A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

Nearly everyone in the UK who was literate in the 1950s and early 1960s has read this book. This was the generation who knew about the horrors of war, and in an understated way it expresses their frustration with their post-war lives and their hope that Australia would be better. Certainly, that's how it worked upon my mother. who loved romances set in the outback, a genre much favoured by the Woman's Weekly. Shute was a man of his time: he wrote in a dry, controlled way -  a complete contrast to Ruth Park's dancing adjectives. (see previous post).

I re-read this book because I thought the girlie, who is on her travels, should read it to know about how Australia was in the 1950's, and I wanted to remind myself of its flavour. There are 2 parts to it and a frame - a narrator telling the story. He is the elderly solicitor who is executor to a Will - a large sum of money is left in trust to an obscure young typist. But she (Jean Paget) has an extraordinary back story, having been in Malaya when it was overrun by the Japanese army, and having been part of a group of women and children who walked from place to place across Malaya until they died or found a place that would accept them. The English women and children stayed in a village there tending to rice paddies for 3 years.

In her Malayan troubles, Jean met a brave young Australian prisoner called Joe Harman, who suffered horribly for his generosity towards her, and she has never forgotten him. With the money she inherits, she goes back to Malaya to build a well for the village women, and there she is amazed to find that Joe has survived the war. So... she goes to Australia to find him.

The second part of the story takes place in Australia. It is interesting in a completely different way from the first - but they are both linked by the same tribute to the spirit of practicality and resilience that Jean and Joe have.

The problem for me is the narrator. He tells you all about his life and it is screamingly dull, I suppose as a foil to the exciting stories he has to tell. He breakfasts, he goes to work, he dines at his club with other old bufties, he wants to tell you all about trusts and codicils and investments. Wah! The story unfolds in spite of his seemingly endless prevarications and wooden style.

Whatever made Shute decide to tell the story that way? It is so odd. But he must have thought that the decent and prudish old boy added something - and when you step back and think about it, perhaps it does. The commercial world needs someone to be interested in all the dry stuff in small print that keeps money transactions lawful. He represents civil society, maybe, which is the backbone of so much that we value, although Shute also celebrates the spirit of free enterprise and the self-reliance that Jean and Joe display.

So in short, I would still recommend it.