Yes, I'm talking about the book, or more accurately the collection of
newspaper columns, not the film. The film is a wartime story, made as
part of the Allied propaganda effort. The columns are earlier and more
interesting: they start out as light-hearted domestic scenes, but
the prospect of war slowly becomes apparent; Mrs Miniver (in effect
the third-person narrator) gradually adapts to it, with the issue of
gas-masks, the effects of blackouts, and so on. There's really nothing
in the way of plot; the columns, brutally limited to about five or six
paperback pages each, are essentially observations and anecdotes.
The main collection was published in 1939 shortly after the war
started but before the invasion of France; the author did not write
more regular columns, but did append several letters as from Mrs
Miniver to a friend, which are collected in (some) later editions of
the book.
It was something of a fantasy even for Struther: Mrs Miniver is happy
in her marriage, money worries are essentially absent, and I suspect
some people may find the tone smug. I simply found Mrs Miniver
interesting, and interested, in the things and people she encountered.
The book is also a fascinating portrait of a way of life which the
author correctly saw would never return: for example, successful
middle-class people could still just about reasonably expect to have
servants, and indeed to live in Chelsea.
Some of the late letters appear to carry a deliberate change in tone,
talking about the money worries of the early days of the Minivers'
marriage, and the problems of small businesses in London when many of
the inhabitants had left. They're still worth reading, but they feel
like a facile shift on the part of the author rather than an actual
change of attitude.
Full free HTML version of the book
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