The Passing Bells (67 page)

  

He drove up to Flanders in the early summer of 1921 knowing that it would be for the last time. He had finally, after nearly four years, reconciled himself to the unalterable fact that she was dead.

So begins this haunting novel of war's aftermath and the search for love and hope in a world totally changed. A generation has been lost on the Western Front. The dead have been buried, a harsh peace forged, and the howl of shells replaced by the wail of saxophones as the Jazz Age begins. But ghosts linger—that long-ago golden summer of 1914 tugging at the memory of Martin Rilke and his British cousins, the Grevilles.

From the countess to the chauffeur, the inhabitants of Abingdon Pryory seek to forget the past and adjust their lives to a new era in which old values have been irretrievably swept away. Charles Greville suffers from acute shell shock and his friend Colonel Wood-Lacy is exiled to faraway army outposts, while Alexandra Greville finds new love with an unlikely suitor; and to overcome the loss of his wife, Martin Rilke throws himself into reporting, discovering unsettling currents in the German political scene. Their stories unfold against England's most gracious manor house, the steamy nightclubs of London's Soho, and the despair of Germany. Lives are renewed, new loves found, and a future of peace and happiness is glimpsed—for the moment.

  

The final installment of the saga of the Grevilles of Abingdon begins in the early 1930s, as the dizzy gaiety of the Jazz Age comes to a shattering end. What follows is a decade of change and uncertainty, as the younger generation, born during or just after “the war to end all wars,” comes of age: the beautiful Wood-Lacy twins, Jennifer and Victoria, and their passionate younger sister, Kate; Derek Ramsey, born only weeks after his father fell in France; and the American writer Martin Rilke, who will overcome his questionable heritage with the worldwide fame that will soon come to him. In their heady youth and bittersweet growth to adulthood, they are the future—but the shadows that touched the lives of the generation before are destined to reach out to their own, as German bombers course toward England.

Discussion Questions

  1.   The “passing bells” of the title refer to bells tolled to announce a death; the book's epigraph reads, “Let there be rung the passing bells to call the living, to mourn the dead.” Why do you think Phillip Rock chose to title the novel based on this idea?

  2.   In Book One, what seems to be the attitude of the Grevilles and their contemporaries toward the war—especially Charles Greville, Roger Wood-Lacy, and Fenton Wood-Lacy? How do they envision it?

  3.   Martin Rilke's diary entries are embedded throughout the novel. Why do you think the author included Martin's reflections? What did you learn from his perspective on events?

  4.   Did you find Joseph Golden a sympathetic character? What is his attitude toward politics and the newspaper's role? Do you find Golden's perspective realistic or cynical?

  5.   How does Alexandra Greville change as a result of becoming involved with the war effort? Were you surprised by her actions? Do you think she would have made the same decisions if she had met Robin Mackendric before the war?

  6.   In what ways does the war seem to disrupt the established social order in this novel? What challenges or opportunities does it present, for both upper-class characters like Alexandra and lower-class employees like Ivy Thaxton and Jaimie Ross?

  7.   Lord Stanmore stiffly dismisses Jaimie Ross's suggestion that he learn to do his own driving, since the war has taken all of the eligible chauffeurs from the village. Why do you think he is so opposed to the changes brought on by the war?

  8.   The battle and hospital scenes witnessed by Charles, Fenton, Martin, and even Alexandra are an abrupt departure from the bucolic setting of Abingdon Pryory. What effect does the author achieve with this juxtaposition?

  9.   At the beginning of the novel, Charles Greville and Roger Wood-Lacy are scholars with seemingly romantic ideas. How is Charles affected by the reality of his wartime experience? What did you think of his actions at the end of the novel? Did he do the right thing?

10.   Why do Fenton, Martin, and Jacob carry out the plan begun by Charles? What do they hope the book will achieve, if anything?

11.   In what ways do you think the Grevilles will be able to return to life as it was in the summer of 1914? In what ways will it never be the same?

12.   Wilfred Owen was an English poet and soldier who served in the war and was killed in 1918. His realistic poetry described the horrors of trench warfare and contradicted public perception of the war. How do the themes of the novel echo Owen's “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” found on the following page, which famously opens with a reference to “passing-bells”?

Read on

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Written in 1917, published posthumously in 1920.

An Excerpt from
Circles of Time

T
HE NEXT NOVEL
in the Passing Bells series featuring the beloved Greville family, their household, and their friends in the aftermath of the Great War.

1

He drove up to Flanders in the early summer of 1921 knowing that it would be for the last time. He had finally, after nearly four years, reconciled himself to the unalterable fact that she was dead.

He drove slowly from Paris along the dusty, poplar-lined road to Amiens. All of his belongings had been shipped the week before to London and he carried nothing but a few clean shirts, some underwear and socks in a battered leather bag. He felt a peculiar sense of freedom, as though the past had finally been left behind and all the ghosts that had haunted him for so long had been laid to rest. In Amiens, there were tourist buses lined up in front of the Cafe Flor waiting to take sightseers out to the old trenches along the Somme. He stopped for a sandwich and a glass of wine and watched the people—mostly middleaged Americans and English—board the buses with their cameras and binoculars.He felt dispassionate about the sight. It had bothered him greatly in the past, but now it didn't matter. It was just a tourist attraction they were off to visit. No different, in a way, from any other ruin or relic of history.

That it
was
different, few people knew better than himself. He had witnessed the war almost from the first day, a lowly twenty-three-year-old theater reviewer for the Chicago
Express
, picked to be their war correspondent because fate had placed him in Europe when the German Army crossed into Belgium in the summer of 1914. The editor of the
Express
could have sent a more experienced man, but he believed the war would be over in six weeks—three months at the outside—and vacationing Martin Rilke was on the spot, and could speak French and German besides.