Melody Murray's Books

I tried, this time, to read this book analytically- to figure out why it means so much to me, why it looms so large in my head. I don't know that I have a rational answer- the protagonist is a Puritan, bound by duty and hampered by unnecessary suffering. His wife is presented as completely unlikeable, a martinet and a shrew. Really, there aren't a lot of characters here with whom I can identify even a little bit- but it doesn't matter. Somehow, for me, this novel exemplifies a generation. It explains things to me about World War Two, about the people who were caught up in it and changed by it, and how the sixties were born. It's a huge, sweeping portrait of a time that seems golden in retrospect. I adore it still.