Although the subject matter of 22 Britannia Road should have been interesting, a major flaw of this novel by Amanda Hodgkinson is that I always feel removed from the actions and characters. This feeling of distance may be because we, the readers, are immediately thrust into their woes without first getting a chance to know them.
One minute they meet, the next minute they have a baby, the next he is off to war. The two main characters, Janusz and Sylvana, are natives of Poland before the invasion of the Nazis, but aside from knowing that, you wouldn’t believe that anything unusual is going on. Later, they are in Poland, fleeing, with the Nazis invading, but except for a few events, you wouldn’t know there was a war. It’s as though the author is unable to imagine what it might be like first to live in Poland when the war is building and worse to be there once the Nazis arrive.
The novel actually begins after the war, with Janusz waiting in England, where he has spent most of the war, for the arrival of Sylvana and their son Aurek from Poland. Later it tells the story of their meeting, courtship, marriage, and war through unconvincing flashbacks.
It also tells the story of their floundering marriage, which happens because they tell each other nothing. This post-war story is a little more realized than the story of their past.
I have some sympathy for Janusz at the beginning of the novel, when he is waiting for his family to arrive. He has obviously meticulously prepared for them and is hoping to give them a good life. But I think Sylvana is a stupid woman, who is cloyingly overprotective of Aurek. She is harboring a big secret, but I guessed it almost from the beginning.
Although I was mildly interested in the story of the novel, I felt it could have been done much better.
What? Me Read? 