I've always wanted to have the ability to write something with such grace, such imagery that captures hearts and minds in mere seconds.
The Postmistress captures that, it captures what I myself would love to create and it does it all with the character of Frankie Bard. She doesn't write things down but speaks them across the airwaves to America, to her home.
An example of what I'm talking about, Frankie spent an hour or so with some men who shoot blindly into the dark sky above London during the Blitz, they're at risk, they could die, they could be caught and yet there they are, as they are every night, attempting to bring down the bombers.
"It's mad, Ed. These boys firing round after round into the sky---you can't see anything, and after a while the noise and the guns and the slam bam, boom, over and over---well, you start to ride it, like skiing, down down down into the white, mindless, given up to it."
There's something quite poetic about the language she uses and the structure of her sentences that really amazes me. That is the kind of writer I want to be and well, it's always nice to read that too!
On the other side of the coin, and the Atlantic, and my opinions - one of the American characters suggested that the British couldn't handle the Second World War all by themselves. Maybe they needed help, but it was the suggestion that the USA were the only people who could possible save the war for them made me want to throw the book down. Excuse me United States of America, but you can't expect me to be okay with the suggestion that "little old Britain" can't handle a war.
Thankfully the book has been hooked and the character of Frankie is so intriguing, or I would be entirely put off right now.
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