- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: Short Books Ltd; illustrated edition edition (3 Dec 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1904095089
- ISBN-13: 978-1904095088
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 11.6 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 941,065 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
At a cursory glance it is easy to mistake Maria Corelli's In Love and War for a spin-off from Louis de Bernières' Captain Corelli's Mandolin. A quote from de Bernières extolling the virtues of the book dominates a cover that is, shall we say, Corelli-esque. What lurks behind the jacket is however, something quite different. In Love and War is a copy of an actual letter Maria Corelli (or Mary Leslie, as she was then) wrote from Rome to her parents in Sussex during the summer of 1944. It was her first letter home in almost four years and, as it emerges, she had more than a few things to tell them.
When the Second World War began Maria and her husband Lewis were studying music in Rome. It was here that they had met and befriended the talented Jewish-Romanian singer Sigbert Steinfeld. Italy entered the war in 1940 and Steinfeld was promptly sent to a concentration camp in Calabria, while Maria and Lewis, who narrowly avoided being interred themselves, struggled to find work, decent lodgings and food in a city increasingly suspicious of foreigners. The three were eventually reunited in Piscinisco two years later but were soon forced into hiding when the Germans invaded. It was while camped in "a shallow hollow in the rocks high up in the mountains" that Maria and Sigbert fell madly in love. Incredibly Lewis, afraid that his appearance might compromise their safety, suggested that the pair made their own way to Rome posing as an Italian couple. In Rome they were to find that friends of this calibre were slightly thinner on the ground. The prose is decidedly clunky, but the rough quality of the language does not diminish Corelli's powerful document, if anything it enhances it. Her unadorned and clearly un-amended account of a love affair flourishing amidst the chaos of war-torn Italy is disarmingly candid, and for that reason very moving. Less impressive is an appendix of entries from her dream journals of the period. Budding psychoanalysts might enjoy them but it's hard to see how they illuminate the letter that precedes them.--Travis Elborough
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Synopsis
"This is the most difficult letter I have ever written because I have to tell you something very serious and perhaps you will say terrible and sad. I ask you if possible not to judge me until we have been able to see each other and talk about it...". In a letter to her parents, written in Rome in the summer of 1944, Maria Corelli tells of her life on the run in Italy during the Second World War. As the Germans approach, she and her husband risk their lives to follow their friend, a Jewish musician, into hiding in the mountains...only to find their own relationship broken apart.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing short story from the Second World War.,
By A Customer
This review is from: In Love and War: A Letter to My Parents (Paperback)
Initially this book is hampered by the fact that it has been reviewed by Louis de Bernieres. His name, in large font on the front cover, detracts from the author's: Maria Corelli. There is also the added confusion of Captain Corelli. My advice is to ignore it and get your teeth into one of the most fascinating and heart rending short stories of 2001.Once you enter the world of Maria, it is easy to forget that it is indeed a true story such are her trials and tribulations. The story that follows, which is literally letter to her parents, is both frank and historically interesting. Sixty years on it is sometimes impossible to imagine what people endured through the war for the sake of love and freedom. They risked everything and Maria seems to have lived on a knife edge. The account of her spending three months in the mountains in rural Italy is particularly lucid. She freely admits that some of her sentences are a little stilted or not entirely fluid since she was away from England for so long and fought to conceal her true identity. This only adds to the authenticity and colour of the story. If anyone is having doubts about whether they would enjoy a book recounting a young woman's experiences of the War in Italy,it was bought for my Mother for Christmas and before New Year, all my family had read it and thoroughly enjoyed it! I think that speaks for itself.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
With hindsight,
By D A Tait (Fraserburgh, Scotland.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In Love and War: A Letter to My Parents (Paperback)
It is difficult to understand how, with the benefit of 50 years hindsight,the author was persuaded to publish this letter.Yes,it must have been a very traumatic experience for a young woman and the terror of being exposed to the German authorities must have been awful. But in comparison to what was happening to hundreds of thousands of lives all around her at that time, reading about missing singing lessons,the numerous references to the losing of coats and dresses whilst conducting a triangular love affair seems rather insignificant. The constant references to the "English" army will stick in the throats of anyone who is aware of the thousands of Polish and Scottish troops for example killed at Anzio and Monte Casino. Perhaps all forgivable at the time of writing but hindsight says that this is an interesting family document that should have remained in the family archive. All this book did was make me angry.
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