I recently posted review on Amazon of The Empress of Australia
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful Memoir about remarkable people February 2, 2013
By Anna Patterson
Book Review by Anna Patterson
The Empress of Australia, a Post-War Memoir, by Harry Leslie Smith.
The Empress of Australia, a Post-War Memoir, by Harry Leslie Smith.
On February 24, The United Kingdom, this author is celebrating his 90th birthday and as part of this has invited people to read this book. I will be happy to wish him a Happy Birthday soon, but have already read this book in December.
He was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire and is a Second World War Veteran.
I found this book captivating from beginning to end. He tells of a man who is seeking to regain his life after the World War. He described the scene around him as "a Post-War darkness felled Britain."
Along with his own struggle to recapture a normal life, he is caught up in trying to bring his wife, Friede, out of Hamburg, Germany. Her mother hopes her daughter will find better circumstances with her British husband in his homeland. But he comes from hardship and poverty, can not even greet her when she arrives on a plane. He is late no matter how he tries his best to be there when she arrives. He is crestfallen that this reunion falls short of his desire of meeting his young wife with a romantic bouquet of roses in his hands. He admits to himself, that if he had given in to this longing for a wonderful first impression, he would not be able to buy food for them both for a week.
Despite their hard ships, this couple is determined to make the best of it with each other, and with this country still reeling from the effects of the long war.
Wearing a striking green coat, his new bride stands out in the crowd, a vivid and striking picture of beauty in this cleverly redone once wool blanket.
Their struggle for survival begins immediately after riding a bus to his mother, Lillian's home. He has an uneasy relationship with his mother and he describes her expression in sharp imagery, "Eyebrows arched like Mephistopheles after his expulsion from Heaven."
This author paints a picture which is captivating and brutal at times, but always has a ring of truth and deep emotions which make it a masterpiece of description.
The couple find themselves roughing it as a couple from two different worlds. At one point in a heart breaking glimpse at her past before the war, she tells him of a visit to an art exhibit with her mother and how her mother taught her to appreciate art.
There is something worth reading in this book as the couple explores this new life together, sharing cigarettes, cold and gloomy rented attics and walking out into the dark to find the outdoor toilet of their room for the first time. They are resilient and hopeful, and unapologetic about their own views and encounters with their world.
They almost lose each other in this bleak life, but there is something meaningful in their meeting and their search for their common ground in a marriage of two worlds.
I applaud how this author has handled a delicate subject and painted it so vividly with a delicate but beautiful brush stroke of genius.
By Anna Patterson
Book Review by Anna Patterson
The Empress of Australia, a Post-War Memoir, by Harry Leslie Smith.
The Empress of Australia, a Post-War Memoir, by Harry Leslie Smith.
On February 24, The United Kingdom, this author is celebrating his 90th birthday and as part of this has invited people to read this book. I will be happy to wish him a Happy Birthday soon, but have already read this book in December.
He was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire and is a Second World War Veteran.
I found this book captivating from beginning to end. He tells of a man who is seeking to regain his life after the World War. He described the scene around him as "a Post-War darkness felled Britain."
Along with his own struggle to recapture a normal life, he is caught up in trying to bring his wife, Friede, out of Hamburg, Germany. Her mother hopes her daughter will find better circumstances with her British husband in his homeland. But he comes from hardship and poverty, can not even greet her when she arrives on a plane. He is late no matter how he tries his best to be there when she arrives. He is crestfallen that this reunion falls short of his desire of meeting his young wife with a romantic bouquet of roses in his hands. He admits to himself, that if he had given in to this longing for a wonderful first impression, he would not be able to buy food for them both for a week.
Despite their hard ships, this couple is determined to make the best of it with each other, and with this country still reeling from the effects of the long war.
Wearing a striking green coat, his new bride stands out in the crowd, a vivid and striking picture of beauty in this cleverly redone once wool blanket.
Their struggle for survival begins immediately after riding a bus to his mother, Lillian's home. He has an uneasy relationship with his mother and he describes her expression in sharp imagery, "Eyebrows arched like Mephistopheles after his expulsion from Heaven."
This author paints a picture which is captivating and brutal at times, but always has a ring of truth and deep emotions which make it a masterpiece of description.
The couple find themselves roughing it as a couple from two different worlds. At one point in a heart breaking glimpse at her past before the war, she tells him of a visit to an art exhibit with her mother and how her mother taught her to appreciate art.
There is something worth reading in this book as the couple explores this new life together, sharing cigarettes, cold and gloomy rented attics and walking out into the dark to find the outdoor toilet of their room for the first time. They are resilient and hopeful, and unapologetic about their own views and encounters with their world.
They almost lose each other in this bleak life, but there is something meaningful in their meeting and their search for their common ground in a marriage of two worlds.
I applaud how this author has handled a delicate subject and painted it so vividly with a delicate but beautiful brush stroke of genius.
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