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Widowland

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Widowland is an alternate history speculative novel which, while it has some beautiful writing, turned out to be fairly derivative of many other such books, a kind of Fatherland/Handmaids Tale hybrid where the alternate history aspects weren't quite spot on in feel. The alternate world is well fleshed out and eerily realistic. It's hard to believe that an England like this could easily have existed, yet that only makes the story all the more powerful. Rose is smart, well-educated, and high-ranking in the chaste system, she is indoctrinated into the government's position by working for them. She is not only working for the Ministry of Culture but sleeping with Martin, a governmental official so that she can get higher rations and more power for herself. But there are always eyes and questions. Her job is to change history by rewriting works of literature (omg, sounds like... well, now) because literature tells the story of freedoms and "before" and that should not be allowed to happen. The War in Europe ended in 1940 when the British surrendered to Germany. In defeat, the people in Great Britain suffered the loss of the rights that made the England english. Germany created a caste system that rated all people in the country according to the value to society and to men. At the top we're the Geli Girls whose job was to prepare to be the wives and mothers of the the officers. At the other end of the spectrum were the Freides who were passed the age of fifty. They were used up. They were the cemetery people. They lived under the most austere conditions in a place called Widowland. As a life-long devotee of alternative history, I've seen so damn many "Germans win WWII" ideas that I refelxively shy away from reading yet another one. This one, being the second in a series I didn't read the first one of, would usually get zero attention from me for both those reasons. The way this subverted my defenses was to offer me a golden moment: My abiding contempt for the Windsors leads me to be amused and more than a little pleased that things turn out badly for them in this story.

Great Britain has been overthrown, the king and his daughters have disappeared and in their place The Alliance reigns. Women are broken down into factions based on their aryan purity with the aim of creating a new superior population. Widowland is where the unwanted women are sent; old women can no longer be helpful to the cause. Literature is off limits and either burned or edited, used as a vehicle for control. Charles Kerr The author, the historical novelist Jane Thynne. Widowland is her first book published under the pen name C. J. Carey Rose is no superheroine. She's a very slightly moist, sometimes even drippy, everywoman whose moral compass isn't aligned with her culture's. She has the decency to follow it, and not the mob. She is, then, who we can reasonably aspire to be if the worst happens. The royal family has been usurped, and the widowed Queen Wallis reigns in their place. Yet still some citizens hold out hope that Elizabeth may one day return.My Review: Fahrenheit 451 meets The Handmaid's Tale and they then mind-meld with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in a world where Edward VIII with his Nazi sympathies never abdicated. When I saw the premise of this book, I thought that it would be some sort of take on The Man in the High Castle meets The Handmaid's Tale with a heavy dose of 1984. It could be amazing, or it could be a complete trash fire. Thankfully, it swung far further towards greatness than plagiarism. Some parts requires a bit of suspension of belief but I found the book highly entertaining and gripping.

And then we have Rosa, brainwashed to not think of the Before times. She edits classics to make them more regime friendly. Not that reading or being literate is encouraged. Like is Pride and Prejudiced good? No, Elizabeth needs to be more quiet and timid, and stay within her class. Everything is edited, from history to literature.However, in Queen Wallis, the plot and characters came across as very repetitive to the first novel. (A note on history repeating itself, perhaps?) Rose is a much weaker and less compelling character in this book. While this was clearly a specific choice the author made for the plot, it felt as if all the character work in Widowland had been undone. Given that I had just read the first book a month ago, it felt too similar. In a drama which traverses Berlin, Paris, Vienna and London, Clara Vine tries to keep her friends close, but finds her enemies are even closer. Like its literary ancestor Nineteen Eighty Four, Carey considers how a totalitarian state can reconstruct our way of thinking. This is very much dystopian fiction for book-lovers however as Rose analyses the heroines of literature and works to bring them into line with the Protectorate. Thus, Elizabeth Bennet becomes meek and learns her place. Jo March tones down her anger, sets down her pen and accepts her lot. Rose is startled by Jane Eyre, whose heroine questions her low status and then does not show sympathy to Mr Rochester when it is revealed that he has the affliction of an insane wife. The rules are that, 'No female protagonist should be overly intelligent, dominant or subversive, no woman should be rewarded for challenging a man, and no narrative should undermine in any way the Protector’s views of the natural relationship between the sexes.' I found this ordinance fascinating given the current literary landscape which bristles with trigger warnings and tuttings over problematic plots. Because even as Rose 'corrects' these books, their original messages are seeping through and her ossified mind is beginning to wake up.

Surely I'm not being over-sensitive in finding the depiction of all German men as 'porcine' with onion-breath and cold hearts offensive in 2021? Rose is the heart of the story. We travel with her, and follow her deepening realisation of the restrictions that she lives under. Her awakening comes from many directions — primarily, her interactions with an older generation (her father and the residents of a house in Widowland outside Oxford), who remember the world before 1940, and the dreams of freedom and self-determination which she has for Hannah, her precious niece. While I have cavils on the history front (why is Eisenhower president in a 1955 where WWII wasn't like ours? why is there no mention of presumably vanished millions of Jews?), I have none on the timeliness and urgency of the author's purpose in writing the book. I'll say that I felt slightly at sea occasionally. I put this down to not having read Widowland, so I recommend you do that first.We know what Carey is referring to in those places where the people in the book are forbidden to look, or that they choose to turn away from. This is the same dilemma that the people of occupied Europe faced in the early 1940s. We are so used to feeling comfortable and a little smug at the thought that it “didn’t happen here”, as if Britain were a chosen nation. Widowland shows us a reality, one that we would probably have responded to no differently from our neighbours in France or Holland. In Widowland, the dilemmas of living under occupation — when to acquiesce and when to stand — become not just European, but English. The literary aspects- rewriting classics to a current social construct- was the one aspect that gave this a bit of a lift - but overall it didnt really offer anything new to ponder on this particular topic.

I liked it, yes alternative history is so interesting. All those what ifs. The UK turned into a really scary place. So dull and, huh, honestly what I know think of more like Soviet. Grey, mindless drones and everyone spying on you. And then insert crazy German ideologies.

Rose Ransom, a member of the privileged Geli class, remembers life from before the war but knows better than to let it show. She works for the Ministry of Culture, rewriting the classics of English literature to ensure there are no subversive thoughts that will give women any ideas. C.J. Carey is the pen name of Jane Thynne, author of a number of books including the Clara Vine series. She was born in Venezuela, went to school in London and then to Oxford University where she read English. After that she worked as a BBC journalist, before moving to Fleet Street and working at The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, as well as numerous magazines. She lives in London. Widowland is the first novel she has written as C.J. Carey. In reading the author’s notes, she said she is currently writing a sequel to this book. Can’t wait to read it. An interesting take on a tried and true story but ultimately not one I would recommend to others. Unfortunately, this book is let down by a few things including -

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