More Anzac reading
Apr. 17th, 2015 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emma_in_dreamEthel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce were the two big authors in early 20th century Australia, and they came into most direct competition with their respective World War One trilogies.
Unlike Bruce, Turner did not write mostly about one popular family. For the World War One series she wrote a trilogy about Brigid and Cub who meet on a cruise ship returning from Europe at the beginning of the war. Brigid had lived in Brussels with vain sister and her mother who was a grass widow who eked out her money so she could entertain in the best society. Brigid was separated from the others and in the course of the first days of the war found and adopted a five year old girl whose parents and baby sister were murdered before their eyes (shades of the recurrent baby on a bayonette calumny). They escape because they encounter a rare kind Hun, who says Brigid’s eyes remind him of his girl’s.
Once reunited with her family, Brigid is upset that her mother sees young Josie as a burden. They set off on the cruise ship, where their family strikes up a friendship with the Calthorpes. Mrs Calthorpe is a wealthy widow with two teen aged daughters and a graceless son, the Cub, in tow. Back home in Australia she has another son, a paragon who signs up for the first expedition against her will. He is killed and this (somehow) makes her gung ho for the war. I would have thought it would have exactly the opposite effect.
Cub had wanted to improve living conditions for the poor but instead decides that the right thing to do is to sign up. The first book ends with Brigid waving farewell to the troop ship. In the sequels she falls in love with him, they get engaged, Cub’s best friend who is a penniless inventor dies, Brigid’s mother is reformed and sees that fashionable clothes are less important than serving the country, and there are many appeals for Australians to join up. Turner worked very hard on the pro-conscription campaigns of WWI which I am proud to say failed utterly.
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems like Cub’s genius friend should have been encouraged in his invention of what is described as a proto-mobile phone (each device has its own number and vibrates when it is called – it allows easy communication) and Cub should have worked on affordable housing and improved drains. There would have been better long terms gains from this than from the senselessness of WWI.
However, I will say that I like Cub a lot, a deliberately graceless hero. He is abrasive, rude and does not care for conventions. This means he views Brigid as a partner rather than as an angel to put on a pedestal.
Unlike Bruce, Turner did not write mostly about one popular family. For the World War One series she wrote a trilogy about Brigid and Cub who meet on a cruise ship returning from Europe at the beginning of the war. Brigid had lived in Brussels with vain sister and her mother who was a grass widow who eked out her money so she could entertain in the best society. Brigid was separated from the others and in the course of the first days of the war found and adopted a five year old girl whose parents and baby sister were murdered before their eyes (shades of the recurrent baby on a bayonette calumny). They escape because they encounter a rare kind Hun, who says Brigid’s eyes remind him of his girl’s.
Once reunited with her family, Brigid is upset that her mother sees young Josie as a burden. They set off on the cruise ship, where their family strikes up a friendship with the Calthorpes. Mrs Calthorpe is a wealthy widow with two teen aged daughters and a graceless son, the Cub, in tow. Back home in Australia she has another son, a paragon who signs up for the first expedition against her will. He is killed and this (somehow) makes her gung ho for the war. I would have thought it would have exactly the opposite effect.
Cub had wanted to improve living conditions for the poor but instead decides that the right thing to do is to sign up. The first book ends with Brigid waving farewell to the troop ship. In the sequels she falls in love with him, they get engaged, Cub’s best friend who is a penniless inventor dies, Brigid’s mother is reformed and sees that fashionable clothes are less important than serving the country, and there are many appeals for Australians to join up. Turner worked very hard on the pro-conscription campaigns of WWI which I am proud to say failed utterly.
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems like Cub’s genius friend should have been encouraged in his invention of what is described as a proto-mobile phone (each device has its own number and vibrates when it is called – it allows easy communication) and Cub should have worked on affordable housing and improved drains. There would have been better long terms gains from this than from the senselessness of WWI.
However, I will say that I like Cub a lot, a deliberately graceless hero. He is abrasive, rude and does not care for conventions. This means he views Brigid as a partner rather than as an angel to put on a pedestal.
