I have just finished a super read on World War 1 and how three families are affected by it. The book is also an excellent social history of the period.
John Masters' novel - Now, God be Thanked - is a must-read for those of us interested in The Great War and in how it changed society at the time. Masters' (1914 - 1983) novel is the first of a trilogy and, in its content, might be placed somewhere between Downton Abbey and All Quiet on the Western Front. I would also describe it as "epic" in span as it stretches from just a few weeks before the War begins to Christmastide 1915. The subsequent two volumes take the reader to the end of the war.
What struck me most was the undertone of sadness pervading this story of the four families, and the sadness begins with the very title. It was taken from a poem by Rupert Brooke entitled "Peace."
Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary;
Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
At the centre of the story are the financially troubled Rowlands, whose automotive business is at a crisis point while domestic problems come to the surface. For example, daughter-in-law Fiona wants to leave her husband Quentin for a Scottish painter while son Tom, a commander in the Royal Navy, is tormented by his homosexuality. Granddaughter Naomi is a suffragette, and young Stella gives her virginity to a wounded captain rather than to Johnny Merritt, a rich Harvard graduate who wants to bring about a merger of the Rowland Motor Company with U.S. capital. Revolving around these people are a variety of socialists, poachers, and poets-and also two Stratton brothers, the Rowlands' production-managers, who go off to meet their fate in Flanders fields.
Here is one review of the many good ones from Amazon.uk
"This trilogy is an epic read. Focussed on a south-east England town, beginning just before the Great War, and finishing just after, it is a collection of interwoven plots that leave the heart grieving for an England, and English people, that once were and will never come again. I challenge you to read these books, and they are all immensely readable, and not come away educated, moved, entertained and informed. WW1 was such a tragedy. But it takes a work like this to bring that tragedy into a fuller realisation than the academic format of history books allow."
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