Whew, I haven’t done a book post in a long while. I’m happy to be back to what brought me to blogging in the first place, and I’m also happy to have a life again where I can read a lot of books! I felt like a long review this month instead of more books, so if you need another recommendation, feel free to drop a comment for me! So without further ado….
Life Class by Pat Barker
One Sunday a few weeks ago, my roommate convinced me to watch Private Ryan for the first time. I don’t enjoy war movies, or violent movies in general, but I think they are important to watch. As I was lying awake trying to get the war images out of my mind, I decided to pick up the book I was reading, Life Class. Unfortunately, World War I replaced World War II as what kept me up at night!
Life Class is principally the story of Paul and Elinor, two art students who meet at Slade, a premier art college in London. Paul is struggling, having used landscapes to escape his alcoholic mother and depressed father, he cannot paint anything “real” that does not allow him to devolve into fantasy. Elinor is talented but restless, kept under the thumb of her proper mother and famous journalist father. Elinor is desired by both Paul and Neville, though the two men could not be more different. Where Paul is awkward Neville is smooth, where Paul is sincere Neville is flighty, and where Paul is artistically stuck Neville has his first gallery show. Both men, frustrated by England’s sputtering entry into the war, join up on the Belgian front. Paul works in a field hospital as an orderly and hopes to be promoted to ambulance driver.
Paul’s time in the field hospital is where the story intensifies and becomes increasingly complex. Elinor goes to the front to visit Paul, and finds herself overcome with the depth of Paul’s experience, the suffering of the patients, and barrenness of the war zone. Meanwhile, Paul is again using an escape hatch to suppress his feelings: Elinor.
I won’t give away the ending, but I recommend it based on the author’s vivid writing of the World War I period and the complexity of the relationships between young people barely able to comprehend the events the world has wrought.
What a beautifully written review. Makes me want to read it.