Book Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: Authors: Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows

The book Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is written as a series of letters between different characters. The book is set in England of the 2nd World War. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands that Germans occupied from 1941 to 1945. The lead character is Juliet who is the main narrator. The supporting cast includes her friend Sophie, and Sydney, Sophie's brother. Juliet is drawn to the island and to the quaintly named 'Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society',

Juliet is a writer of note. Having lost both her parents when she was twelve, Juliet has grown up to be a self-dependent stubborn lady. Her only collections are her books. She even called off her marriage in the nick of time because her prospective husband wanted to keep all her books in the cellar downstairs. Her books has pride of place in her flat. Unfortunately, during one of the bombings by Luftwaffe, her flat was hit and her collection of books burnt to ashes. Ironically, had they been in the cellar, the books would have survived the bombings !

Juliet's tryst with Guernsey starts when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey. He is fascinated with Charles Lamb and want to order books by Lamb. He is a member of the society and wants to read part of Lamb's books in their meeting. 

The story of Society's origin are hilarious as well as absurd. Germans had prohibited islanders from killing pigs and eating pork. One of the islanders killed a pig and threw a secret party. After the dinner (and few drinks) while the party goers were going back to their homes, they were caught by the Germans. To escape from Germans, Elizabeth McKenna, the shero of the book, told them that they are coming back after attending a meeting of the 'Literary Society'.

Story of 'Potato Peel Pie' is amusing. To justify the lie that they told the Germans, the members of the group were forced to create a Literary Society. One of the members, Will Thisbee refused to attend the meeting if there was nothing to eat. Meat and butter were not available, so Thisbee came up with the idea of Potato Peel Pie made of Mashed Potatoes, boiled beetroot for sweet and potato peal for the crust.  That became a hit and a part of the Society's name. 

Over the next few months, through their letters Juliet gets to know about all the founding members of the Society. There is Dawsey Adams, of course, the strong and silent carpenter who loves to read the books of Charles Lamb, there is Isola Pribby, a small time farmer with a goat named Ariel and a parrot named Zenobia. She loves Bronte sisters but did not like 'Wuthering Heights' much. Then there is Amelia Maugery in whose house the society conducts its meetings, John Booker, Will Thisbee, Eben Ramsay...  

Elizabeth McKenna is the hero of them all. In this book, we never come to interact directly with her. There is a miasma of mystery of Elizabeth's whereabouts all through the first half of the book. We hear of her valor and strength only from anecdotes told by other members of the society. Any time an Islander needed help, she was there. She was the one who started the society. She was the one who kept the children company when they were being shipped to London just before Germans overtook the islands. 

The book is divided into two parts. In part one Juliet learns all about the island from letters she shared with her friends from island. There is a love angle in the book in the form of Raymond Markham, an American media tycoon who is wooing Juliet and wants to marry her. He is charming and funny and very courteous with her. While she thought he was a nice man, she was not sure if she wanted to marry him. 

In part 2 of the book, she travels to Guernsey to live with the people there. The idea is to write a story about the power of reading books. She falls in love with the islands. The members of the society arrange Elizabeth's house for her to stay. She learns more about the struggles during the German occupation. 

Germans imposed a lot of restrictions on the islanders like restricting the choice of food. Killing pigs was not allowed. The farmers reared pigs to satisfy the hunger of the German Troops. Germans ordered the islanders to grow potatoes and turnips. Everything was in short supply including food, proteins, firewood and even soaps. Many islanders had skin problems since they did not have enough soap to clean themselves. The children who were left in Island suffered stunted growth. For four years, Germans ruled the islands with an iron fist.

However as the war hurtled towards its culmination, Germans were losing everywhere. They had nowhere to go and those who were left behind on the island ended up begging for food. There is a story of a German Soldier, frantic with hunger, who kills a cat and just eats its internal organs....

Ugh....

In part 2, we come to learn about what happened to Elizabeth McKenna. We learn that she was married to a German Doctor and had a daughter, Kit. Elizabeth was a spirited person. Germans had brought young men, called Todt workers, to do all their hard work. Since food was scarce, they never fed the Todt workers. Once their duty was over, they were supposed to find food for themselves. They used to steal some fruits from a nearby farm to survive. 

The farmers kept a tight watch. One day a farmer caught a Todt worker. The boy could not get up and just lay there. Elizabeth brought the child home and stealthily nursed him back to health.

When Germans came to know this, they arrested Elizabeth and send her to a concentration camp. There she was lined with other women prisoners. The entire camp was very unhygienic. Menstruating women were not given any pads and blood oozed from their thighs. There was one sadistic German lady officer who used to laugh when she saw any women suffering. 

Elizabeth couldn't take it any longer. One day when this happened, she took a stick and thrashed the officer. She was taken to the back of the camp and executed. 

We learn about what happened to Elizabeth from another lady, Remy, who was with her in the camp.

Raymond Markham follows Juliet to the island. She sees him behaving rudely with Kit McKenna, the four year old daughter of Elizabeth and rejects his marriage proposal. With the help from Amelia Maugery, she initiates proceedings to adopt Kit.

Juliet is attracted towards Dawsey, but he is a strong silent man who does not open up. As the story ends, Juliet confesses her love to him. It turns out that he is also in love with her, but he did not know how to tell her. The story ends with them getting married. 

I did not emotionally connect with the story as I did when I read the book 'The Stationery Shop of Tehran'. The reason is that there is no flow to the stories. The 'letters' style of writing means that the story moves from one discrete incident to another. Juliet asks a question to Dawsey, 'why the name Potato Peel Pie Society'? you become alert. This was a question that you had in mind. But the next question is from Sydney to Juliet informing her that he is in Australia (Sydney going to Australia, I am not joking here). You feel let down. And ten letters down the line, when Amelia answers that question, we are like 'So what?'

Another reason why I could not connect emotionally was that there is nothing really to emotionally connect. There are many stories in the book, but there is no 'intense' story. There is the story of the society itself, then there is one of friendship between Juliet and Sydney, Juliet's brief fling with Raymond Markham, story of love between Juliet and Dawsey, there is story of Elizabeth's courage.

There is no digging deep into any of these stories. Heck, Dawsey do not even express his love to Juliet. It is Juliet who proposes to Dawsey. A story-line that could have been brilliantly portrayed, I mean you have the beautiful island, its romantic setting and the brilliant countryside to make you job easier as a writer. But no. The romance does not evoke any emotions in the reader.

Or the author could have gone deeper into Elizabeth. It looked like she had helped most of the islanders. Each of them had a story to tell, but since she was never 'alive' in the story, I could not identify with her. 

By the way, did you know that the full name of Oscar Wilde is Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde? I came to know of this from a cute little story narrated in this book about Mr.Wilde visiting Guernsey. Victor Hugo wrote Le Miserables at Guernsey.

This book leaves you thinking. You realize that there are no real winners in a war. Everyone is a loser. For a couple of years, Germans were the winners. When they lost, they lost everything. The Germans left over in the islands after the war was over were begging and rummaging for food. There are stories of valor of Germans. For example, they knew that they had lost the war. Their army was hungry and tired and scared. At that time Red Cross brought food and cosmetics for the citizens of Island. The German commander ordered his troops to distribute the entire ship load to the islanders and forbade his troops from taking even a single packet. 

There are good Germans like Elizabeth's husband, Dr.Christian Hellman. He hates what Hitler is doing but just like many good people, he is also silent for the fear of retribution from his government.

Just like the book 'The Stationery Shop of Tehran', this book also discusses the terrible consequences of war and internal turmoil on the citizens. Europe paid the price for two wars and responded by creating strong liberal democracies. Iran is still a work in progress. The point is that both the current generations and the future generations will pay the price for any misadventure by mad leaders. Predators from outside are always waiting to exploit the internal weaknesses of the country. A smart country will know how to manage. The main element of that smartness is respecting the people's will. Taking decisions that will benefit everyone, not just a single group

Iran of the 50s did not smartly handle the internal strife and paid the price.

What about you India?