Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village [Paperback]

This is the first book by Louis de Bernieres that I have read since Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and I thought that that was so good that he would not be able to write another book as fine. This is a completely different sort of book but it is outstanding, beautifully written with sympathy, sensitivity and humour. Although it is about an English village, it is more than just that weaving together English village life with laugh out loud comedy, great sadness, wonderful characters, magic, and all sorts of other elements that go to making up the goodness and badness of life. I had not intended to read the book immediately, but I casually picked it up read the first few sentences of the first story and was hooked. Louis de Bernieres reveals great knowledge and acute observation on village life, on everything from gardening clubs to fishing. Through the whole book larger philosophical issues run. Excellent!

An episode of Black Books had Bernard saying the words 'You'll laugh, you'll cry and it will change your life', at last I have found a book I can recommend in that way. I have read most of de Bermieres' books and up until now Birds Without Wings was my favourite. I think the reason I enjoyed this so much is because it is set in a part of England that I know and visited in my childhood. The early stories are hilarious and had me laughing out loud with their celebration of the English Village as it used to be. Later the stories take on a different tone as village life changes, children, whose families have lived there for generations can no longer afford to stay as the 'yuppy' generation forced up house prices. The last 2 stories in particular actually did make me cry. The village and characters became real people for me and I was sorry to say goodbye as I closed the book.

If you are a fan of de Bernieres then you won't be disapointed with this offering and if you haven't read him before then this would be a perfect starting point.

Notwithstanding is not only the title of Louis De Bernieres latest book it is also really the biggest character in the book. Notwithstanding is a fictional village somewhere in Surrey, England not too far away from the very real Haslemere and Godalming. What the book actually entails is some of the unusual and interesting characters and the stories of what they get up to. It is in fact based on an English village that the author actually lived in when he was younger though this isn't a memoir it's a fictionalised version. It brings to life those English idylls that are very much still out there and celebrates the quirkiness of village life.

The characters are all marvellous in the novel. I say novel but in many ways it reads like a collection of short stories which is what it also is I suppose though characters intertwine with stories and so it comes together as a novel. You have the marvellous mother and son who communicate to each other via walkie talkie... in the same house, Polly Wantage who dresses like a man and spends most of her time out shooting squirrels, several mad dogs, a general who spends most of his time naked, a spiritualist who lives with her sister and ghost of her dead husband and people who confide their biggest secrets with spiders in their garden sheds. It is a huge amount of fun.

Though this isn't just a funny throw away book. Though there is endless humour the book has a real heart, celebrating the ordinary and delighting in the quirky nature of us English folk. The prose is beautiful and makes everything very vivid so in no time I felt like I had newly moved into the village and was `getting to know the neighbours' as it were. I could happily have moved there tomorrow. De Bernieres also experiments in less than 300 pages with various genre's of fiction, there is the comic side but we also have a historical tale of the village of old, a ghost story and a mystery.

There are also some tales which on the outside seem to be fun and light but read on and they become much darker and deeper. Two of the stories moved me greatly and one was incredibly sad. The one which hit me most was that of the naked general who ends up in Waitrose with no pants on, at first I was laughing away and then realised that this isn't a tale of a nudist but a tale of a widowed man who only has his dog for company and is undergoing the onset of Alzheimers. Not so funny then is it, yet in earlier tales its hilarious.

The tale that actually nearly made me cry on two levels was `Rabbit', which also appeared in a collection of shorts by Picador in 2001. This is the tale of friends walking through the fields to find a rabbit with myxomatosis which is described in detail (and is just upsetting) so one of the party decides to go get his gun and put it out of its misery. In doing so the act itself is so horrid to the elderly man it brings back all the killings he endured during his time in the war and even the mercy killing of a friend. A very clever, breathtaking and emotional tale told in just ten pages.

All in all a fanstactic funny, moving and engaing read that makes you laugh, think and possibly cry... oh and want to move to the nearest village as fast as you can.