The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War, by Lara Feigel
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The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War, by Lara Feigel
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When the first bombs fell on London in August 1940, the city was transformed overnight into a battlefront. For most Londoners, the sirens, guns, planes and bombs heralded grueling nights of sleeplessness, fear and loss. But for Graham Greene and some of his contemporaries, this was a bizarrely euphoric time when London became the setting for intense love affairs and surreal beauty. At the height of the Blitz, Greene described the bomb-bursts as holding one 'like a love-charm.' As the sky whistled and the ground shook, nerves were tested, loyalties examined and infidelities begun.
The Love-charm of Bombs is a powerful wartime chronicle told through the eyes of five prominent writers: Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel and Henry Yorke (writing as Henry Green). Volunteering as ambulance drivers, fire-fighters and ARP wardens, these were the successors to the soldier poets of the First World War and their story has never been told. Now, opening with a meticulous evocation of a single night in September 1940, Lara Feigel brilliantly and beautifully interweaves letters, diaries and fiction with official civil defense records to chart the history of a burning world in wartime London and post-war Vienna and Berlin. She reveals the haunting, ecstatic, often wrenching stories that triumphed amid the mess of a war-torn world.
The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War, by Lara Feigel- Amazon Sales Rank: #932995 in Books
- Brand: Feigel, Lara
- Published on: 2015-06-16
- Released on: 2015-06-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.86" h x 1.39" w x 5.19" l, 1.34 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 528 pages
From Booklist It wasn’t just in movies that London during the blitz bred romance. It happened in real life, too, as Feigel makes clear in this fascinating group biography of five English writers who spent the blitz years fighting fires, driving ambulances, serving as air wardens, and, above all, making love, usually in illicit relationships. From late 1940 into 1941, when the bombs were at their most terrifying, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Rose Macaulay, Henry Green, and Hilde Spiel risked their lives in relief work while engaging in life-defining love affairs. Clocks tended to stop when bombs exploded nearby, Feigel notes, “and the suspended present created a climate where intense emotions could flourish.” Or, as a character in Henry Green’s Caught puts it, “War . . . was sex.” Of course, it was more than that, and if, at times, these writers’ obsessive focus on their erotic lives seems a little myopic, that’s the point: how the intensity of life during the blitz translated inevitably into a craving for human connectedness. Though the latter portions of the book, which follow the writers’ postwar lives, seem anticlimactic, this is a compelling study of an endlessly fascinating moment in world history. --Bill Ott
Review
“Intelligently written, seamlessly presented.” ―Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph
“[A] fascinating and brilliantly researched group biography . . . an extraordinary tapestry of life in wartime, from September 1940 in London to the ruins of postwar Europe . . . This is a glorious mixture of history, literature and riveting gossip about war as--yes--an aphrodisiac . . . what remains with you at the end of this engaging book is the sense that Larkin was right, and that after the bomds, after the grieving, 'what will survive of us is love.'” ―Bel Mooney, Daily Mail
“The Love-Charm of Bombs is full of good things, clearly expressed, and captures well the strange euphoria of war, and the equally unexpected sense of dreariness when it is over.” ―Craig Brown, Sunday Mail
“One pleasure of this brave and original book is seeing these lives overlap, mirror each other, and diverge . . . Feigel shows the English in a new light: not cold or repressed, but a sensuous people for whom love matters most of all. She also shows why the period from September 1940 to May 1941, when we stood alone against the powers of darkness, remains the defining moment in our recent history.” ―Peter J. Conradi, Independent
“Feigel has written a wonderful book in a critical genre in which she is a pioneer. There will, for sure, be more works of 'new biography.' Let's hope they are as good as this one.” ―John Sutherland, New Statesman
“A fine account of how five writers responded imaginatively to the blitz . . . Lara Feigel, a young critic, has transformed this insight into an absorbing and well-researched group biography of five prominent writers . . . She persuasively demonstrates that London in 1941 sponsored all the sensations usually found on the battlefield . . . Feigel is particularly good on the erotic corollary to the blitz: wartime passion.” ―Robert McCrum, Observer
“Vivid account . . . Reads like an apocalyptic thriller . . . Feigel describes the drama hour by hour, much of it through the eyes of her subjects, in a fashion that brings Sarah Waters's excellent Second World War novel The Night Watch to mind . . . A fine book that brings the writers of the Second World War into the spotlight . . . The breadth and depth of Feigel's research is admirable, but this is not a dry account of famous lives. Her love and curiosity about her subjects is palpable and her writing style is simple but affecting. It is a substantial study but the 465 pages fly by surprisingly quickly . . . A thrilling insight to each writer's response to war, both published and private.” ―Independent on Sunday
“At a time when many dons sterilise themselves in theory, defend their flimsy doctrines inside dense thickets of jargon, and are oblivious of human character or motive, Feigel writes with modesty and grace, never patronises or sentimentalises her subjects, and makes the reader glad to be sharing her ideas. The Love-Charm of Bombs is a bounding success as an account of wartime London and as a study of highly strung but tough characters under stress, and of the way that novelists transmute adultery into great art . . . I haven't for many a year read a book of literary scholarship with such impatience to know what happens next.” ―Richard Davenport-Hines, Sunday Telegraph
“Scintillating account of the lives of London litterateurs during the Blitz.” ―Scotsman
“A skilfully composed group portrait . . . The result is deeply interesting, because Feigel is a good storyteller and responsive to the nuances of expression in the period.” ―Tessa Hadley, Guardian
“[An] excellent group biography.” ―Scotsman
“Lara Feigel's book is a well-researched, novelistically narrated story . . . [an] engaging and well-handled group biography.” ―Sam Leith, Spectator
“Feigel has thoroughly researched her subject.” ―Sunday Express
“From these various fragments she has created a meticulously researched and elegantly rendered whole.” ―Newsweek
“An enchanting biography . . . A genuinely accessible text.” ―Western Daily Press
“Her new book, in the estimation of the Mail on Sunday's Craig Brown, 'is full of good things, clearly expressed, and captures well the strange euphoria of war, and the equally unexpected sense of dreariness when it is over' . . . Richard Davenport-Hines, in the Daily Telegraph, pronounced it 'a bounding success as an account of wartime London and as a study of highly strung but tough characters under stress, and of the way that novelists transmute adultery into great art . . . I haven't for many a year read a book of literary scholarship with such impatience to know what happens next.'” ―Oldie
“The descriptions of the atmosphere in London during the Blitz are extraordinary.” ―Cara (Aer Lingus)
“Lara Feigel attracted very good notices for her study of literary London during the blitz . . . An ideal book for that wet afternoon by the beach.” ―Robert McCrum, Observer, Summer Reads
“A strikingly original book. It succeeds in its ambitious combination of group biography and literary criticism . . . The Love-charm of Bombs excels in demonstrating that these years of bleakness and loss were also, for a fortunate few, a time of extraordinary excitement and literary aspiration.” ―Economist
“A lovingly researched book that focuses on the experiences of five writers living in London during those suspenseful months . . . Ms. Feigel . . . Writes well about Bowen, Greene and Green . . . Ms. Feigel's sympathetic portrait of the woman unkindly referred to by Virginia Woolf as 'a spindle shanked withered virgin' is especially welcome because no good biography has as yes been written of Macaulay. By revealing her under pressure during those wartime years, when she lost not only her home, but also her secret lover of almost two decades, Ms. Feigel animates a rare, passionate and courageous figure . . . This is an enterprising, lively and original work, full of striking cameos and fresh insights.” ―International Herald Tribune
“A fascinating work of high art and low morals . . . A seductive mix of history, literature and gossip, it reveals war to be the most potent of aphrodisiacs and proves that novelists can transmute adultery into great literature.” ―Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler
“Another brilliantly researched story, this time of life and love from London to Vienna, as five famous writers dodged the falling bombs.” ―Daily Telegraph
About the Author Dr. Lara Feigel is a Lecturer in English and the Medical Humanities at King's College London, where her research is centred on the 1930s and the Second World War. She is the author of Literature, Cinema and Politics, 1930-1945 and the editor (with Alexandra Harris) of Modernism on Sea: Art and Culture at the British Seaside and (with John Sutherland) of the New Selected Journals of Stephen Spender. She has also written journalistic pieces for various publications, including the Guardian, Prospect and History Today. Lara lives in West Hampstead, London.
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful. The Love-charm of Bombs By S Riaz This is the fascinating account of the Second World War seen through the eyes of five famous authors: Elizabeth Bowen, Rose Macaulay, Henry Yorke (Henry Green), Graham Greene and Hilde Spiel. The book begins in London during the Blitz, a "makeshift present in which pre-war morality seemed less relevant" and the threat and danger of imminent death made people want to grab every experience and relish every moment. Elizabeth Bowen and Graham Greene were both ARP wardens, enforcing the blackout, Rose Macaulay drove an ambulance and Henry Yorke was an auxiliary fireman. These four authors shared experiences and friends and met socially. Hilde Spiel shows the war from a different perspective - that of an exiled author, who suffered depression and homesickness, as well as struggling financially and having a small child and her parents to care for during wartime.During the time period of this book the author discusses novels written, love affairs undertaken and where the war takes the five authors. Both Graham Greene and Henry Yorke had evacuated their wives and children to the country, allowing them the freedom to have affairs. Greene's lover was Dorothy Glover, while Henry Yorke met Mary Keene; a young girl who tended to pilfer from houses they visited together. Rose Macauley's long term lover Gerald O'Donovan was seriously ill at the beginning of the war and Elizabeth Bowen met Charles Ritchie, during the war years, who was to become the love of her life. As well as affairs of the heart, the author discusses how they were affected by the bombs themselves - the Blitz not only created a world of freedom and intimacy, it also, of course, destroyed homes, lives and personal possessions. When Rose Macauley's flat was destroyed she mourned the loss of her books and love letters which were irreplaceable. Hilde Spiel's mother was terrified by the bombings and it is illuminating to read how few of those people involved actually had somewhere safe to shelter during the air raids.The novels written, or set, during this time period are also examined, with reference to this book. Elizabeth Bowen's "The Heat of the Day", which looks at her affair with Charles Ritchie; Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" and "The Ministry of Fear" which deal with wartime love affairs and the Blitz and Henry Yorke's "Caught", which is about firemen and the civil defence services, were all directly inspired by wartime London. Henry Yorke, in fact, feared when he heard the German's were intending to translate and publish "Caught" as he felt it could be used as propaganda. While, undoubtedly, Londoner's showed immense bravery and strength during the war, there were those who were not so self sacrificing or stoic, of course, and the continual fear did wear people down. This book tracks the five authors throughout the war years and, indeed, follows Spiel back to Europe at the end of the war.Overall, this really is one of the most interesting books I have read about wartime and, as a book lover, it is always excellent to have such stories told from the point of view of authors themselves. While, for some, the war opened new worlds and experiences, new freedoms and new loves; for others it was a difficult time of feeling isolated and not belonging. Wonderfully written and highly recommended, this is a book to savour and will, hopefully, also lead you on to explore the work of the five authors mentioned if you are not familiar with them already.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Literate love among the ruins By Jaylia The Love-charm of Bombs has a very interesting slant on life during and immediately after WWII because its focus is the experiences of five noteworthy authors, Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel, and Henry Yorke, who wrote under the name Henry Green. Since it discusses the way the war affected what they wrote in such fascinating detail, it added a number of books to my already over long to-be-read list, so be forewarned.This book opens during the Blitz of London when four of the authors had active roles in the late night, class-mixing, civilian mobilization that played a crucial part in protecting the city. Rose Macaulay spent her nights driving an ambulance to still smoking ruins to collect the wounded, Henry Green put out sometimes raging bomb-ignited fires as an auxiliary fireman, and Elizabeth Bowen and Graham Greene roamed pitch-dark streets to enforce the blackout as ARP wardens. Nightly danger and the high drama of their jobs became a kind of aphrodisiac so all of them were involved in passionate affairs that had a lifelong influence on the stories they wrote. As a more isolated young mother and an Austrian writer in exile, Hilde Spiel's experiences during the war were different but equally absorbing and they round out the book.The book continues to follow the writers' upturned lives and intense love affairs into the early post war years when Europe was restructuring and Cold War was starting. For most of the five, the Blitz was the high point of their lives, filled with excitement and purpose, and for me the vivid chapters that covered that time are the most engrossing part of the book, though I enjoyed all of it. The interconnected WWII experiences of these highly literate civilians make compelling reading, especially since The Love Charm of Bombs is written with a sort of fervent scholarship.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Love and the Blitz By Victor Emanuel Feigel's excellent research and writing have sent me back to reading Henry Green ('Caught,' 'Back,' and 'Loving') and Elizabeth Bowen ('The Heat of the Day') with new appreciation. Danger and daring excite Eros, and Feigle conveys this well.
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