The English Air in Fans of D. E. Stevenson

Aug 31, 2021 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ww-2, domestic-fiction

WW II took D.E. Stevenson’s work to a new level, as The English Air so amply demonstrates. More serious and more of an adventure novel than a domestic romance, I was mesmerized from start to finish. As Cousin Franz grapples with his German and English sides, we see Stevenson writing about the early years of the war as it happened. The book ends in early 1940. This was before the Nazi death camps began, yet “concentration” camps are mentioned generally, as is Buchenwald by name.

Stevenson did not ...more

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Jan 20, 2018 Hope rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: light-reading

The novel has Stevenson's usual tributes to country living and home comforts, but it also has much more adventure than her average novel.

Franz has been sent to England by his father (a Nazi official) to learn how the English think. As time goes on, he is faced with the choice to be true to his German heritage or to leave it all for his new country. As WWII breaks out, he is caught in the middle and it makes for a rollicking adventure. I find it fascinating that the book was written in 1940 when ...more

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Dec 08, 2019 Bea Alden rated it it was amazing

Shelves: old-faves

Some may wonder at my choice of several novels by DE Stevenson in my “wish list” for Christmas gifts. Either you may have never heard of her – as many British writers got little attention in the American market – or, you may think of her as a long-ago writer of romantic stories.
In fact, I have come to value all my DE Stevenson books as treasures in my personal library, and only need a few more to complete that valued collection. Why do I value her writing so much? It’s because, far from being ba ...more

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Apr 16, 2022 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Highly recommended the Furrowed Middlebrow edition of this novel. It contains correspondence between the author and her publisher that gives additional insight on the circumstances surrounding the publication of the book.

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Aug 06, 2017 Thomas rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I love DE Stevenson. But after having read about 15 of her novels, I have decided they are not all created equal. I just found this one a little boring.

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Mar 18, 2015 Sara rated it it was amazing

As with all of Stevenson's work, THE ENGLISH AIR has a lovely, graceful-while-yet-down-to-earth style. ENGLISH AIR especially holds my interest being written in 1940, pretty much at the time the story is set. As other reviewers have mentioned, the characters are "types" who embody current British and German sentiments during this period of heightened nationalistic awareness. But they are whole, beautifully drawn characters. I had no problem entering into the narrative, believing in these charact ...more

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Jun 02, 2013 Theresa rated it really liked it

Shelves: english-lit, ww2-fiction

Character-driven rather than plot driven (the plot often moves slowly), there are many things to like in this novel of pre-and-during-WW2 England.

The main character, Franz Heiden, has a dilemma. Half English, half German, throughout this book he tries to reconcile his belief system between what he has been taught from the country of his birth, and what he experiences for himself.

The book starts out with his stay in England over the course of a year. Franz has decided, with the support of his Naz Character-driven rather than plot driven (the plot often moves slowly), there are many things to like in this novel of pre-and-during-WW2 England.

The main character, Franz Heiden, has a dilemma. Half English, half German, throughout this book he tries to reconcile his belief system between what he has been taught from the country of his birth, and what he experiences for himself.

The book starts out with his stay in England over the course of a year. Franz has decided, with the support of his Nazi-officer father (who hopes that Franz will dig up information for him while Franz vacations in England), to visit his English mother's country. Franz is staying with friends of his mother's family and finds it very difficult to adjust to English humor and lifestyles at first. He tells his English host family what it was like to be in the Hitler Youth:

"It all sounded very idyllic, and Franz was vaguely aware that he was making it sound a great deal more idyllic than it was. He was giving a slightly distorted impression of the Wandervogel Outings, an impression seen through rose-colored spectacles. He had said nothing of the sordid side, of the intrigues, and jealousies and promiscuous love affairs which flourished like weeds in the hotbed of Nazi Youth. Franz had enjoyed the Outings until he began to discover what lay beneath the surface, but before he left home he had grown tired of them and faintly disgusted, and on several occasions he had made excuses to remain behind. He had grown a little tired of the youth songs, too, and had sometimes wished that they could sing some of the songs which had been loved and prized long before the Youth Songs were invented - the songs that Tant' Anna sang when she thought that nobody was listening - songs by Schubert and Brahms and Strauss, lovely melodies and words which touched the heart..."

Franz was a great character and I thought very realistically done, as he is pulled in his loyalties from one country to the other. How he surmounts his difficulties and becomes stronger through them makes for a very interesting story.

However there were some quibbles that really bothered me. One of them was Sophie, Franz's mother's best friend. She was so wishy-washy I almost threw the book across the room! I realize the author was trying to portray why Sophie gets along with everyone and why she is so well-liked in the neighborhood, but her personality just, for me, didn't ring true.

Wynne, Sophie's daughter, unfortunately is cut from the same cloth. Very little to like or dislike here (I prefer my characters to be more realistically portrayed), and I just never came to know Wynne as a person with tangible, original motives or feelings.

But!!! There was *so* much pathos in Franz's aunt Anna. I simply could not get her out of my head, and the scene of her looking out the window, wishing for better days, living her life in a 'shadow', in fear that she will be turned in for expressing an opinion that was not in sync with the Third Reich, was so sympathetically drawn that I could not help but wonder what life was like for those German women with sons and husbands caught up in a war they did not want...

"The only thing that Tant' Anna could give Franz was these memories, and perhaps a little of her hard-bought wisdom which might be of service to him in the dark days that lay ahead.

"Life goes on," she told him. "Life never stands still. We are blind creatures, Franz, and we do not know where we are going. There are long dark tunnels and then we come out of them suddenly when we are not expecting it, and there is light all round us again. Remember this, Franz, the darkness is only a tunnel after all... Sometimes we hate and suffer, as we did in the war, and then we find that this was a tunnel too, and that the hatred was based on falseness and the suffering arose from mistakes. It is hatred that is the matter with the poor world today. Remember that, Franz. Hatred is deadly and kills all good things. Hatred blinds us to all that is beautiful...and so it is with the Fatherland which was full of so much goodness and beauty. People are being taught to hate. Jesus Christ taught us to love... to love even our enemies. It is for our own sakes we must do this, Franz, because hatred is bad for ourselves..."

Franz (who later changes his name to Frank as his identity becomes more sympathetic to England), goes through some wartime escapades and very nearly loses his life.

Not my favorite of D.E. Stevenson's novels, this was still a very thought-provoking read!

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Nov 27, 2013 Katherine rated it really liked it

Shelves: own-kindle, own, collectible-read, historical-fiction, literature-british, 2014, own-audible

Readers may notice some old-fashioned prejudice from D.E. Stevenson regarding World War II in this novel but it's understandable since it was first published in 1940. Still, this was an enjoyable story with Stevenson's usual sensitivity and insight. ...more

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