[parsig9]

I've always prefered to get my history of all kinds and aviation and war stories through non fiction accounts. Over the last few years I read some Follett spy books and loved them though. This led me to find Len Deighton. I read SS/GB and just finished Goodbye Mickey Mouse. The newest one I picked up is Winter, which has some excellent accounts of Zeppelins and their raids over London.


I thought it might be fun to talk about GMM and Winter as they both have some interest for aviation buffs. Not done with Winter yet though.

GMM: A very realistic, well researched, yet depressing look at the life of WWII aviators stationed in England I thought. A little more romance and father/son relationship stuff than I thought I needed but it made for a deeper charatcter(s). Is it that the author just wanted to leave us with the feeling of pointlessness that is war or what, because I thought the ending was just dissapointing. Randomness was very important in WWII as one minute your at a dance or playing cards and the next you're flying for your life or dead. He did a good job showing the reader how important it was for these young men to live each day like it was thier last I thought. It didn't always read like fiction.

[bsmith13]

You know, I read GBMM quite a while a go, and it began a trend with me.

I've read quite a bit of historical fiction, from O'Brian's "Master and Commander" through the Hornblower saga, Sharpe's Rifles, a few on the American Civil War, Derek Robinson's WWI and WWI books and a few others up to and including the subject of Viet Nam. I like the genre. GBMM was the first one I read, and it began the process of making me wary of the author's agenda when writing the book.

The problem with historical fiction vs biography or historical accounts is that you can never be sure what it is the author wants you to take away from his/her account. Are they pushing a political agenda? Are they criticizing a certain topic ex post facto? Or are they merely spectating? And if they are spectating, why didn't they just leave out the fiction aspect?

There are a lot of things I liked about GBMM, especially about the accounts of combatand life at a base in England. But I admit that I prefer something more along the lines of "To Fly and Fight" or even the slightly more naive "Fly for your Life" to WWII historical fiction.

The one exception I have found is "Love and Glory: The Death of a Torpedo Squadron" by Alvin Kernan. Mr. Kernan was actually there for the events that he describes, so his "agenda" is fairly easy to ascertain. His ability to mix fictional characters with factual is so good that it is sometimes hard to determine which is which, unless you have some foreknowledge of the subject.

[Bluenosed Bastard]

I read GBMM back in 1990 and I liked it so much that I read it a couple of more times since then!!!!

[Migmauler]

Loved GBMM after I read it from the public library and I even bought a hardback copy off e-bay to add to my personal library.

[parsig9]

Originally Posted by bsmith13

Are they pushing a political agenda? Are they criticizing a certain topic ex post facto?

Or is he working out emotional issues he had with his father and his old girlfriend/wife. Seems that in GBMM and Winter too, children are ignored by their parents, husbands and wives are not faithful to each other and every family is totally disfunctional. Is this a philosophy of his or does it just play well with readers as a formula and create good drama?

So many missed opportunities and stories of lost what ifs. I guess, to a large degree that is the story of the 1st half of the 20th C. as generations of young hopes and dreams and children were lost on the battlefields of Europe. Makes for a tough read though. Where's Tomyboy?