Zennor in Darkness
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Review
'Highly original and beautifully written' Sunday Telegraph
'Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen' Daily Mail
'Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen' Daily Mail
From the Back Cover
'Highly original and beautifully written' Sunday Telegraph
'Helen Dunmore mesmerizes you with her magical pen' Daily Mail
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This tender, moving, profound book really gets into the minds of young people growing up in the First World War, and the magic and sorrow of first love. It is very atmospheric and profound. The insular feel of a small remote Cornish village at that time, with its inevitable suspicion and mistrust of the unfamiliar and foreign, is very well captured. I have read it three times and got more from it each time. A truly beautiful and atmospheric book with great depth.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Helen Dunmore tends to alternate between contemporary and historical fiction. This, her first novel, is in the historical genre, mixing real events and people (the writer D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda, and their short stay at Zennor during World War I) with a completely fictional story, of Clare Coyne, daughter of a poor but aristocratic Catholic father and a working-class Cornish mother, and her love for her cousin John William, a working-class Cornish boy who longs to become a doctor, but becomes badly shell-shocked after terrible experiences at the Front. John William returns to his home at St Ives for a brief period of leave, and it is then that Clare realizes how strong her feelings are for him. But in wartime, no lovers are entirely safe...
This is a remarkably impressive first novel. Dunmore fits the Lawrences into her story very well, and brings them both vividly to life, with none of the awkwardness one often gets when writing about 'real' characters in novels (though Lawrence and Frieda both come across as slightly nicer than I think they may have been in real life; at least if Katherine Mansfield's account of their time in Cornwall is anything to go by). Clare Coyne is a most appealing heroine and Dunmore depicts her situation, caught between the cosy but sometimes prosaic life of her maternal relatives, and the academic abstractions of her father's life, very well. Her rapidly developing love for her cousin is also extremely convincing. The descriptions of Cornwall are beautiful (and, having been several times to that part of the world, I can safely say they are accurate). While there are the occasional lapses from the very high quality of much of this writing (I never quite believed in the scandal the villagers were trying to create about Clare and D.H. Lawrence, for example, and could have done with a little more information on how Clare's father Francis and Clare's mother got together) this is in many ways a deeply satisfying book.
This is a remarkably impressive first novel. Dunmore fits the Lawrences into her story very well, and brings them both vividly to life, with none of the awkwardness one often gets when writing about 'real' characters in novels (though Lawrence and Frieda both come across as slightly nicer than I think they may have been in real life; at least if Katherine Mansfield's account of their time in Cornwall is anything to go by). Clare Coyne is a most appealing heroine and Dunmore depicts her situation, caught between the cosy but sometimes prosaic life of her maternal relatives, and the academic abstractions of her father's life, very well. Her rapidly developing love for her cousin is also extremely convincing. The descriptions of Cornwall are beautiful (and, having been several times to that part of the world, I can safely say they are accurate). While there are the occasional lapses from the very high quality of much of this writing (I never quite believed in the scandal the villagers were trying to create about Clare and D.H. Lawrence, for example, and could have done with a little more information on how Clare's father Francis and Clare's mother got together) this is in many ways a deeply satisfying book.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Deft depiction of an insular, remote community as seen through the eyes of characters who are questioning their roles in an ultimately permanently changed landscape. The backdrop of WWI only heightens the paranoia and xenophobia in Zennor. The main characters also serve as a poignant illustration of all that is lost to the Great War: their vibrancy and closeness to this coastal, rustic way of life acts as a startling counterpoint to its implied horrors.
I found the inclusion of Lawrence and his wife added depth to this overall picture too, but it never dominated the novel. Clare carries the main focus throughout, and leaves us with a sense of the future, and hope, despite all the tragedy. And I particularly liked the depiction of Clare's father who seems to undergo the most moving awakening towards the end.
I found the inclusion of Lawrence and his wife added depth to this overall picture too, but it never dominated the novel. Clare carries the main focus throughout, and leaves us with a sense of the future, and hope, despite all the tragedy. And I particularly liked the depiction of Clare's father who seems to undergo the most moving awakening towards the end.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Worth persevering
I found this book a little slow to start, ended up loving it and read it about 3 times.
The story has various threads, different writing styles and it all ends up being... Read more
The story has various threads, different writing styles and it all ends up being... Read more
Published 24 days ago by Avid_Reader
Overrated
A visit to St Ives and the surrounding area had introduced me to Zennor and the connections of the place with D H Lawrence. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Discerning Reader
Darkness in the soul
This story is set in 1917, the war is ravaging across the water in France but in a part of Cornwall, the effects of it are far-reaching. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Joanne D'Arcy
Zennor in Darkness
This is another masterly work by Helen Dunmore (The Siege etc) Set in WWI it brings the writer DH Lawrence into the narrative. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Aphra Benn
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