The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A Synopsis with Commentary
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Written with warmth and humor, this epistolary novel begins beneath the hovering WWII cloud of departed German troops who had occupied the island of Guernsey, one of the UK Channel Islands. It is 1946 and writer Juliet Ashton, tired of covering the less serious aspects of WWII, receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a Guernsey islander who has come across Juliet’s name and address on the flycover of a second-hand copy of Charles Lamb’s Selected Essays of Elia. Dawsey, a jack-of-all trades farmer and carpenter, is intrigued with Charles Lamb and wants to pursue his fascination with other books by the author. Thus begins an exchange of letters that introduces some of the loveable quirky characters that inhabit the Island, simple folk who describe in letters to Juliet their experiences during WWII—and how The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came to be. It was after curfew when several participants on their way home from a contraband pig roast (that’s another story!) were confronted by German soldiers. What better excuse for breaking the curfew than their spirited late night discussion of books!
Thus, as a matter of survival, the Society was born, enlivened by members like Isola Pribbey, the Society’s Secretary. When not mixing elixirs “to restore manly ardor,” Isola immerses herself in the pathos of the Bronte sisters and Wuthering Heights. Eben Ramsey, a fisherman whose ancestors were tombstone cutters and carvers, loves to read selections from Shakespeare. Will Thisbee, an antiquarian ironmonger, finds solace with Thomas Carlye. Clovis Fossey, a farmer who dotes on poetry, courted and won his wife Nancy with the sonnets of Wordsworth. John Booker, a founding father of the Society, reads one book, Letters of Seneca, over and over again. What is really extraordinary about these charming characters, however, is that most of the members had not read anything beyond seed catalogues and recipe books prior to the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society!
Reading, after all, is an event that takes place in one’s imagination. Although romantic interludes inhabit the novel and homage is paid to the nostalgic era that followed the war, it is not naďve. A strong sense of realty pervades the tragic stories of concentration camp horrors, the Todt slave workers, and the evacuation of children, some of whom would never be reunited with their families.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society affirms the power of books and their ability to sustain people in difficult times. It transports us, as is the nature of good books, and carries us away, improbabilities and internal logic notwithstanding. It also revives the lost art of letter writing, empowered by deeply human characters who literally leap out from the pages as they contrast a dark period in history with wit and wisdom, and in doing so, demonstrate the power of the human spirit.
Pat Brinegar, Reading Across RI Committee Member
November, 2009
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