David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "wwi"
The Daughters of Mars
Thomas Kenneally is best known for SCHINDLER’S LIST, but if you’re expecting more of the same from THE DAUGHTERS OF MARS, you won’t get it. For one thing DAUGHTERS is more fictionalized. It’s about the two Durance sisters, Naomi and Sally who enlist in the Australian nurses’ corps.
At first the two don’t seem to like each other. You see, they’re from “The Bush” and Naomi left to work in the big city, leaving Sally to take care of their parents. This proved to be more than she could handle when her mother came down with cancer. Her mother was in so much pain that she wanted to die. Sally began to save small amounts of morphine, which Naomi found. Sally assumed Naomi gave it to their mother, because she died. Sally can’t get over the guilt she feels.
The two girls wind up on a hospital ship helping the wounded men at the ill-conceived front in the Dardenelles, Gallipoli. Kenneally provides many twists and turns you won’t expect. One of the first is the torpedoing of the hospital ship. Their matron (head nurse) Mitchie loses her leg in the aftermath. She’s sent home as is Naomi for disobeying orders. There are several themes throughout the story that have little to do with war, and the reason Naomi is sent home is one of them. The orderlies and the colonel in charge of Naomi and Sally’s unit don’t respect women, making it harder to do their jobs. One of the good guys is an orderly named Sergeant Kearnan, a Quaker who will assume a larger role later in the story. He, along with Naomi, take charge of the lifeboat the nurses end up in.
Eventually the two girls are sent to France, Sally as a regular in the nurses’ corps, and Naomi as a volunteer in the hospital founded by Lady Tarlton, whose husband was a politician in Australia. One-legged Mitchie also makes it back working with Tarlton as one of her right-hand men. There’s another twist involving Lady Tarlton’s driver that results in the loss of one of our principal characters. There’s also a flu epidemic that affects the story. If you’ve studied WWI at all, you know that influenza killed almost as many soldiers as did bullets, bombs, and artillery. The girls, especially Sally, stick with pretty much the same clique of nurses throughout the novel. There’s taciturn Freud who can handle most anything except being raped by one of the young soldiers. There’s Honora, the funny one who suffers a loss that jars her sense of humor; Leonora, the pretty one, and Nettice who falls in love with a blind young captain. Both girls have a love life also, and both of their men are affected either physically or by war time idiocy.
Just when things look their worst, Australian divisions arrive to save the day. There’s very little mention of the Americans, and none of Black Jack Pershing. Perhaps the most perplexing part of the book is the ending. One of the sisters succumbs to influenza but one of the Australian papers gets it wrong; We don’t know which one died. Keneally begins to tell us which one survived, then pulls the old switcheroo, which might annoy the reader.
This book is not as good as SCHINDLER’S LIST, but it does support William Tecumseh Sherman’s saying, “War is hell.”
At first the two don’t seem to like each other. You see, they’re from “The Bush” and Naomi left to work in the big city, leaving Sally to take care of their parents. This proved to be more than she could handle when her mother came down with cancer. Her mother was in so much pain that she wanted to die. Sally began to save small amounts of morphine, which Naomi found. Sally assumed Naomi gave it to their mother, because she died. Sally can’t get over the guilt she feels.
The two girls wind up on a hospital ship helping the wounded men at the ill-conceived front in the Dardenelles, Gallipoli. Kenneally provides many twists and turns you won’t expect. One of the first is the torpedoing of the hospital ship. Their matron (head nurse) Mitchie loses her leg in the aftermath. She’s sent home as is Naomi for disobeying orders. There are several themes throughout the story that have little to do with war, and the reason Naomi is sent home is one of them. The orderlies and the colonel in charge of Naomi and Sally’s unit don’t respect women, making it harder to do their jobs. One of the good guys is an orderly named Sergeant Kearnan, a Quaker who will assume a larger role later in the story. He, along with Naomi, take charge of the lifeboat the nurses end up in.
Eventually the two girls are sent to France, Sally as a regular in the nurses’ corps, and Naomi as a volunteer in the hospital founded by Lady Tarlton, whose husband was a politician in Australia. One-legged Mitchie also makes it back working with Tarlton as one of her right-hand men. There’s another twist involving Lady Tarlton’s driver that results in the loss of one of our principal characters. There’s also a flu epidemic that affects the story. If you’ve studied WWI at all, you know that influenza killed almost as many soldiers as did bullets, bombs, and artillery. The girls, especially Sally, stick with pretty much the same clique of nurses throughout the novel. There’s taciturn Freud who can handle most anything except being raped by one of the young soldiers. There’s Honora, the funny one who suffers a loss that jars her sense of humor; Leonora, the pretty one, and Nettice who falls in love with a blind young captain. Both girls have a love life also, and both of their men are affected either physically or by war time idiocy.
Just when things look their worst, Australian divisions arrive to save the day. There’s very little mention of the Americans, and none of Black Jack Pershing. Perhaps the most perplexing part of the book is the ending. One of the sisters succumbs to influenza but one of the Australian papers gets it wrong; We don’t know which one died. Keneally begins to tell us which one survived, then pulls the old switcheroo, which might annoy the reader.
This book is not as good as SCHINDLER’S LIST, but it does support William Tecumseh Sherman’s saying, “War is hell.”
The Pull of the Stars
THE PULL OF THE STARS is especially appropriate considering what we're going through now with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The novel is set in 1918 Ireland during WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic. Julia Power is a nurse working in a hospital ward for pregnant women who have the flu. At the outset she is an underling to a sister who rules with an iron fist. She is not allowed to drive her bike to the hospital and must take the tram part of the way.
In short order the sister is moved to the maternity ward and Julia is on her own. She can't do it herself and begs for another pair of hands, which turns out to be Bridie Sweeney, who claims she's already had the flu, but she has no nursing experience and has really never been in a hospital. She is an orphan who is still living with the nuns. Another important cog is Dr. Lynn, a radical obstetrician who was a member of the Irish uprising. She's wanted.
Julia starts losing patients almost immediately. A woman has died before she got to work. One of her patients has been pregnant twelve times seven of which lived. Julia is critical of women being enslaved to pregnancy in 1918 Ireland. Another woman is rich or at least well off. She wants to leave. Now. It's not long before a seventeen-year-old pregnant girl shows up. She's worried that her husband will be mad because she'll miss work.
Julia is a good nurse and Bridie is an able helper who learns fast, but the women seem to be dying no matter how hard Julia works to help them. Dr. Lynn must deliver one child via forceps, and Julia dreads what can happen.
Most of the book is set in the maternity/flu ward but we know that Julia has a brother, Ted, who is apparently suffering from shell shock; he can't talk anyway, but they manage to communicate. The book might be better if we would get an occasional respite from the grisly goings on in the Julia's workplace, and the Ted situation might be it. Julia and Bridie do establish a relationship on the roof of the hospital after their shift.
Another theme of the book is how badly the poor, especially the orphan poor are treated in 1918 Ireland. The night sister treats Bridie like she's a derelict.
The ending is both sad and uplifting. At first I thought it was too abrupt and a little unrealistic, but once I had time to think about it, it was perfect.
The novel is set in 1918 Ireland during WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic. Julia Power is a nurse working in a hospital ward for pregnant women who have the flu. At the outset she is an underling to a sister who rules with an iron fist. She is not allowed to drive her bike to the hospital and must take the tram part of the way.
In short order the sister is moved to the maternity ward and Julia is on her own. She can't do it herself and begs for another pair of hands, which turns out to be Bridie Sweeney, who claims she's already had the flu, but she has no nursing experience and has really never been in a hospital. She is an orphan who is still living with the nuns. Another important cog is Dr. Lynn, a radical obstetrician who was a member of the Irish uprising. She's wanted.
Julia starts losing patients almost immediately. A woman has died before she got to work. One of her patients has been pregnant twelve times seven of which lived. Julia is critical of women being enslaved to pregnancy in 1918 Ireland. Another woman is rich or at least well off. She wants to leave. Now. It's not long before a seventeen-year-old pregnant girl shows up. She's worried that her husband will be mad because she'll miss work.
Julia is a good nurse and Bridie is an able helper who learns fast, but the women seem to be dying no matter how hard Julia works to help them. Dr. Lynn must deliver one child via forceps, and Julia dreads what can happen.
Most of the book is set in the maternity/flu ward but we know that Julia has a brother, Ted, who is apparently suffering from shell shock; he can't talk anyway, but they manage to communicate. The book might be better if we would get an occasional respite from the grisly goings on in the Julia's workplace, and the Ted situation might be it. Julia and Bridie do establish a relationship on the roof of the hospital after their shift.
Another theme of the book is how badly the poor, especially the orphan poor are treated in 1918 Ireland. The night sister treats Bridie like she's a derelict.
The ending is both sad and uplifting. At first I thought it was too abrupt and a little unrealistic, but once I had time to think about it, it was perfect.
