The Clouds Above: A Novel of Love and War - Hardcover

Greig, Andrew

3.65

52 ratings by Goodreads

9780743206402: The Clouds Above: A Novel of Love and War

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743206401 ISBN 13: 9780743206402

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2001

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The Clouds Above is not only a love story set during the Battle of Britain, but also of the battle itself. Andrew Greig recreates with sure touch that extraordinary summer when Great Britain's survival lay in the hands of two thousand or so very young men. The aerial combat scenes are so vivid that to read this book is to be with these men up in the blue sky, where ten seconds is a very long time and everything happens in a rush of adrenaline and terror.
Len, a Royal Air Force Sergeant pilot, and Tadeusz, a Polish pilot serving in the RAF, are thrown directly into the fierce struggle with the Luftwaffe. Despite their obvious differences, they become close friends, each aware that neither of them is likely to survive.
In this tumultuous and uncertain time Len falls in love with Stella, a young WAAF radar operator. She is trying to endure her own war: making the transition from a sedate middle-class English life to service life with other young women, being bombed and seeing her fellow WAAFs killed, listening to young men die every day, and trying to find an intense, if brief, happiness with a young man who risks his life daily.
In chapters alternately narrated by the two young lovers, Len and Stella wrestle with the foolhardiness of a romance in wartime, even as the battle in the sky intensifies.

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About the Author:

Andrew Greig is the prize-winning author of five poetry collections and several novels. He lives in the Orkney Islands, Scotland.

From Publishers Weekly:

From Scottish poet and novelist Greig (When They Lay Bare) comes this intensely lyrical and nostalgic novel of wartime love between a young RAF pilot and a comely radar trainee in 1940s England. When Sgt. Len Westbourne meets university-educated Stella Gardam at an RAF dance, it's probable that the difference in their social classes will preclude an intimate relationship. But as bombs begin to rain down on England, and dogfights erupt in the sky, their hesitant romance blossoms into something far more serious. Despite the wartime atmosphere, there's a curious lack of tension in Len and Stella's affair, but eventually their cautious avowal of love illustrates the real poignancy of common wartime liaisons. There are some moments in which Greig seems on the verge of capturing something unique and delicate, but the frequent changes in point of view somewhat dissipate the drama. Rather than focus on the urgency driving the lovers into each other's arms, Greig conveys the day-to-day details of wartime, the weariness and the fear, an atmosphere that grounds the tale in reality. The liveliest characters are Stella's buoyant friend Maddy and Len's equally boisterous counterpart, Polish pilot Tad, both of whom meet sad ends. With the WWII setting, the romance amid chaos and the author's previous work as a poet, the publisher is obviously hoping for comparisons with The English Patient. While Greig isn't quite a match for Ondaatje, his narrative slowly acquires depth and poignancy, and is sure to appeal to those in "the vanishing generation" to whom Greig dedicates his novel, who recall those days of courage and glory and loss.

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