A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Town Like Alice
Book Review: A fantastic surprise..
Summary: 5 Stars
A friend of mine (who's literary taste I have long trusted) sent me this book in the mail with a note saying I must put down whatever I was reading at the moment and read A Town Like Alice. What a wonderful gift she gave me. I never would have found this book in my normal travels, but it was a delicious read. I cared very much for the lead characters and stayed up late the first night to find out what happened to them. I plan to pass this book on to more friends. It's too good to keep to myself.Book Review: A nice Love - Story
Summary: 4 Stars
I like the book very much because Jean, although a very young woman, was able to survive the war. She was very helpful too and when you read this book you can imagine what a selfless but confident personality Jean was. The book also shows that you should never give up ifyou are down.Amela Bukvic
Book Review: A story full of cardboard cutouts
Summary: 1 Stars
A lot of people write about this book saying that it is one book that should always be a classic and important work. I guess I agree to that in one aspect. This is the story of a woman who was a victim of a Japanese death march that happened in Malaysia during WWII. It's basically her story about how she survived and how she meet this man named Joe whom she fell in love with and how because she aquired some money, she was able to change the lives of the Malay people who helped her during the war years and then the lives of the Aussie's in the outback. There's more to it but I didn't like this book very much.
It does write about a true account of what the Japanese did during the war but because of the way that Nevil Shute wrote about the account and the "Great Jean" who made everyone's lives better--- it just didn't get to me. There is absolutely no heart in this story at all. I did not get to know the characters at all. It's like they are all cardboard cutouts of how people should act and should talk and should behave during that time. It really pissed me off. And I could not stand the main characters' blatant racism towards the Aboriginese. I guess it was accepted during that time that the "Abo" was an outcast but come on now. I couldn't stand it anymore. Aboriginese faced the same problems as blacks in South Africa and our own problems in the south during the Civil Rights Movement and the Native American struggle. I've never read a book with so much slang about the Aboriginese. Whatever. I mean, here is Jean, the hero, the ultra feminist. She decides to make an ice cream shop in the outback so everyone can enjoy ice cream. But what does she do? To her "Everyone" only means the white australians. She instead makes a seperate shop to the side for the "Abo's" who aren't welcome. She makes a segregated icecream shop. And this is the woman that wanted to be treated equally during her time of struggle? There were other incidents and it's probably because I'm thinking of this stuff as if it happened now and not during the time when that kind of racism is shamefully accepted. But that is not an excuse. If Jean was such a hero she should make a difference in race and not make the original Australians outcasts and calling them "Boogs". Reading this book I wonder why people like it so much. The history of it is true I guess but one I am not familiar with, but what good is a book when the characters are false. Not one minute did I believe the Jean or Joe character. They were just names on a page and did not come to life to me at all. Nothing they did seemed real. Like I said, just cardboard cutouts. Everyone it seems love this book but I did not find it one bit endearing. "A love story?" No way.
Book Review: A story that stays with you! The best!
Summary: 5 Stars
"A Town Like Alice" reveals the "forced marches" imposed on WWII prisoners of war as they took place in, what was then, the Dutch East Indies. Historically, their captors, the Japanese army, took as prisoner men, women and children. The reason? They were either Dutch, English or Australian. Although the men were sent to labor camps, the captors did not always know where to take the women and children, and thus kept them walking, and walking, and walking. The story in the novel is transferred to the jungles of Malaysia. Prisoner of war Jean Pagett, a refined, young English woman, is the heroine, who takes over the leadership of the marching group of captives. Under devastating circumstances the women meet fellow prisoner of war Joe Harman, from the rugged Australian Outback, where he was a "ringer" or cattle runner. "Two total opposites" one would think but even though the war ends and everyone separates, they each set out a search to the opposing side of the earth to find the other. What was the bond and do they, in fact, accomplish their individual missions? Once involved in the story as a reader, it is difficult to put down the book. It's one of those of which you wish the last page had not come. An excellent read, a story that could have been true and one that gives hope that from bad circumstances, good, even great things can still come!Book Review: A strong women, 1200 miles in the jungle, and trying to go back
Summary: 4 Stars
Jean Paget inherits some money. She visits a village that had helped her during the war. She then decides to go to a small town and find a soldier named Joe Harmen who had helped her during the war. This part of the story is really part two in her life.
The story of the war and remembering what happened is the first part of her life in this book. In World War 2 she was one of 80 women as well as some children that were captured by the Japanese. They were marched over 1200 miles back and forth through jungles. The women survive in part because of the march and because no one really wanted them. Their captors really did not want to hurt or be thought of as being willing to hurt women and children. The Japanese soldiers had plenty of problems of their own. The soldiers try to find every way to avoid having to deal with the women but they seemed trapped with each other.
During the march Jean meets an Australian Soldier named Joe who is also a prisoner. He tries to help and as a result he seems to have been left dying for his act as punishment.
The book offers a lot of contrasts. Going back after the war demonstrates her decision to try to help and make a difference. To do that she tried making over the town where she finds her old friend into a " Town Like Alice". Jeans impact on the people in this book is the real impact that she in her life has made. The day to day impact she made on the lives of everyone she comes in contact with while marching through the jungles may not have been conscious decisions to help people but those efforts made a lot of difference. More than anything that she can do with her inheritance, her personal impact on people seems to be the more meaningful message.
Captured by the enemy during wartime is not easier for the women and children but it is different. Few books tell a story of war from this viewpoint. Jean's impact is the real story in this book. The events from the Jungle to an effort later in life to "go back" are the backdrop for her impact.