problems is it has too many plot threads. Everyone has to have a piece of the action and as a result none of the stories blossom to their full potential.
This bleeds into the next problem of having tough topics and glossing over them, or forgetting about them a couple chapters later. From not wanting to fight in WWII, to having an abusive home life, to wondering if your husband will return from the war, to being IN the war, and smaller things like having a midlife crisis, and not being able to discipline your children, it touches on lots of things. Then there’s a German spy and a cancer scare and it just has too many offshoots and not enough focus and all you’re left with are half-baked terrors with no satisfying endings. It should’ve had fewer characters and/or more pages. Maybe the author had her image of charm to maintain and even though she wanted to use the ongoing war as the setting, she wasn’t allowed to take the darker turn. It’s a real shame because I think she had the skills to write serious topics.
There are a couple scenes that I really like. One of the characters is fighting in Egypt and he gets into a tank fight and it is SO GOOD. It’s only a couple pages but I was there and I had such a clear image of the encounter. I did not expect this shift in setting but I welcomed it. Another scene describes these people making macaroni and cheese, and they kinda fail, but it’s a great moment.
But what about all those people? Aside from the fact that they don’t sparkle as brightly as the characters from the previous two books, there are too many. They probably have potential but with so many people jostling for the spotlight no one has time to develop into anything. Even the established characters fail to strike true. And Barbara’s barely in it, so there’s even less to latch on to.
I don’t have big problems with the prose, but rather what the prose is saying. When there isn’t a major plot to follow it makes the minor things stand out all the more and this book is full of minor things. If this was a tv show it could be amazing because there’d be plenty of time to conclude storylines and get the most out of an ensemble cast.
I read another of her books (Vittoria Cottage) recently and it has some of the same issues/praises as this book. I did enjoy it for what it is: a fluffy story that doesn’t demand anything and ends happily, but it could’ve done/been more.
There are many different types of books and they all have their place. Sometimes fluffy is the order of the day. Other times you might want introspective and slow. Or fast and bloody. Quaint and murder-y. Romantic and shallow. Fun and bright. Deep and complicated. Long and dramatic. Or some heady combination of all of those. One of the great things about books is that there is something out there for every mood. When I want a light, cute (and unfocused) story, Stevenson is who I’ll pick.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from these books. The first two are from The Two Mrs. Abbotts and the others from Vittoria Cottage.
“Yes, it’s me,” nodded Sarah (who, although aware that one should say “it is I,” could never bring herself to utter the words because for some reason or other it sounded as if one were God).
…Miss Besserton was not Barbara’s cup of tea. And Barbara was aware that, unless you can find some common ground upon which to meet, there is not much use meeting a person.
The vicar had been heard to say [the dog] was an enigma. This was a breed unknown to the villagers, of course.
Sometimes Caroline didn’t mind thinking about food and arranging the meals, but at other times she felt the whole subject almost intolerable.
“She isn’t happy inside. People who aren’t happy inside are always difficult.”
…pictures were painted for people to look at and the more there was in a picture to interest people the better it fulfilled its purpose.
He was feeling rather miserable—everything seemed to be going wrong—and the indubitable fact that he had eaten too much did not help matters.
Check out my rating here.
My review for the first two books.
I agree. Too many people and topics and not really doing any of them justice.