The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 27th July 2020.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir. Jennifer Ryan.

This appeared to be a very good 'reading group book' in the sense that it provoked very different reactions from the group. Most people seemed to find it 'easy to read', though one commented that it 'took time to get into'.

Those who liked it found it a 'perfect lockdown read', 'interesting', 'enjoyable', and appreciated the change of voice in the diary and letter form of the narrative. Several readers thought that it evoked the atmosphere of the war years well, the rationing and food shortages and the bombing, as well as the women rallying round after their menfolk had all left, and admired the idea of the choir as an antidote to the general depression. Although it was 'more a holiday read than great literature', 'magaziney', or even 'something of a fairy story', the book seemed to get across its points in a very readable fashion. One comment was that 'the story was told with verve'.

Negative criticisms seemed to centre around the point that, although the telling of the story through historical documents was a good one, the character development and the 'voices' narrating through these diaries and letters were unconvincing. One reader described some of the characters as 'flat'; and someone else found them 'overdrawn'. This resulted in lack of interest in them – even at dramatic points in the book such as when two of them were killed in a bombing raid. The descriptive passages in the letters and so on were particularly derided – one reader called it 'frightfully annoying'. The story of the midwife and the baby-swapping was thought rather far-fetched; and some elements of the narrative were also over-predictable, such as Mrs Tilling marrying the Colonel at the end, and the return of Alastair Slater.

Those readers who also sing in choirs as part of their leisure activities didn't find the musical aspects of this book terribly convincing, and the food-related issues did not appear to have been very well researched – e.g., the fact that butter would have been rationed was ignored.

Some did like the happy ending, and others pointed out that this was a first novel and need not be judged too harshly; one reader has obtained the sequel.

This book was read during July 2020 and the continuing social distancing because of the Covid-19 virus, and so the discussion was not 'live' as usual, but took place via a Facebook group, email and telephone conversations.