My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You

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With echoes of The English Patient, Atonement, and a touch of Ford Maddox Ford’s The Good Soldier, Louisa Young’s adult debut novel is haunting and mesmerizing....The dark and gritty battle scenes contrasted with the pining love letters sent from the front lines of battle blend perfectly together to give an accurate and honest portrayal of life during wartime”— Bronwyn Miller, BookReporter.com A novel that didn't quite seem to know what it wanted to be, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You is a surprisingly rounded WWI story that goes beyond the typical narrative. Louisa Young writes best when describing the harsh realities of war and makes no concessions regarding uncomfortable yet true situations. And yet My Dear I Wanted to Tell You also attempts to be a romance book, and there precisely it comes to a screeching halt. The great strength of the book is the main characters. Young takes time to build them up and this is probably why a third of the way in I was thinking 'it's good, but I don't see what all the fuss is about'. But it means you really care for them when the story develops. By the end, I certainly knew. Only eighteen at the outbreak of the war, Nadine and Riley want to make promises to each other—but how can they when their future is out of their hands? Youthful passion is on their side, but then their loyalty is tested by terrible injury, and even more so by the necessarily imperfect rehabilitation that follows.

She knew now exactly what Riley had been talking about when he had said he didn’t exist. She knew now the hollow manic energy induced by living at crisis pitch all the time. It left you—well , it never left you: it rendered you brutalized, incapable, unthinking, unfeeling, scar tissue all over. No feeling at all. Wild. Everything was terribly remote and she was utterly impenetrable” (234).Voor de liefhebbers van Oorlog en terpentijn 'Als je één boek over de gevolgen van de Eerste Wereldoorlog leest, laat het dan dit zijn.' - The Times Riley’s friendship with Nadine Waveney grows and prospers over the years, until they both come to a realization of love. But when Nadine’s mother objects to the unsuitable courtship Riley turns his mind to the war effort and naively signs up to fight ‘for the duration of the war’. Riley loves, Nadine, another main player. This love affair brings up the topic of social class. I liked how this novel shows how WWI brought together the classes and made relationships between the classes acceptable whereas they were frowned upon before the war. One of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, Hedy Lamarr also designed a secret weapon against Nazi Germany. What, another World War 1 book? Is there something about the fact that no one is left alive to tell -- or criticize the veracity of -- the tale that has led to a recent flourishing (to the already robust genre) of trench literature, usually somehow connected to a story of the folks at home, maybe poets, maybe artsy? Anyway, yes, another one, and another good one. A real energy and lyricism to Young's writing, the "men" come to life, especially her hero, Riley, caught between two worlds, but the little sketched portraits of the troops and other minor characters are memorable as well. The central love story is vivid, felt, sexy and real too, and the prose moves.

Another main player is Peter. Ugh. Peter handles the war by drowning himself in booze and prostitutes. A] tender, elegiac novel. Others have been here before, of course, from Sebastian Faulks to Pat Barker, but Young belongs in their company’ The plastic surgery plot line that developed was fascinating. The unveiling of the developing surgery was written so eloquently that it never seemed too heavy on medical jargon and I understood it completely. I was also intrigued with the psychology that young Riley uses to keep himself afloat and to see how different his reaction to the war is to Peter’s. He came straight to her.... His case fell to the floor as he snaked his arm round her waist and there was a tiny perfect pause before he kissed and kissed and kissed her" *my heart only can stand some much*Louisa Young's ambitious new novel takes its title from a form letter sent home to British soldiers' families to alert them to their injuries during battle. It starts off quite simply, "My dear_____, I want to tell you, before my telegram arrives, that I was admitted to ________ on _________ with a slight/serious wound in my ________." The aim is to soften the blow of hearing their beloved son or husband or father was injured on a distant battlefield somewhere in Europe.

Have just finished reading My Dear I Wanted to Tell You and really enjoyed it. Hadn't realised that Louisa Young is also the author of LION BOY, so I've just started to read that too.

The onrush of World War I irrevocably intertwines the lives of two young couples in Louisa Young’s epic tale of love in the midst of chaos. Perfect for readers of Atonement, The Mapping of Love and Death, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Young’s moving novel of class struggles, star-crossed romance, and the grim reality of the battlefield is a stunning exploration of the devastating consequences of a world enmeshed in total war. The characters in My Dear I Wanted to Tell You enter the story strangely underdeveloped - their motives and reasons for falling in love are never quite explained - and never quite recover. Though the reader spends ample time with them, there is little to grasp, little to relate to. Young shines in writing about their world and their surroundings, far less their characters and inner workings. To me, this book simply had to much going on. I feel that the author felt that she had a whole bunch of things she wanted to write about that included art, beauty, WWI, and young love, and crammed them all together in one story. She did a wonderful job of cramming, and the subject matters do flow together nicely, but she failed to create characters that inspired me, or even ones that I even cared about, and if I don’t care about the characters, I have a difficult time enjoying the book. The postcard started with the words ‘My Dear …….. I wanted to tell you, before my telegram arrives, that I was admitted to …… Clearing Station on ………”. The first blank was the space for the soldier to write the name of his wife/mother/lover; the second was for the name of the medical clearing station; and the third was for the date of his injury. The writing style is very pleasurable to read, beautifully wordy and almost a touch indulgent - but I like that. what's wrong with being a little indulgent, especially when the reading matter is so difficult? I suppose this is what sweetens the pill to some extent, because the topic is a grim one.