'The Happy Prisoner' by Monica Dickens

In this compendium plot, Monica Dickens, with her typical attention to detail, humor and talent for creating vivid characters, explores complicated life stories of the close-knit family and their friends at the end of the war. The Happy Prisoner was first published in 1946.

MY THOUGHTS:

I've read quite of bit of Charles Dickens so felt it high time to give his great-granddaughter's fiction a try. This excellent post-war novel, published in 1946, really hit bulls-eye for me. Protagonists must be people whose head spaces we feel happy in for the duration, and her main character, Oliver North, is a legend. It's a fun insight into his frustrating year, as he lies flat on his back in bed, recovering from a war injury.

Oliver, in his late twenties, is hit by a shell which results in the loss of one leg and also grazes his heart. His indulgent mother manages to get him discharged from the army base hospital to convalesce at home. Now he must either figure out new ways to channel his pent-up energy or go crazy. Having time to ponder his family members more closely than ever before, Oliver decides he can surely manage his sisters' love lives for them better than they can. His off-the-cuff pep talks, sometimes verging on snarky, make me grin.  

Sloppy, perpetual tomboy Violet (my favourite character apart from her brother) is considering a sudden marriage proposal and dramatic, moody Heather is dreading the imminent arrival home of her hubby, freed POW John. Oliver's eye-rolling insight into other people's foibles plus some natural tact makes him a sort of unofficial relationship oracle, although he doesn't always get it right.   

Only the attractive young hired nurse, Elizabeth, remains detached, keeping everyone at arm's length. Ollie would love to figure out why she's such an enigma, and what she thinks of him, but there are hints that Elizabeth has her own private reason for keeping quiet. Is she really as aloof as she seems? 

I really appreciate Oliver's periodic brushes with the black dogs of depression and despair, and how he finds they always pass when he waits them out. He has a wry way of putting it to the test.

 'He would try himself out by thinking of all the most irritating things he knew... if he could contemplate all these things with equanimity, he would look at the day before him to see whether it seemed full of possibilities or a dragging cortege of ticking moments. Then he would think about breakfast. If he could pass all these tests, he would pick up his shaving mirror and see how his face adapted itself to a smile, and then, if it were not too early, reach for the bell.' 

And being a fellow bookworm myself, this passage warms my heart too.

 'He went back, distrustfully at first and then with growing enthusiasm, to authors to whom he'd thought himself permanently antagonised at school. He discovered that Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray and Stevenson could transfigure the dreary waste between lunch and tea in which everyone but he seemed able to sleep.' (Notice the subtle shout-out from author Monica Dickens to her great-granddad there.) 

Being set in the forties, there was, of course, no TV in Oliver's room to divert him. That was still about a decade in the future. Oliver really gets proactive about his own, untapped creativity rather than numbing it with the Box. Without even knowing about the modern world, Monica Dickens is a fantastic advocate for reducing our screen time. Because if it'd been our era, I suspect Oliver wouldn't have come out the other side of his crisis with a stimulated imagination and fresh way of thinking. He would've been more inclined to fritter away his days watching mindless sitcoms and scrolling social media. 

Overall, it's an ideal mood-lifting book for any time, but I'd especially recommend it to anyone who has to stay in bed for whatever reason. Our plights are bound to be less dire than Oliver's so his attitude is encouraging. It's the most uplifting tale about an invalid I've come across yet; not a bit sentimental or preachy. And there's something very cool about the way Oliver comes across as the most 'together' sibling, even though he's recently lost a limb. 

What's more, because it's a vintage 20th century British read, we get the benefit of such details as bay windows, watercress sandwiches, Eccles cakes, buttered Marie biscuits and enamel cups with nursery rhymes. I read this in January but already anticipate it'll be one of my top picks for the year. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟