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The Summer Before the War - Reviews Without Spoilers

Reviews Without Spoilers is a series in which I review the books I've read without giving away any more than the inside cover plot summary would.


I think we all enjoy reading stories that show the strength of the human spirit, despite terrible circumstances. That's probably why war stories are so popular. Personally, I've read dozens of wartime novels and even taken a graduate class on the poetry of World War I. Despite all of that, I wasn't a fan of The Summer Before the War.

For some historical background, the summer of 1914, right before World War I began, was supposedly perfect. The weather was wonderful, and there was somehow an infectious air of simple joy in England. Maybe that's just the way that summer of innocence was remembered after the fact, but the notion that such beauty can preface such tragedy gives me chills.

I had expected this novel to center on that summer and its beauty, but, in reality, the summer only lasted for the first 100 pages or so. Of course I assumed the war would come, but the title of the book made it seem like that wouldn't happen until much later in this nearly 500-page novel. This was obviously an instance of judging a book by its cover!

Once we get into the narrative, Beatrice Nash becomes our heroine. She is a smart and witty first-time teacher who attempts to support herself financially (practically unheard of for a woman in Edwardian England) after the death of her father. From there, I assumed the novel would be about this Latin teacher educating her students on the price of war (through the often-mentioned Aeneid) and guiding them through the tragedy of a nation at war. That didn't happen either, though. We only saw two moments of Beatrice teaching throughout the entire novel.

When you realize that more of this novel is going to take place during the war than before it, I assumed we would get to the trenches and see the contrasts between the men at war and their friends and families back home. But still, that didn't really happen either. We did see men in the trenches and the true tragedy of war, but not until the last 50 pages.

Instead of all of that, the vast majority of this novel was spent in long-winded flowery descriptions of English gardens, tea parties, and social hierarchies of the time. More than 50 pages were spent talking about the planning and execution of a parade. To be clear: the author spent more time on the parade as she did in the trenches.

More than that, though, I was simply bored by the language. You could turn to any chapter for an instance of the unnecessary level of detail present, but here is one example:
Mr. Tillingham and the Professor were seated on the lawn, two dark silhouettes at a white iron table, under the spreading sunlit boughs of an ancient mulberry tree. The tea urn had not yet been brought out, but a stand of small cakes and a silver platter of thinly sliced bread and butter suggested its immediate arrival. Only the white cloth on the folding table flapped to break the green and silent tableau. 
Yes, this description does give a clear image of tea time. But did we need that much detail? No. Especially when every other page offers practically the same thing - and there are plenty of other tea parties, too. In general, while some of the language was beautiful, it was often overwhelming and too nuanced to grab my attention. The whole book felt almost like the Ents talking in Lord of the Rings - which is the reason I still haven't gotten past the middle of the second book, even though I've started the series twice!

Despite all my struggles with this novel, I will say that seeing into the experience of the Belgian refugees was a new component that many other war novels missed. I appreciated that the refugees' lives were, at least at times, just as important as those of the English townspeople throughout the story. For that redeeming quality, I'm giving The Summer Before the War 2 out of 5 stars.

Book: The Summer Before the War
Author: Helen Simonson
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: March 2016
Genre: historical fiction
Length: 473 pages, 15 hrs 47 mins in audiobook format
Setting: Sussex, England, 1914

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