Book 7 toppled – an historical novel about change, relationships and place

Each time I undertake this challenge to read through some of the books that I have sitting in my to-be-read piles I find one where I get stuck. Sometimes it’s a book that I just can’t finish, which is fine, or it’s a book that I find slow going and easy to put aside. The Soldier’s Return by Melvyn Bragg has been one of those books. It’s not a bad book at all but it is a book that I found difficult to engage with and consequently each time I put it down I found it harder to pick back up again. I did finish it, and I am glad that I did, but it is unlikely that I will obtain the next two books in this trilogy.

The book begins with Sam returning to Wigton in Cumbria following his service in WW2 in Burma. He comes back to his wife Ellen, who has been working to support the family in his absence, and his son Joe who barely remembers him and who has become very close to his mother. The book is about how they reforge their relationships in a world that is changing and in the aftermath of a very difficult war.

The book is excellent in the way that it describes the way that the people live and the places where they live – this is a time with the beginning of council housing and the clearing of slums. Through a number of characters the author explores the class system and how that too is beginning to change, Sam is stifled and unchallenged in this small town where he is expected to fit again into the exact place he left when he enlisted. Ellen wants no more change and loves the town and its people. Joe is beginning to grow up and has to work out what it means to be a boy when each of his parents seems to see it differently. The social history of this book is brilliantly done and the effects of the societal changes on individuals and their relationships shapes the plot.

This is a very descriptive book. There is little action but the author describes what things look like and how people feel. I found it slow and occasionally tedious. I could appreciate how well it was written but I didn’t engage and so I found this book hard going. I bought it originally because I thought that the theme might be interesting and because I admire the author as a presenter but neither of these thoughts was sufficient to sustain me. I realise that this is a good book which is well written but it wasn’t a book for me. I shall pass it on to Oxfam in the hope that they will find a buyer who doesn’t have my limitations.