Jan 24: A Toast To Tomorrow - SPOILER Thread - by Manning Coles (1940)

[Susan]

Welcome to our first group read of 2024. Our January read is A Toast to Tomorrow the second book in the Tommy Hambledon series, first published in 1940.

Author Manning Coles is the pseudonym of two British writers, Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891–1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899–1965), who wrote many spy thrillers from the early 1940s through the early 1960s.Manning and Coles were neighbours in East Meon, Hampshire. Coles worked for British Intelligence in both the World Wars. Manning worked for the War Office during World War I. Many of the original exploits were based on the real-life experiences of Coles, who lied about his age and enlisted under an assumed name in a Hampshire regiment during World War I while still a teenager and worked in British Intelligence.

Joseph Goebbels is fuming. It's the mid-1930s and the Nazi Minister of Propoganda has a nice little racket going. He and his cohorts are allowing Jews to slip out of Germany in return for 80 percent of their assets. But longtime Nazi party member Klaus Lehmann, the Chief of the German Police, is too much of a prig to let him get away with it. And given that Lehman was one of Hitler's earliest supporters, he's virtually untouchable. In the meantime, British Intelligence is going around in circles. Someone in Germany is sending them messages in a code that hasn't been used since World War I. When it was first published in 1941 in the U.S., A Toast to Tomorrow, along with its predecessor, Drink to Yesterday, was heralded by famed critic Anthony Boucher as a single long and magnificent novel of drama, intrigue and humour.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

[Jill]

This started well, by carrying on from the first book , but then it did get a bit confusing with all the foreign names that I was having trouble remembering who was who. Obviously Hitler and Goebbels stood out but others were more difficult for me. However, from halfway through, the story picked up, and it became more of a compulsive read. I would now, even try the third book at some stage.
I realise that these books were being written before the end of the war, so a lot of it was more conjecture, than actual facts.

[Susan]

That makes it more interesting, don't you think? This was published in 1940 so, to put it bluntly, things were looking a bit bleak from an English perspective at that point!

[Rosina]

Things weren't going entirely well for Britain, but what I found interesting, even when first reading it in the 1960s, was that it gave an account of the rise of Naziism which might be written from a UK point of view, but did not yet know the full horror.

Attitudes - even of the good characters - are 'genuine'. Books written after the war tend to have to paint their characters with fewer shades of grey.

[Sandy]

This was a very sympathetic view of the plight of the Germans between the wars. While I knew of the deprivation, this brought it to life. The rise of Hitler is (almost) understandable.

It is very interesting that it was published before the war even started yet concentration camps, as well as other Nazi atrocities, were known, at least be these authors who may have had inside information. I would have placed it as a post-war book.

I'm glad the book ended on a more cheerful note that the first. I enjoyed the two books very much but not sure I want / need to continue the series.

[Susan]

Judging by reviews, this is the best in the series. While I thought it was interesting, no, I don't really want to read on.

[Rosina]

The series is rather uneven ... But if you want another look inside Germany, Green Hazard has Hambledon returning there, during the war, under a different identity.

The authors' view of the Nazi leaders is changed by the events of the war - it was published in early 1945. It's also available in the UK for 99p, on Kindle!

[Susan]

Thanks, Rosina. It is always interesting to read things published without the benefit of hindsight though, isn't it?

[Rosina]

One of my bugbears in modern-but-set-in-the-past crime fiction (or romance) is the insertion of modern sensibilites, to sort the sheep from the goats. If the character isn't totally accepting of diversity (racial, sexual or whatever) then they must be a bad'un, even if their views would have been considered enlightened at the time the book was written.

[Susan in NC]

Absolutely, I’ve seen this discussion in other groups-most readers agree they aren’t comfortable “whitewashing” beliefs and attitudes in older books, even if they make current readers uncomfortable. The past is what it is, warts and all.

[Sarah]

Rosina and Susan in NC: totally agree. Re-contextualizing is re-writing history, as if culture stayed the same and drastic change never happened. Book censorship is bad enough, but in the US teachers also have to give red flag warnings about sensitive issues that might upset readers. I once taught Holocaust Studies, and made the assumption college undergraduates would expect the horror of genocide, but I failed to give adequate notification and my class got upset viewing Resnais' film "Nuit et Brouillard." I learned my lesson. But I digress. My point is that without true historical knowledge of what was thought then, we run into Godwin's Law: the longer the discussion, the sooner Hitler becomes as analogy. What people really thought about Hitler and the Nazis at that time is terribly important, since today we're all too ready to compare anything with which we disagree to the Third Reich.

[Susan]

Many people were impressed by both Hitler and Mussolini at the time. The Mitfords were not the only aristocrats who went to view the spectacle.

[Sandy]

Germany was in such bad shape that I can understand following anyone who could help.

[Rosina]

I have just started my re-read of this (having splashed out on a Kindle version because my print copy was in very small print!). But my memory is that Lehmann, and his aunt, take against Hitler because of his manners, rather than his policies ...

At least at first. Later of course Lehmann's view changes.

[Keith]

Effectively it is censorship which really is anathema. However, in the 1930s many of the British aristocracy were supportive of Germany and fascism. King Edward VIII who abdicated the throne in 1936 was and, had Germany prevailed, he would have been returned to the British throne.
Even Enid Blyton's 'Secret Seven' and 'Famous Five' stories are being 'edited' to suit modern sensibilities. For that matter, Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None' had the original title of 'Ten Little Niggers' .
As an aside, I find the American way of writing dates confusing, Susan inNC quoted Pearl Harbour and put 12/7/41 for 7 Dec 1941. To me, it reads as 12 July 1941 as in the British neck of the woods we put 'day, month, year'.

[Susan in NC]

Keith wrote: "Effectively it is censorship which really is anathema. However, in the 1930s many of the British aristocracy were supportive of Germany and fascism. King Edward VIII who abdicated the throne in 193..."

Sorry for the date confusion!

[Keith]

Not your fault lass, it's just something I have to remember.
And as another aside, I have just reread Jill Paton Walsh's four 'Imogen Quy' books which are really too late for our era but are very well worthwhile reading, very enjoyable.

[Susan in NC]

Keith wrote: "Not your fault lass, it's just something I have to remember.
And as another aside, I have just reread Jill Paton Walsh's four 'Imogen Quy' books which are really too late for our era but are very w..."

Thank you, I really enjoyed her continuation of the Lord Peter mysteries, would like to reread those and her Quy series.

[Keith]

JPW had a large output but I haven't read any of her books other than the Wimsey/Vane continuations and Imogen Quy. I suppose I should try one or two perhaps?

[Susan]

I tried to read my own children Enid Blyton books (which I loved as a child) and they were sniggering over names like Fanny and Dick. Certain words, such as the one you mention used in, 'And Then Were None,' was changed long ago as being unacceptable. In 1964, in fact, before I was born.

I don't think there is anything wrong in minor changes in books. Changing 'Titty' to 'Tilly' in Swallows and Amazons just reflect the changing of language and slang.

Although I agree that books have to be seen as products of their time, I wouldn't want my daughter to have lived through the incredibly sexist 1970's, as I did, where every women were so objectified.

[Keith]

'Swallows and Amazons' set in around 1930 was only a little larger than life for what were mostly rural based middle class children (their father was a naval officer) at good schools. To a large extent it matched my own upbringing and I was about as adventurous as they were although a few years later, I was at a private school during the war and we had our share of bombing in the north Midlands. Even so, the amount of freedom I had to wander and 'have fun' was quite astonishing by today's standards. I had to carry my gasmask all the time though

[Judy]

I've finished this now and, although I really liked the first half, I got a bit bogged down in the second half and didn't think it was as good overall as the first book. I agree with others' comments about it being good to have characters with some nuances and shades of grey, and a sympathetic portrayal of the plight of ordinary people in Germany between the wars. Tommy's relationship with Ludmila is touching and delicately portrayed.

However, as the book goes on, I think there are just too many amazing coincidences. I also find it extremely difficult to believe in Tommy's character remaining the same at heart during his years in his other persona, as a leading Nazi.

[Susan_MG]

I completed this book a bit early and now I can just remember an outline of the characters and the story. The gaps in Tommy’s timeline threw me off a bit but I thought the story was well constructed and even though he was on the villain’s side for a while things improved later in the story.