It took me about two years of occasionally listening to Depeche Mode before I ever decided that I loved the band. Sometimes this happens with books; we want to read them, we may even start them–but for whatever reason the timing just isn’t right. Sometimes it takes a few starts and stops before we finally get past a certain page. There is a difference between not getting into a book because you don’t like it and not getting into a book because you have three others that are really piquing your interest at the moment and a busy work schedule. Some books need to be put down and never finished, others deserve a second chance.
The Postmistress was the first book I requested from a publisher’s catalog specifically to review. Every time I heard from my contact asking how I liked it I would feel horrible responding that I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet even though I had committed and agreed to read and review it. Lucky for me, the book isn’t due out until February 9th and my intention was always to post a review right before release to help pump up interest in the book. So I squeaked in just under the wire.
There are some books that don’t ring an emotional response from the reader in blatant ways. I, for example, am a crier and have been known to bawl in the park and on the subway because of various passages that struck my fancy. But there are some books, like The Postmistress that seem to deserve tears that never come. It’s not that they’re unemotional books; it’s that they are working their message deeper and in different ways. Instead of crying, I would put down the book and be antsy, restless–even aggravated that I could not go back in time to help the past wrongs of humanity.
Most books that deal with war–any war–from mankind’s past deal with the victims and soldiers. Only occasionally do you find a book from the point of those left behind wondering what is happening on the battlefields–anxious for news that comes in censored bits and pieces or never at all.
I’ve seen a number of reviews linked on Twitter regarding The Postmistress. In an effort not to influence my own opinion, I haven’t read any of them, but I am now curious as to how many draw parallels to Atonement. Both books take place during World War II and are set partially in London where main characters seek refuge from the Blitz in underground tunnels, people are lost to the ravages of war, and people seek to control an unpredictable world.
The plots are different enough to appreciate both books as completely separate entities, but the parallels are very close–particularly on the theme of control and trying to right a wrong. The difference is influence behind our choices–out of remorse, guilt, and shame in Atonement or out of a need to protect the people we care for and the order of our world as in The Postmistress.
There is no pattern to the chaos that happens in life. You cannot predict the outcome of events or the small ways in which a moment in time will reshape our entire lives. Even order within the chaos has the ability to be illogical and unfathomable–the rules in place to keep the post office running are the same rules that tore Jewish families apart during their exodus from Germany because of small typos.
The constant in it all is the despair, hurt, hope, and healing that allows life to move forward. Everything happens and plays out as it is supposed to, even if it does not make sense. And everything is connected and flows together even if we do not see the threads that bind it all together.
Blake does some really beautiful things with her writing that tie right back to that thread of life when a thought or a sight forms the transition from one character’s point of view to another’s. She picks the peaceful moments like a song of a bird–those quiet moments are the times when we are more connected than at any other. In a way, this transitioning reflects itself and life in the same manner as Frankie’s final recording; as much as we isolate ourselves and our personal stories, they are all overlapping, all the same, all connected, adding to the confusion and order of existence.
I could fault Blake with not making the book as heavy in some key parts, she does an excellent job of tapping on ones heart and making the reader question what they would have done in Will’s place after his world view is shattered, Frankie’s place on the train, or in Iris’s place at the post office.
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