Mrs. Miniver

Rating:
Summary: A really dear little book
Review: This book feels like a stream of kindly and observant words into a forgotten age.
It chronicles London life for an upper Middle class family immediately prior to WW2, as seen by the woman of the family unit. It captures an essential and sedate sense of Britishness long since lost and it is written with sad eye on the changes to come almost as if it anticipates them. This seems to be why the author takes such intense pleasure in the ordinary and brings such events to life, vividly, with huge empathy and comfort. There are elements of it's purpose and philosophy in the film version, but the film is much more dramatic and by and large bares no resemblence to the novel.
Being British, and having had family who survived the Blitz and the horrors of WW2, this book brought me to tears often for it must have captures the price paid for war, so eloquently.
The books emotive power lies in it's solid sense of it's time and in the sense of all that is to change. It's pleasent sense of ordinary, comfortable and uneventful plodding is strangely powerful.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent essays on life in pre-World War II London
Review: I was raised working class with immigrant parents and don't normally like characters like Mrs. Miniver, an upper middle class British housewife with a country home and servants. Yet I was enchanted by these 37 essays that originally appeared in the London Times between 1937 and 1939.

We don't even learn the first name of the lead character until the very end of the book. She is always Mrs. Miniver, and her husband is always Clem. The Minivers are close, but they don't ever act intimate.

Even though the essays are in the third person (except for the letter at the end where we learn her first name), this is one of the most intimate looks into a woman's mind I have ever read. The author's love of language and the details of daily life are revealed through the thoughts of this delightful character.

The essays were published in the Times every two weeks for the two years leading up to the British entry into World War II. Although the preparations for war are discussed in later essays, they mostly deal with the everyday lives of this typical middle class family. The essays became a symbol of the essence of British life and were published in book form as the war began. The US edition includes an additional essay where Mrs. Miniver prepares her first Christmas shopping list of the war.

The American cinema made an Oscar-winning movie with the same title starring Greer Garson, but the plot of the movie has nothing to do with the subject of these brief disconnected short stories. This is a wonderful book that I will cherish for a long time. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Quiet Drama of the Heart
Review: This fragile piece of literature should be included in a course of feminist literature called Woman's World. The setting happens to be pre WW2 Britain (London, the country and Scotland), but Struther's sentiments and gentle insights into a woman's heart are truly timeless and universal in appeal. All mothers can relate to Mrs. Miniver's private thoughts, triumphs and fears re her children, who grow up by three years in these short pages. All wives can empathize with her rarely successful attempts to communicate meaningfully with her predictable husband. Lastly, women the world over will appreciate her mental meanderings, which are sporadically stimulated by banal objects, chance meetings and the shifting of the seasons.

At this point I wish to inject a gentle warning to those readers who expect a clearly-deliniated plot, high drama or profound character development. Our Mrs. Miniver remains delightfully stable in her own way, as she views the vagaries and fluctuations of her private world. Rather, we are expected to enter into a tacit collaboration with this modest heroine. Truly one wonders just how much the author has infused of herself into this soft-spoken Everywoman. We understand that a woman's domain--in any age--signifies the preparation of the maternal, spousal and societal hearths, in order to keep man from reverting to a more primitive state.

We applaud as this unassuming English lady musters internal strength when required to leave her personal comfort zone, in order to meet her social obligations. With warmth and compassion Mrs. Miniver handles most challenges in her relaxed existence, as she shares her uniquely feminine eye-view of life, especially in a world on the brink of global war. Consisting of dozens of short vignettes with little seeming relevance to each other, this literary gem will prove a delicate treasure of the female pscyhe, for those who read with their heart.

Rating:
Summary: Quiet Drama of the Heart
Review: This fragile piece of literature should be included in a course of feminist literature called Woman's World. The setting happens to be pre WW2 Britain (London, the country and Scotland), but Struther's sentiments and gentle insights into a woman's heart are truly timeless and universal in appeal. All mothers can relate to Mrs. Miniver's private thoughts, triumphs and fears re her children, who grow up by three years in these short pages. All wives can empathize with her rarely successful attempts to communicate meaningfully with her predictable husband. Lastly, women the world over will appreciate her mental meanderings, which are sporadically stimulated by banal objects, chance meetings and the shifting of the seasons.

At this point I wish to inject a gentle warning to those readers who expect a clearly-deliniated plot, high drama or profound character development. Our Mrs. Miniver remains delightfully stable in her own way, as she views the vagaries and fluctuations of her private world. Rather, we are expected to enter into a tacit collaboration with this modest heroine. Truly one wonders just how much the author has infused of herself into this soft-spoken Everywoman. We understand that a woman's domain--in any age--signifies the preparation of the maternal, spousal and societal hearths, in order to keep man from reverting to a more primitive state.

We applaud as this unassuming English lady musters internal strength when required to leave her personal comfort zone, in order to meet her social obligations. With warmth and compassion Mrs. Miniver handles most challenges in her relaxed existence, as she shares her uniquely feminine eye-view of life, especially in a world on the brink of global war. Consisting of dozens of short vignettes with little seeming relevance to each other, this literary gem will prove a delicate treasure of the female pscyhe, for those who read with their heart.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing imagery but lightweight story
Review: While I was reading this book, I was constantly amazed by Struthers' ability to put into words the most abstract concepts and ideas, like assigning colors to days of the week and describing fireworks. . . While the story didn't really hold my interest, because it seems to be hidden inside a gauzy layer of images and hidden meanings, the images and hidden meanings themselves were fascinating and I found that I couldn't wait to read what would be said next. Worth reading, if only to be for a few hours in awe of a truly gifted and insightful writer, one whose grasp of the seemingly undefinable is much stronger than her ability to construct a dynamic plot (which, in the book's defense, is not its goal at all).

Rating:
Summary: A mystery left unexplained, but with delightful words.
Review: Yes, curiosity kills the cat... Don't try to read that book if you want to learn more or compare with the 1942 movie with AA winner actress Greer Garson! BUT, as another reviewer wrote (Burbank, CA), it is worth reading for the author's keen observation of everyday life and it's said in very pleasing words and manner. And that is the key of this book: there is no specific intention in it, just a calm stream of good words, typically English (?). You read this curious series of short novellas (very short!) with a sense of duty to see how she will describe her next subject and turn it around. And it is a delicious exploration... Not bad, but how was Hollywood able to find something in this to make a movie is truly a mystery to me!!

Rating:
Summary: A mystery left unexplained, but with delightful words.
Review: Yes, curiosity kills the cat... Don't try to read that book if you want to learn more or compare with the 1942 movie with AA winner actress Greer Garson! BUT, as another reviewer wrote (Burbank, CA), it is worth reading for the author's keen observation of everyday life and it's said in very pleasing words and manner. And that is the key of this book: there is no specific intention in it, just a calm stream of good words, typically English (?). You read this curious series of short novellas (very short!) with a sense of duty to see how she will describe her next subject and turn it around. And it is a delicious exploration... Not bad, but how was Hollywood able to find something in this to make a movie is truly a mystery to me!!