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Wake A Novel Anna Hope Books

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Wake A Novel Anna Hope Books

The ghosts of the Great War still walk among the living in 1920s London. This novel looks at the lives of women trying to come to terms with the effects of the war, particularly upon the men in their lives. The book makes clear just how much trauma every member of the population suffered, and continued to suffer after the war. In addition to the veterans, who are disabled, unable to work, in some cases unable to speak, women like Ava look for sons who they refuse to believe died. Women like Hettie find that romantic landscapes are now completely foreign. Women like Evelyn feels the weight of their personal grief compounded by the tragic stories she hears every day working in the pension department.

This book is by no means easy reading. The subject matter is heavy and depressing, to say the least. That said, I enjoy books that take several characters stories and weave them together. If you're actively seeking a book on the aftereffects of WWI you're probably expecting it to be kind of depressing anyway.


Tags : Amazon.com: Wake: A Novel (9780812995138): Anna Hope: Books,Anna Hope,Wake: A Novel,Random House,0812995139,Historical - General,Literary,War & Military,Veterans' families;Great Britain;History;20th century;Fiction.,Women;Fiction.,World War, 1914-1918;Repatriation of war dead;Great Britain;Fiction.,20th century,ENGLISH HISTORICAL FICTION,England,FICTION Historical General,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction Historical,Fiction Literary,Fiction War & Military,Fiction-War & Military,GENERAL,General Adult,Great Britain,History,Repatriation of war dead,United States,Veterans' families,Women,World War, 1914-1918

Wake A Novel Anna Hope Books Reviews

I found it very confusing at first, but I am very glad that I kept with it! I'm from the USA, so the British perspective on the Great War, aka WW I, was not a familiar theme. I remember the images from the beginning of "Chariots of Fire", and the bits from Downton Abbey, and maybe something from Delderfield, but this, focusing on women's experiences, was very effective.
This is a beautifully written achingly real look at the aftermath of World War I on the lives of the three main characters as well as several secondary characters. I had trouble putting it down-and will be thinking about it for days to come. One reviewer said he/she did not like the ending- but I disagree. I thought the ending was touching and very well done.
Anna Hope writes about the loves of people after WW1. The women with losses a son, a lover, brother(s) who has returned home changed. She explores the lives of returned and deceased solders. How people coped and didn't cope. Into the story she adds the story of the unknown soldier. She flashes betwixt characters and their lives intertwine. Well written. In the end you realize that life does go on better for some than others after the devastating effect of war.
To begin with I suspected this one would be one of these "women-books" that sail very close to being chick-lit. But it wasn't. It is very well written and the plot is well thought out and not too intricate to be incredible.

When I came to live in England and first experienced what I thought of as hysteria on Armistice day, I didn't understand how a war affects a nation for generations to come. Which is of course because I've never lived in such a nation. After having read a LOT about WW1 (and other wars) and now this book I believe that I understand it better. WW1 left a huge trauma in the general population and there's good reason why it has lasted a hundred years. Every family lost someone in that war and nobody could see the point and the government did very little to explain it - probably because there was no explanation.

In years to come I will regard the poppy on people's jackets and coats with respect and understanding - and be respectful of war traumas everywhere.
Those young men who gaily went off to war in August 1914, so certain they'd return to London, or Paris, or Berlin by Christmas, as victors? What happened to them in the four years between war's beginning and war's end? Those questions are more thoroughly answered in other book, both fiction and non-fiction. In her debut novel, British author Anna Hope takes a look at a few of those men who came home at war's end...and at one who didn't.

Author Anna Hope gives three definitions to the word "wake" in the front of her novel. I suppose the reader can attach meaning to any or all of her definitions. Go ahead, pick your own. I'm going to pick #2 - "wake" as "ritual for the dead". And the several days in November, 1920 that Hope chooses to write about are the days around the establishing of the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier". But the event, the ritual of entombing one of four soldiers who had lain unidentified in the battlefields of France and Flanders, was viewed by three women and two men. The three women, one the mother of a dead soldier, one who lost a lover in battle, and the other a young woman with a confused life in the "peace" that followed the war. The two years since the war's end had seen an influenza epidemic that had taken many lives of both soldiers and civilians. Former soldiers had come home to England in varying physical and mental states. Society was changing from war-time to post war and lives were changing with shorter hair and skirts.

Two of the women, Evelyn and Hettie, had brothers who fought and survived. Both men were emotionally fragile, as was a third man who was the catalyst who brought all three women's stories together in the final chapter of the book. Anna Hope takes a while getting to the conclusion and while all the women's stories eventually intertwine, getting there for the reader is sometimes slow. But stick with the book, it's worth it, I promise.
This is a beautifully written and very painful story of the damage done by war--to those who fight it certainly and who die so terribly or who survive but are left so hideously physically and/or psychologically wounded by the experience. Even more, however, this is a tale of the pain suffered by the women left behind with loss and despair. We see how grief consumes them, how it undermines their very sense of self, and most movingly perhaps how grief endures...and endures.
The novel focuses specifically on the British experience of and after World War I and on the later unveiling of Britain's Memorial Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It then uses this unveiling as a symbol of the ultimate coming to terms with grief, so slowly and so falteringly achieved and at such cost. The women who are the heroes of this work do begin to attain a new sense of self and a new hope for the future. They aWAKEn once more to a sense of possibility.
I strongly recommend this work and shall look forward to future novels by Anna Hope.
The ghosts of the Great War still walk among the living in 1920s London. This novel looks at the lives of women trying to come to terms with the effects of the war, particularly upon the men in their lives. The book makes clear just how much trauma every member of the population suffered, and continued to suffer after the war. In addition to the veterans, who are disabled, unable to work, in some cases unable to speak, women like Ava look for sons who they refuse to believe died. Women like Hettie find that romantic landscapes are now completely foreign. Women like Evelyn feels the weight of their personal grief compounded by the tragic stories she hears every day working in the pension department.

This book is by no means easy reading. The subject matter is heavy and depressing, to say the least. That said, I enjoy books that take several characters stories and weave them together. If you're actively seeking a book on the aftereffects of WWI you're probably expecting it to be kind of depressing anyway.