So Much Life Left Over
Towards the end of this novel, which evokes the classics of Great War literature, an old lady reminisces with her cook about the days of Edward VII, when her daughters met the neighborhood boys in her garden and they played like ‘savages.’ But times have changed; the children have grown into adults, and the British nation is about to enter another world war. In the meantime, Rosie has married Daniel, who has taken her to Ceylon, a place she can’t abide. Sophie has espoused a clergyman troubled by his faith, while Ottilie has settled for a childhood sweetheart, and Christabel has ventured into Bloomsbury, where she has fallen in love with a female flying ace.
Not that the women are the central consciousness of the novel; that lot falls to Daniel, who is beloved by everyone except his wife and becomes embroiled in a bitter tug-of-war over the possession of their children. Spending much of his energy raging against Rosie’s denial of his son and daughter, Daniel is unprepared for the blow that fate, or rather, the war deals him. Trying to cope with the devastating sense of loss that assails him after the catastrophe, a priest reminds him that doing his duty might provide much-needed succor, and that there is still ‘so much life left over.’ Spanning decades of history, several continents, and juggling a large cast of central characters, this narrative is a stupendous achievement. However, the work lets itself down when its male protagonists wax a little too nostalgic about the glory days of the empire.
