Although not necessary, it's helpful to know the story of the Greek gods and goddesses referenced in the frame story. Hephaestus, the god of fire, forges and metalworking was the son of Zeus and Hera. Hephaestus, unlike the other gods and goddesses was very ugly while Aphrodite, the goddess of love was so beautiful that she was desired by most of the other gods. To prevent a war between the many gods seeking to marry her, Zeus forced Aphrodite to marry Hephaestus. As a result, Aphrodite was unfaithful to Hephaestus, having affairs with both gods and men. One of those gods was Ares, the god of war and Hephaestus's brother. To catch his unfaithful wife, Hephaestus designed a golden net which he used to catch Aphrodite and Ares making love.
In Lovely War, Berry sets this illicit romantic encounter in December, 1942 in a swanky hotel in Manhattan, New York. Ares and Aphrodite are captured by Hephaestus who uses his golden net. Hephaestus offers her a bargain, to renounce Ares, come home with him and be a faithful wife or he will take her to be tried before Zeus and the other gods on Mount Olympus. The thought of going on trial before the other gods, especially her virgin sisters Artemis and Athena makes Aphrodite blanche. So she offers him a third option, a trial in the hotel room where Hephaestus can be both judge and jury.Aphrodite pleads guilty and Hephaestus shows her the evidence he has complied of her trysts with Ares. The goddess reveals to Hephaestus and Ares that she doesn't love either of them or anyone else, that although she is the source of love, no one can ever love her, not gods nor mortal men. Instead, Aphrodite is embedded in every love story, true and trivial. So she offers to tell Hephaestus two true love stories, in which she played an important part in bringing about. Hephaestus agrees and so begins the second story, about two couples who fell in love amidst the turmoil and butchery of World War I. As she tells her stories, Aphrodite will call other gods as witnesses.
In November, 2017 nineteen-year-old James Alderich first sees eighteen-year-old Hazel Windicott at a parish dance held at her London borough church, St. Matthias in Poplar. The fall dance is a benefit to send socks and Bovril broth powder to the troops in France. Hazel, the daughter of a music hall pianist and a factory seamstress, is wearing a mauve lace dress. Tonight she is responsible for playing the piano at the dance. She doesn't notice James until Aphrodite sits beside her and directs her gaze towards him. James does approach Hazel, telling her how much he enjoys her playing and when Mabel Kibbey takes over the piano, James and Hazel dance. James and Hazel quickly learn some basic details about one another, that James has two younger siblings, Maggie and Bobby and that he worked for a building firm.
After the dance James asks Hazel if he can see her again before he ships over to France. Hazel agrees, kissing James on the cheek and telling him her address. James decides to walk to her home above the barbershop at the corner of Grundy and Bygrove. Hazel isn't asleep either and when she sees James she drops a note to the pavement telling him to meet her at the J. Lyons tea shop on Chrisp Street at Guildford at 8am. The two meet the next morning, their breakfast filled with discovering the basics about one another. James invites Hazel to attend a concert at the Royal Albert Hall with him the next day.
The concert featuring Miss Adela Verne was divine, James loved the music and Hazel knew this man was for her. Hazel wants James to kiss her but her tells her that he will, only it will be "on the train platform at Charing Cross next Saturday. Before I set off overseas." This however, does not happen as James is required to travel to Calais the next morning, board a ship to Boulogne and then take a train to the British Expeditionary Force base camp at Etaples in France.
Hazel unable to stay quietly at home, waiting for James to return some day from war, decides to join the war effort as an entertainment secretary in a YMCA relief hut in France where she will play piano for soldiers.Hazel arrives in Saint-Nazaire, France on January 4, 1918.It is here that she meets Colette Fournier, a beautiful blond Belgian girl with a sultry voice.
Aphrodite's first witness is Apollo, the god of dance, music, healing and plagues. Apollo's narrative introduces the male half of another couple in Aphrodite's story. It begins back in 1912 at Carnegie Hall where James Reese Europe's Clef Club Orchestra is about to perform a "Concert of Negro Music". The orchestra includes over one hundred performers including fifteen-year-old Aubrey Edwards who plays piano. Aubrey discovers his love of performing that night. Five years later Aubrey is playing for the now Lieutenant James R. Europe in the Army Band of the Army National Guard, 15th New York Infantry Regiment in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Their black regiment is stationed at Camp Wadsworth. Aubrey and his friend Joey Rice had enlisted in the regiment in the spring of 1917, to play ragtime with Jim Europe for the troops over in Europe. In early January of 1918, Aubrey Edwards along with forty soldiers from the 15th New York travel across the Atlantic Ocean on the USS Pocahontas, and then travel by train to Saint-Nazaire, the American military training base on the coast of France. It is here that Aubrey will meet Colette.
Aphrodite's second witness, Ares, who tells about James's training for trench warfare and his ability to excel at shooting, a skill that will save his life later on.
Her third witness is Hades, god of the underworld. Aphrodite now begins her story about Colette Fournier, a girl who, in 1914 lived in the town of Dinant, Belgium with her brother Alexandre and her parents. In 1914, Colette's childhood and best friend, Stephane has fallen in love with her. On a walk up to the medieval citadel overlooking the town, Stephane tells Colette of his feelings for her leading to their first kiss. Ares and Hades take up the story. The young couple, hopelessly in love, do not see the tragedy about to overtake them. On August 15, after the citadel is captured by the Germans, it is quickly retaken by the French. On August 23, Germans enter the village setting fire to homes, and executing men, women children and babies in retaliation for firing on German troops. Almost seven hundred civilians are massacred including Colette's father, her brother and many other relatives as well as Stephane. In the aftermath, Colette flees to her Aunt Solange in Paris where she enlists into the YMCA, arriving at Saint-Nazaire.
At Saint-Nazaire, Hazel and Colette meet Aubrey Edwards who Hazel dubs "The King of American Ragtime" for his ability to transform any piece of music into jazz. But it is Colette and Aubrey who are taken with one another and who begin a forbidden relationship because Colette is a white female volunteer and Aubrey a black male soldier. Volunteers are forbidden to fraternize with the soldiers and even more so white women and black men. But Aubrey, transfixed by Colette's voice, stung by the tragedy she has endured, falls for her.
At this point all the main characters have been introduced and their connection to one another described. James is at the front, now a sharpshooter, Hazel and Colette and Aubrey are at Saint-Nazaire. From this point on Aphrodite weaves her story of prejudice, love, war, and death. With the help of Apollo, Ares and Hades the story of Hazel and James and Aubrey and Colette is brought to its satisfying conclusion.
Discussion
Lovely War is a mashup of Greek mythology and historical romance fiction that works marvelously. Berry has crafted a poignant novel that blends the passion of first love with the horrors of war and prejudice. It is a masterful story of acceptance, loss, and second chances told by Aphrodite, the goddess of love who has been caught in a tryst with Ares, the god of war by her husband Hephaestus.
It turns out the entire thing is a setup in an attempt by Aphrodite to get Hephaestus to accept her love for him. Readers don't learn of this until the very end, when Aphrodite confronts Hephaestus. For the gods, perfect in every way (except for Hephaestus), love is easy but shallow. It's easy to love Aphrodite, perfectly beautiful and desirable. Aphrodite envies mortal men because their frailty and mortality make love true and enduring, something she cannot experience as a god. Her story is told in an attempt to teach the other gods what real love is.
Although Aphrodite tells the tale of two couples, the focus is on the story of Hazel Windicott and James Alderidge's relationship. In the beginning, James and Hazel are attracted to one another in a somewhat superficial manner. They find each other attractive. When Hazel meets James he is wearing a forest-green necktie and a gray tweed jacket. His figure is slim, his face grave, his shoes shined and his dress shirt crisp. His lean, smooth cheeks look soft and he has "the scent of bay rum aftershave and clean, ironed cloth..." about him. James is entranced by Hazel's exquisite piano playing, her lilac-scented hair, her mauve lace dress. Their feelings for one another are intense but will need the passage of time to develop. The few times they are together both before and during the war, see their affection for one another grow. But it will be soon tested in the furnace of war.
Involved in Operation Michael, the German offensive intended to break through the Allied lines and seize the Channel Ports, James sees his friend Frank Mason blown to bits by a shell. James survives, killing many Germans but is so shell-shocked he refuses to leave his bunker and is eventually carried out by another soldier. He is shipped back to England to Maudsley Military Hospital where he spends a few weeks before being sent home. James, suffering from shell shock refuses to respond to Hazel's letter or to see her. He decides he is unfit for her affection and he must kill it. "He was no more eligible for the love of any girl, good or bad. He was on a shell of a man. A shell of a boy, cringing in the small bed in his childhood bedroom in his parents' home. Utterly unfit to be what any girl might want now."
Hazel however feels very differently. She visits his hometown and upon their first meeting she tells him, "I came to see if you were alive,...and to be with you, if I could, to help you with your recovery, if you weren't well." Hazel's love for James is not superficial, she has no intention of abandoning him simply because he is unwell. "The sight of him frightened her. He looked pale and thinner than in Paris. And he was changed.....But he was still her beautiful James." It soon becomes apparent to Hazel that James' scars are deep and hidden. This doesn't matter to her and she pursues James, following him on the train to Lowescroft as he goes to see Frank Mason's widow. Hazel's faithfulness allows James to begin to heal, knowing that he is loved unconditionally. James' kindness towards Frank Mason's widow is returned when Frank appears to him as he and Hazel are on the beach. Frank urges James not to give up Hazel, that she will help him heal. James tells Hazel, "You know that I can never be the boy you used to know...What I've done, and what I've seen, will always be with me." Her response is to ask him to let her too always be with him.
Only months later, the tables are turned. Hazel almost loses her life (Aphrodite intervenes) when the train she is on is hit by a shell. Hazel is badly injured and her face deeply scared. In contrast to James' wounds, Hazel's are exposed, can be seen by all and will never get better. Now it is Hazel's turn to refuse love. She tells him "I can't let you promise our forever to this out of pity, or noble duty." Echoing James' words only months ago she tells him "I'll never be the same..." Hazel seems to think that James is better and therefore should not burden himself. James challenges this notion, pointing out that he still struggles. He points out that just as she could see past his wounds, so he can see past hers, despite them being more visible. He admonishes Hazel, telling her that she has no right to ask him to stop loving her. The war has changed them both, but their love has grown to accept those changes.
In the relationship of Aubrey and Colette, Berry explores interracial love, between a black American man and a white French woman, very forbidden in 1918. Such relationships were severely punished during this era. When the American marines learn that Aubrey has been seeing a white woman, he is targeted for death. In a twist of fate, it is his best friend Joey who dies. Aubrey is shipped out to another city in an effort to save his life. Discouraged and racked with guilt over his friend's death, Aubrey decides to abandon his relationship with Colette but Aphrodite has other plans and will not see her efforts thwarted.
Lovely War is a multi-layered novel that explores the depth and challenges of love, and the unlimited strength of the human spirit. Through her work with Hazel and James, and Colette and Aubrey, Aphrodite demonstrates to her fellow gods how human love, tried in the furnace of conflict, misunderstanding, physical and emotional trauma, can blossom and become an enduring love.
Berry's novel sets these relationships within the turmoil of World War I, although the gods themselves are currently meeting during World War II. The title of the novel, Lovely War, is taken from a World War I song, "Oh, Its a lovely war" performed by Courtland and Jeffries. It's purpose was support troop moral in the trenches but also to promote the idea that joining the war effort was exciting and fun. Berry's considerable research is evident in the realistic portrayal of war, in this case, the Great War, a conflict that was touted as the war to end all wars. Berry portrays the life of soldiers as they prepare (mostly inadequately) for hand to hand battle, which they never really encountered. Also well portrayed is the physical and psychological trauma of trench warfare as experienced by James Alderidge, and the culture around war in the early 20th century. She also portrays civilian life in England, America and France during this time, the social norms that were common and how women contributed to the war effort. Berry touches on the atrocities of war, mentioning the Dinant massacre by Germans and how this would have effected those like Colette who survived. 1918 saw the beginnings of what was to be come the Jazz Age and Berry's makes mention of soldiers becoming ill, the beginning of the influenza epidemic that kill millions.
Despite this, Lovely War ends on a hopeful note mainly because of the enduring spirit of both Hazel and James, and Colette and Aubrey, who marry and have families. As well Aphrodite begs Hades not to undo her work and to leave their children untouched as they fight in the current war, World War II.
At a whopping 450 + pages, Lovely War is clearly one of the best young adult novels written in the past few years and is not to be missed. Readers will revel in the romance, the detail, and find themselves thoroughly engaged to the finale.
For more information on the Battle of Dinant please see The Capture and Punishment of Dinant, 1914.
Book Details:
Lovely War by Julie Berry
New York Viking 2019
468 pp
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