Publication
Vintage Books (2012)
Original publication date
2012-10-25
Collections
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2014)
Maine Readers' Choice Award (Longlist — 2014)
New South Wales Premier's Literary Award (Shortlist — 2013)
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction (Shortlist — 2013)
Warwick Prize for Writing (Longlist — 2013)
Australian Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — Literary Fiction — 2013)
Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award (Winner — 2012)
Miles Franklin Literary Award (Longlist — 2013)
Description
"From the acclaimed author of Schindlers List comes the epic, unforgettable story of two sisters whose lives are transformed by the cataclysm of the First World War. In 1915, Naomi and Sally Durance, two spirited Australian sisters, join the war effort as nurses, escaping the confines of their fathers farm and carrying a guilty secret with them. Though they are used to tending the sick, nothing could have prepared them for what they confront, first on a hospital ship near Gallipoli, then on the Western Front. Yet amid the carnage, the sisters become the friends they never were at home and find themselves courageous in the face of extreme danger and also the hostility from some on their own side. There is great bravery, humor, and compassion, too, and the inspiring example of the remarkable women they serve alongside. In France, where Naomi nurses in a hospital set up by the eccentric Lady Tarlton while Sally works in a casualty clearing station, each meets an exceptional man: the kind of men for whom they might give up some of their newfound independence if only they all survive. At once vast in scope and extraordinarily intimate, The Daughters of Mars brings World War I vividly to life from an uncommon perspective. Thomas Keneally has written a remarkable novel about suffering and transcendence, despair and triumph, and the simple acts of decency that make us human even in a world gone mad"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member brenzi
”She could hear the bombers now, in amongst the background thunder of guns, the Archies close by and the seamless rage of the barrage at the front. She waited a second and then placed her head in a groove between two stone moldings and began to shudder at the awful perversion of things---of sky
I’ve been doing a lot of WWI reading this year, both fiction and non-fiction, and Thomas Keneally’s powerful novel has come close to being the perfect vehicle for making me feel as though I am actually among the war participants. Keneally chose to focus his attention on the story of two Australians, the Durrance sisters, who volunteer as nurses in first, Gallipoli and Lemnos and later in the bloodbath known as the Western Front, like thousands of other Australian women who served in hospital ships and triage stations very near the front. The fact that Sally and Naomi carry an uneasy secret that has served to keep them at odds adds another element of narrative conflict that only serves to heighten the interest.
Keneally maintains a steadily increasing sense of horror as the chapters tick by, and the bodies pile up. His descriptions of the sinking of the hospital ship, Archimedes, by a German U-boat, had me holding my breath as his evocative powers enthralled. The man has an astute sense of pacing. And as the ship’s occupants gamely try to escape the ship, Keneally gives us this:
”Sally’s boat---descending by its hausers---now picked up too much downward speed. Looking over the gunwales she saw that because of the growing steepness of the deck her sister’s boat had swung in part below hers and had stuck in place, dipping unevenly. A mere instant later it dropped hectically and splashed into the sea. The ship was nose down and Sally saw that her boat would slam the stern of her sister’s and Mitchie’s unless it could be detached from its hawsers and rowed clear. Still attached to the Archimedes by its thick cables, the boat below them---with her sister in it---now turned crazily beam on and crosswise.” (Page 135)
At the same time, the strained relationship between the sisters seems to improve amid the chaos until they face up to the demon that’s between them and find resolution and that long sought commodity, love.
There’s so much going on in this very powerful look at WWI through the eyes of those not directly at the front, but within a stone’s throw of the carnage that all I can do is urge you to look for it sooner rather than later. Not everyone is going to be thrilled with the very cryptic ending but for me it was absolutely brilliant. Very highly recommended.
Show More
not permitted to be sky, of air not permitted to be air.” (Page 465)I’ve been doing a lot of WWI reading this year, both fiction and non-fiction, and Thomas Keneally’s powerful novel has come close to being the perfect vehicle for making me feel as though I am actually among the war participants. Keneally chose to focus his attention on the story of two Australians, the Durrance sisters, who volunteer as nurses in first, Gallipoli and Lemnos and later in the bloodbath known as the Western Front, like thousands of other Australian women who served in hospital ships and triage stations very near the front. The fact that Sally and Naomi carry an uneasy secret that has served to keep them at odds adds another element of narrative conflict that only serves to heighten the interest.
Keneally maintains a steadily increasing sense of horror as the chapters tick by, and the bodies pile up. His descriptions of the sinking of the hospital ship, Archimedes, by a German U-boat, had me holding my breath as his evocative powers enthralled. The man has an astute sense of pacing. And as the ship’s occupants gamely try to escape the ship, Keneally gives us this:
”Sally’s boat---descending by its hausers---now picked up too much downward speed. Looking over the gunwales she saw that because of the growing steepness of the deck her sister’s boat had swung in part below hers and had stuck in place, dipping unevenly. A mere instant later it dropped hectically and splashed into the sea. The ship was nose down and Sally saw that her boat would slam the stern of her sister’s and Mitchie’s unless it could be detached from its hawsers and rowed clear. Still attached to the Archimedes by its thick cables, the boat below them---with her sister in it---now turned crazily beam on and crosswise.” (Page 135)
At the same time, the strained relationship between the sisters seems to improve amid the chaos until they face up to the demon that’s between them and find resolution and that long sought commodity, love.
There’s so much going on in this very powerful look at WWI through the eyes of those not directly at the front, but within a stone’s throw of the carnage that all I can do is urge you to look for it sooner rather than later. Not everyone is going to be thrilled with the very cryptic ending but for me it was absolutely brilliant. Very highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Chatterbox
This turned out to be one of the best works of fiction that I have read this year, and one that was impossible to put down until it was over.
At the heart of the book are the two Durance girls (yes, the name is clearly well chosen, and the near-pun nodded at early on in the narrative and then
Overall, this is probably one of the most impressive novels I have read about war that isn't about conflict itself, but rather life on the fringes of war and dealing with its detritus. "There's no rest for anyone until it's all over," one character points out testily later in the novel. "Unless it's the sort of final rest they dish out in Flanders and on the Somme." That's the tone throughout: even dealing with events and topics that would lead a lesser writer to bog down in sentimental claptrap, Keneally's tone remains wry, replete with this kind of very real, vivid and ironic humor. When the Durance girls and their fellow nurses form romantic relationships, that isn't a cue for hearts and flowers or tragic melodrama; courtship is understated and formal and all the more convincing for that. There is a sense that these people have been brought by the horrors of war to understand what it is that is important and what is peripheral.
Keneally's writing is pitch perfect, and so often exactly the kind of deadpan pragmatism that I tend to associate with Australians. "There are only two choices, you know," Naomi tells her sister Sally at one point. "Either die or live well. We live on behalf of thousands who don't. Millions. So let's not mope about it, eh?" That kind of relentless unsentimentality, coupled with the author's ability to capture so vividly the realities of warfare and wartime nursing a century ago, is awe-inspiring in a book of this kind.
A must-read. Every year I find a very, very small handful of books that I want to jump up and down and celebrate and insist that everyone else read. This is one of 'em for 2013. If you're remotely interested in the topic, the author or the type of narrative, miss it at your peril.
At the heart of the book are the two Durance girls (yes, the name is clearly well chosen, and the near-pun nodded at early on in the narrative and then
Show More
discarded), both of whom are nurses and both of whom volunteer to go off to war, first to Gallipoli and Alexandria, and then the Western Front. The Durance girls are ill at ease with each other, with tensions of various kinds underpinning their relationship, but in extremis they form new and to the reader very moving bonds. None of this is sentimentalized or easy, any more than are their relationships with those around them. The Durance girls, it is said of them, are cool and aloof, and whether it's shyness, reserve or something else, forming close ties with others simply isn't something they do readily. War brings them to life by bringing to them a sense of purpose even as it creates in them a sense of despair. "Young men were smashed for obscure purposes and repaired and smashed again," Naomi Durance muses.Overall, this is probably one of the most impressive novels I have read about war that isn't about conflict itself, but rather life on the fringes of war and dealing with its detritus. "There's no rest for anyone until it's all over," one character points out testily later in the novel. "Unless it's the sort of final rest they dish out in Flanders and on the Somme." That's the tone throughout: even dealing with events and topics that would lead a lesser writer to bog down in sentimental claptrap, Keneally's tone remains wry, replete with this kind of very real, vivid and ironic humor. When the Durance girls and their fellow nurses form romantic relationships, that isn't a cue for hearts and flowers or tragic melodrama; courtship is understated and formal and all the more convincing for that. There is a sense that these people have been brought by the horrors of war to understand what it is that is important and what is peripheral.
Keneally's writing is pitch perfect, and so often exactly the kind of deadpan pragmatism that I tend to associate with Australians. "There are only two choices, you know," Naomi tells her sister Sally at one point. "Either die or live well. We live on behalf of thousands who don't. Millions. So let's not mope about it, eh?" That kind of relentless unsentimentality, coupled with the author's ability to capture so vividly the realities of warfare and wartime nursing a century ago, is awe-inspiring in a book of this kind.
A must-read. Every year I find a very, very small handful of books that I want to jump up and down and celebrate and insist that everyone else read. This is one of 'em for 2013. If you're remotely interested in the topic, the author or the type of narrative, miss it at your peril.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Daughters of Mars is Thomas Keneally’s epic story of World War I as seen through the eyes of two Australian sisters, Naomi and Sally, who are nurses that enlist. Carried first to Egypt, and then to the Dardanelles to nurse men savaged by the fighting at Gallipoli. Originally they are on the
The sisters originally have a rather strained relationship due to their sharing of a family secret but being constantly together and sharing the conditions and horrors of battlefield nursing draws them closer and they develop a friendship that strengthens their bond. Eventually they are moved on to France with Naomi in an English run hospital, Sally originally in an Australian and then transferred to a casualty clearing station. The author covers the Durance sisters war experience from 1914 to 1918 in great detail, but even at it’s most intense, there was a detachment or a distance between the reader and the events being portrayed that kept me from being totally swept away by this story.
Overall, as one would expect, this is a grim but powerful book. The author doesn’t hold back in his descriptions of the horror of untreatable wounds, the lack of medical equipment, the unflinching assembly line treatment that many soldiers received. But this is also the story of two women, their longing for new horizons, their lack of preparation for the butchery that they had to deal with, their relationship with each other and with the people that they meet along the way.
The Daughters of Mars is both a sweeping epic and a smaller more intimate revealing of these two woman’s lives. This was an excellent read, but a couple of quibbles kept it from getting five stars, one was the distance from the story that I felt during the reading, and the second is the divided ending of which I wasn’t a fan. However, seeing the war from this mostly medical viewpoint really brought home to me the ultimate cost in terms of human lives forever damaged and lost.
Show More
hospital ship Archimedes, but eventually the army can’t resist using the hospital ship as a means to transport troops and horses to the front and they are torpedoed and sank. The sisters survive, but then are placed on the island of Lemnos and put under the control of a colonel who doesn’t think battlefield nursing is meant for women. The sisters originally have a rather strained relationship due to their sharing of a family secret but being constantly together and sharing the conditions and horrors of battlefield nursing draws them closer and they develop a friendship that strengthens their bond. Eventually they are moved on to France with Naomi in an English run hospital, Sally originally in an Australian and then transferred to a casualty clearing station. The author covers the Durance sisters war experience from 1914 to 1918 in great detail, but even at it’s most intense, there was a detachment or a distance between the reader and the events being portrayed that kept me from being totally swept away by this story.
Overall, as one would expect, this is a grim but powerful book. The author doesn’t hold back in his descriptions of the horror of untreatable wounds, the lack of medical equipment, the unflinching assembly line treatment that many soldiers received. But this is also the story of two women, their longing for new horizons, their lack of preparation for the butchery that they had to deal with, their relationship with each other and with the people that they meet along the way.
The Daughters of Mars is both a sweeping epic and a smaller more intimate revealing of these two woman’s lives. This was an excellent read, but a couple of quibbles kept it from getting five stars, one was the distance from the story that I felt during the reading, and the second is the divided ending of which I wasn’t a fan. However, seeing the war from this mostly medical viewpoint really brought home to me the ultimate cost in terms of human lives forever damaged and lost.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Jonri
Daughters of Mars tells the story of two Australian sisters. Both are nurses. The older one goes off to Sydney to work in a hospital there. The younger one remains at home in a small farming community caring for her parents while working in the local hospital. Near the beginning of the book, their
Both sisters are accepted into the military and begin their military nursing careers together. They serve in Gallipoli and France trying to save the lives of soldiers who are often horribly injured and disfigured. The large cast of characters includes, among others, the group of nurses they begin their military careers with, their "matron"--nursing supervisor--and the soldiers they meet and sometimes fall in love with. The book does an excellent job conveying the horrors of war.
I genuinely enjoyed this book. However, 3 issues kept it from being a great book. The first is the description of the death of the mother and the way in which the author uses it to explain the estrangement between the sisters. It's as if Keneally wanted the sisters to be estranged at the outset and came up with a plot device to explain the estrangement and later reconciliation. Neither the circumstances of the death nor the ways in which it affects the sisters later ring true. The second is the ending, which I loathed.
The biggest problem though is the portrayal of the sisters. It's my experience that few male authors can portray the interior lives of women well and I shall not be adding Keneally to the list. When the author is describing events that occur the novel is excellent. When he tries to explain how the sisters process these events, he's less successful. The sisters, who are meant to be so different, do not emerge as distinctive personalities. To the extent that there are differences between them they are explained in large part by their different understandings of the death of their mother. Nor does the novel really explain the way in which the sisters's estrangement is ended by the war. I found the way in which one of the sisters reacts when they discover their different perceptions of their mother's death entirely unbelievable. Again that added to my feeling that the death of their mother was the deus ex machina for the plot line.
Despite these criticisms, this is a very good book--it's just not a great one.
Show More
mother dies and the circumstances of her death create a divide of sorts between the sisters. When the Australian government calls for nurses to serve in World War I, both sisters want to go. The older one tells the younger one that she should stay behind and care for their widower father. The younger defies her, thus deepening the rift between them.Both sisters are accepted into the military and begin their military nursing careers together. They serve in Gallipoli and France trying to save the lives of soldiers who are often horribly injured and disfigured. The large cast of characters includes, among others, the group of nurses they begin their military careers with, their "matron"--nursing supervisor--and the soldiers they meet and sometimes fall in love with. The book does an excellent job conveying the horrors of war.
I genuinely enjoyed this book. However, 3 issues kept it from being a great book. The first is the description of the death of the mother and the way in which the author uses it to explain the estrangement between the sisters. It's as if Keneally wanted the sisters to be estranged at the outset and came up with a plot device to explain the estrangement and later reconciliation. Neither the circumstances of the death nor the ways in which it affects the sisters later ring true. The second is the ending, which I loathed.
The biggest problem though is the portrayal of the sisters. It's my experience that few male authors can portray the interior lives of women well and I shall not be adding Keneally to the list. When the author is describing events that occur the novel is excellent. When he tries to explain how the sisters process these events, he's less successful. The sisters, who are meant to be so different, do not emerge as distinctive personalities. To the extent that there are differences between them they are explained in large part by their different understandings of the death of their mother. Nor does the novel really explain the way in which the sisters's estrangement is ended by the war. I found the way in which one of the sisters reacts when they discover their different perceptions of their mother's death entirely unbelievable. Again that added to my feeling that the death of their mother was the deus ex machina for the plot line.
Despite these criticisms, this is a very good book--it's just not a great one.
Show Less
LibraryThing member KimMR
I picked up this novel from my local bookstore shortly after it was published in September last year, not because of any particular interest in or knowledge about the involvement of nurses in World War I, but because I respect Thomas Keneally as a writer and and hadn't read any of his work for a
Show More
while. It took me several months to start reading the book and a hour or two of reading it to decide that I was going to like it. For the past two days I haven't wanted to put it down. Keneally's main characters are sisters Naomi and Sally Durance, nurses from an Australian country town, who are pulled together and pushed apart by a shared family secret. When World War I breaks out, they volunteer to join the Australian Army Nursing Service, which was part of the Army's medical corps. The sisters are initially sent to Egypt and later work on a hospital ship and then on an island in the Mediterranean, caring for soldiers injured in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Later, they work in France: Naomi in a hospital run by an English volunteer, Sally in an Australian Army hospital and then in a casualty clearing station close to the front line. Keneally details their experiences from 1914 to 1918 and the experiences of the young men and women whom they meet and with whom they work.
This is not a cheery tale. That's not to say that it doesn't have its lighter moments, but the story is a grim one. There are some distressing scenes describing war injuries, their treatment and their effects. And while the nurses necessarily work behind the front line, they are not immune from the direct consequences of battle. Suffice to say that a number of scenes made me weep. Keneally's prose is powerful and he has a gift for describing momentous scenes in relatively few words. I read a professional review of the novel which highlighted a couple of linguistic anachronisms. While I accept that they are there, I didn't notice them as I read, which confirms how engaged I was with the characters and the story. Readers should know that Keneally does not use quotation marks for dialogue. This does not bother me at all. In fact - in this book at least - I prefer it. The prose looks clean and uncluttered on the page and it was never difficult to work out who's speaking to whom.
As I'm not a World War I expert and have no medical background, I can't assess the accuracy of Keneally's research. However, Keneally is not only a novelist. He has written a number of books on Australian history, a book on Irish history and biographies, including a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Keneally knows how to do research and he has listed his sources at the end. I am prepared to trust that he got the history right.
Several reviews on Goodreads refer to the fact that Keneally presents alternative endings to the novel as a cop-out. Neither of his alternative endings was the ending I wanted. However, I don't agree that the device is a cop-out. What the presentation of alternative endings does is illustrate one of the novels most pervasive themes: the extent to which life is a lottery with an infinite range of possible outcomes. None of us know when we wake up in the morning if the story of our day is going to end happily. How much greater the odds of an unhappy ending for those involved in or directly affected by war: five millimetres difference in the trajectory of a bullet may mean complete safety, losing the tip of an ear, or death. As one of the characters in the novel - a soldier who has incurred horrific injuries - says: "When they ask me to write my war memoirs, they'll consist of one thing. Standing in the wrong place."
In spite of the grimness of the story, I'm glad that I read this work. It's both a moving piece of literature and a powerful tribute to the nurses of World War I, whose contribution deserves more acknowledgment. 4-1/2 stars.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TooBusyReading
This is the first book I've read by this prolific author, but it won't be the last.
Two Australian sisters have signed up as nurses during the early days of WWI, and get into the thick of things quickly. The author does not hold back on the horrors of war, and while I think this book very well
The author's style of writing challenged me. There are no quotation marks in the dialogue, and some of the phrasing is not entirely straightforward. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of his writing, but it got easier as the book went on. Given that, it was very well written, quite beautiful. I don't mind being challenged as a reader.
The author had notes at the beginning of the book informing what was fictionalized. There is still much well-researched history in the novel. I very much appreciated that, along with the map in the covers.
The novel covers much moral ground without being judgmental. The dismissive, disrespectful, degrading, and sometimes violent treatment of the nurses doing the best they can to save lives. A conscientious objector who enlisted to save lives. The way animals are always called in to fight human wars, through no choice of their own, and suffer and die for it.
And, of course, the extreme brutality and humanity doing its best to cope.
The only thing that didn't ring quite true to me is the angst over a “crime” committed early in the novel. The characterization was complex and wonderful. The people who disappeared from the story only to appear again later.
No spoiler, but the ending, the last few pages, was unexpected and will probably cause some comment, but I very much liked it.
So, this is not a light, fun summer read but is very much worth the effort and emotional cost it takes to read it.
I was given a finished copy of the book for review, for which I am grateful.
Two Australian sisters have signed up as nurses during the early days of WWI, and get into the thick of things quickly. The author does not hold back on the horrors of war, and while I think this book very well
Show More
written and while it had an impact on me, I would not recommend it for those already on anti-depressants. If you are not, you might want some close at hand. This is a novel of almost unrelenting brutality and despair.The author's style of writing challenged me. There are no quotation marks in the dialogue, and some of the phrasing is not entirely straightforward. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of his writing, but it got easier as the book went on. Given that, it was very well written, quite beautiful. I don't mind being challenged as a reader.
The author had notes at the beginning of the book informing what was fictionalized. There is still much well-researched history in the novel. I very much appreciated that, along with the map in the covers.
The novel covers much moral ground without being judgmental. The dismissive, disrespectful, degrading, and sometimes violent treatment of the nurses doing the best they can to save lives. A conscientious objector who enlisted to save lives. The way animals are always called in to fight human wars, through no choice of their own, and suffer and die for it.
And, of course, the extreme brutality and humanity doing its best to cope.
The only thing that didn't ring quite true to me is the angst over a “crime” committed early in the novel. The characterization was complex and wonderful. The people who disappeared from the story only to appear again later.
No spoiler, but the ending, the last few pages, was unexpected and will probably cause some comment, but I very much liked it.
So, this is not a light, fun summer read but is very much worth the effort and emotional cost it takes to read it.
I was given a finished copy of the book for review, for which I am grateful.
Show Less
LibraryThing member c.archer
The Daughters of Mars is a blockbuster of a historic novel on the order of those written by Ken Follett. The author, Mr. Keneally, has given us a most unique viewpoint on a lesser written about conflict, World War I. His novel is the story of two young sisters, both nurses, from Australia who
The second half of the book reads a bit slower. The women have moved with the forces to France, and it is here that the war really becomes grim business. Again, this is reminiscent of an actual historic accounting by those who were there. At times it is a little tedious and long in the telling, but there is a real correlation between the way he tells the story and the actual events taking place. This was not a glamourous war and the effects of infection, poison gases, and the flu epidemic make for some dreary telling. The real treasure here is the relationships and bonds that form between the characters. The sisters, Naomi and Sally, begin as somewhat distant in their feelings towards each other. An event early in the book sets this up, and they continue to show reserve to one another even as they head off together. Eventually their relationship heals and deepens as well as their feelings toward the other nurses. There are expected bits of romance, but they are not the focus, rather almost a incidental happiness in the midst of chaos and an inevitable result of shared experiences.
The ending was a disappointment for me which you can choose to agree or disagree with if you read the book. The story was so well told and believable, and I felt the ending was a real departure from that. A clear ending would have satisfied me so much more, but I can appreciate the author's choice as well, to not clearly define a loss. The characters of the two sisters were so central to the book and making a choice about how to finish each of their stories might have been hard. Still, I would have liked a clear conclusion, even if it would have been sad.
I think this is a book that any fan of in-depth and well-written historic fiction would appreciate. With the exception of the ending and a bit of excessive detailing in the second half of the book, I found it to be an exceptional story of women in war and a unique history of both World War I and medical development during that time. It is also rich in character study. I am very thankful for the chance to read and review this book prior to publication.
Show More
become volunteers with the medical corp and spend the war following after their forces from Australia to Egypt, Greece, and eventually France. He has written a story that is totally believable and authentic to the point that I found myself forgetting that it was actually fiction at times. Seeing the war through the eyes of these girls and their fellow nurses gave Mr. Keneally a chance to create something different in the telling of a war story. He is obviously a fine researcher and does a remarkably job of describing the medical treatments and conditions as well as the places. I found the first half of the book to be exciting and fast moving. The second half of the book reads a bit slower. The women have moved with the forces to France, and it is here that the war really becomes grim business. Again, this is reminiscent of an actual historic accounting by those who were there. At times it is a little tedious and long in the telling, but there is a real correlation between the way he tells the story and the actual events taking place. This was not a glamourous war and the effects of infection, poison gases, and the flu epidemic make for some dreary telling. The real treasure here is the relationships and bonds that form between the characters. The sisters, Naomi and Sally, begin as somewhat distant in their feelings towards each other. An event early in the book sets this up, and they continue to show reserve to one another even as they head off together. Eventually their relationship heals and deepens as well as their feelings toward the other nurses. There are expected bits of romance, but they are not the focus, rather almost a incidental happiness in the midst of chaos and an inevitable result of shared experiences.
The ending was a disappointment for me which you can choose to agree or disagree with if you read the book. The story was so well told and believable, and I felt the ending was a real departure from that. A clear ending would have satisfied me so much more, but I can appreciate the author's choice as well, to not clearly define a loss. The characters of the two sisters were so central to the book and making a choice about how to finish each of their stories might have been hard. Still, I would have liked a clear conclusion, even if it would have been sad.
I think this is a book that any fan of in-depth and well-written historic fiction would appreciate. With the exception of the ending and a bit of excessive detailing in the second half of the book, I found it to be an exceptional story of women in war and a unique history of both World War I and medical development during that time. It is also rich in character study. I am very thankful for the chance to read and review this book prior to publication.
Show Less
LibraryThing member beckyhaase
I had a hard time getting used to the lack of commas and quotation marks in this tale of two sisters who nurse for Australia during World War I. Although slow and quite lengthy, the book held my interest with details of nursing under primitive conditions during war conditions. The most interesting
The sisters, their nurse companions and the soldiers they work with and fall in love with comprise the characters in the novel. Book groups will find many topics to discuss including class distinctions, city versus farm life, Quakers and war, biologic weaponry, courage under great duress, disfiguration and disability, and the roles of women.
Show More
parts for me were the descriptions of life aboard ship on the journey to Egypt from Australia and then in the war zone of Gallipoli. The horror of war was clearly indicated in the details of battle injuries and the care available both in the Dardanelles and later in France. The tragedy of the influenza epidemic of 1919 makes up the later part of the book.The sisters, their nurse companions and the soldiers they work with and fall in love with comprise the characters in the novel. Book groups will find many topics to discuss including class distinctions, city versus farm life, Quakers and war, biologic weaponry, courage under great duress, disfiguration and disability, and the roles of women.
Show Less
LibraryThing member PennyAnne
This is the story of two sisters from a dairy farm in NSW who join up at the start of WWI to nurse the wounded, first in Gallipoli and then, later, in France. Very interesting and a different perspective on the war than I am used to reading. I found the book very easy reading and although I didn't
Show More
always feel connected to the main characters I enjoyed this book for what it taught me and how it made me think about things from a different angle. Show Less
LibraryThing member amandacb
Keneally's style unfortunately ruined the experience of this book for me. While he explained the lack of dialog quotes as a way to represent an epistolary or journal experience, I do not think that is accurate--most people I know include quotes in such formats. As such, this book was difficult to
Show More
slog my way through. Coupled with slow-moving parts, I was not pleased. Show Less
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
A disjointed though beautifully written novel about the First World War, from the perspective of two Australian nurses. I struggled with the first quarter of the book, putting it aside twice in favour of two better flowing narratives, but finally managed to finish. Thomas Keneally doesn't make this
Show More
an easy read, though. There is no dialogue punctuation, which didn't overly bother me, but both Naomi and Sally are written like 'everywoman' nurses, which did - they are barely distinguishable from each other, never mind being strong enough characters to lead the story. The overpowering philosophical/poetical flavour of the narrative eventually gives way to a more typical WW1 novel, cramming in traumatic injuries, conscientious objectors, nurses' sexuality, wartime romance and the Spanish 'Flu. And the epilogue is completely unnecessary - if the author was struggling to decide the fate of his heroines, he should have left the matter open, with none of that last minute flip-flopping. Show Less
LibraryThing member michigantrumpet
This year marks the centennial of the start of WWI -- a global collapse into brutality as horrific as Mars, the ancient Roman god of war, could have possibly devised. We have often been treated in novels and non-fiction to the male perspective. For Australian soldiers like those in this narrative),
This is a gripping tale which kept me rapt from first to last. The tensions between the sisters, their sense of alienation from their home and family, mirror in some respects the tensions between the warring nations. Keneally's choice of dialogue sans quotation marks has distressed some. It wasn't an issue for me -- the pace continued to race along. I found the choice of alternate endings to be more offputting. It does have the fortunate result of giving something for everyone. I intend to search out more books from this author.
Show More
their participation has rightly been viewed as heroic. Thomas Keneally has chosen instead to portray this conflict from the view of Australian volunteer nurses, particularly the two Durance sisters, Sally and Naomi. Through them, we are dropped into Gallipoli, Lemnos, the sinking of the Archimedes and the Western Front. This is a gripping tale which kept me rapt from first to last. The tensions between the sisters, their sense of alienation from their home and family, mirror in some respects the tensions between the warring nations. Keneally's choice of dialogue sans quotation marks has distressed some. It wasn't an issue for me -- the pace continued to race along. I found the choice of alternate endings to be more offputting. It does have the fortunate result of giving something for everyone. I intend to search out more books from this author.
Show Less
LibraryThing member agjuba
Beautiful writing and great period details! The book started out slow, but gradually became more and more absorbing.
LibraryThing member Widsith
I came to this after reading many books about the Western Front written by people who were actually there, and part of me found it difficult to adjust to a modern literary treatment. It struck me suddenly – unfairly – as distasteful to turn these events into the material of a story. And so I
What this book is going for is a sense of sweeping grandeur, an epic scope that reaches from dusty Australian farmsteads to the Gallipoli landings to the industrialised slaughter of the trenches. I wanted to like it, and there are some wonderful setpieces including the best shipwreck scene I can remember reading. I also (apparently unlike other reviews) quite liked the two central characters, sisters from New South Wales who join the war effort as nurses. It made a nice change to see things from this medical point of view – the war described in terms of the injuries it dealt out rather than the fighting itself, and from a female rather than a male perspective.
However, the book's style sometimes militates against its own purposes. Direct speech is given without quotation marks or any other markers, so it's hard to know where it ends and where narration begins. Unfortunately this is not exploited for any stylistic effects; it just seems like the sort of wilfully confusing idiosyncrasy some authors adopt in order to seem ‘literary’, and so it annoyed me. More fundamentally I just thought the writing was a bit average. There is a very heavy reliance on dashes, both for parenthesis and to separate clauses, which results in some rather staccato, arrhythmic prose:
The fancier the clobber – went Honora's opinion – the less fighting the bloke had done. They had time only for a few galleries – they told themselves they would be back and would devote a day entirely to the museum. Sally found herself rehearsing – in case she met Charlie Condon soon – the names of artists. She liked David – he was easy to like – and Ingres' woman with the high-waisted gown. When they emerged from the Louvre they found the day still bright with high, streaky clouds and – though it was chilly – they walked in the Tuileries Gardens where trees were still bare.
That sounds like I've just taken random examples and glued them together, but it's an actual paragraph from the book.
The ending is also a bit problematic, taking the French-Lieutenant's-Woman approach of giving you different options for how things might have worked out. Tom, there is one reality where I found this artful and beautiful, but there is another reality where I thought it was a real dereliction of duty.
Show More
was looking hard for some kind of thematic purpose to talking about 1914–1918 beyond just using it as a source of dramatic incident.What this book is going for is a sense of sweeping grandeur, an epic scope that reaches from dusty Australian farmsteads to the Gallipoli landings to the industrialised slaughter of the trenches. I wanted to like it, and there are some wonderful setpieces including the best shipwreck scene I can remember reading. I also (apparently unlike other reviews) quite liked the two central characters, sisters from New South Wales who join the war effort as nurses. It made a nice change to see things from this medical point of view – the war described in terms of the injuries it dealt out rather than the fighting itself, and from a female rather than a male perspective.
However, the book's style sometimes militates against its own purposes. Direct speech is given without quotation marks or any other markers, so it's hard to know where it ends and where narration begins. Unfortunately this is not exploited for any stylistic effects; it just seems like the sort of wilfully confusing idiosyncrasy some authors adopt in order to seem ‘literary’, and so it annoyed me. More fundamentally I just thought the writing was a bit average. There is a very heavy reliance on dashes, both for parenthesis and to separate clauses, which results in some rather staccato, arrhythmic prose:
The fancier the clobber – went Honora's opinion – the less fighting the bloke had done. They had time only for a few galleries – they told themselves they would be back and would devote a day entirely to the museum. Sally found herself rehearsing – in case she met Charlie Condon soon – the names of artists. She liked David – he was easy to like – and Ingres' woman with the high-waisted gown. When they emerged from the Louvre they found the day still bright with high, streaky clouds and – though it was chilly – they walked in the Tuileries Gardens where trees were still bare.
That sounds like I've just taken random examples and glued them together, but it's an actual paragraph from the book.
The ending is also a bit problematic, taking the French-Lieutenant's-Woman approach of giving you different options for how things might have worked out. Tom, there is one reality where I found this artful and beautiful, but there is another reality where I thought it was a real dereliction of duty.
Show Less
LibraryThing member tututhefirst
I've done quite a bit of reading set in the World War I timeframe, but never had one set in the Dardanelles, nor did any of them feature Australian nurses. This one has been rightly described as epic. It is the story of sisters forming a mature adult relationship, it is the story of the horrors of
About half-way through my read I was able to borrow a copy of the audio format and it was absolutely splendid. The print book has an excellent map inside the cover which made the reading even more enjoyable. Definitely a keeper and one to re-read and loan to friends.
Show More
war, the advances of battlefield medicine, and the heroism of women who left home to serve in far off lands. About half-way through my read I was able to borrow a copy of the audio format and it was absolutely splendid. The print book has an excellent map inside the cover which made the reading even more enjoyable. Definitely a keeper and one to re-read and loan to friends.
Show Less
LibraryThing member pennsylady
Australian sisters, Naomi and Sally Durance volunteer as nurses at the beginning of World War I.
They will work as nurses in places ranging from Gallipoli to the Western Front.
I found Keneally's account of WWI battlefield medicine fascinating.
We see, through 2 obscure heroines, both the horrors and
The agony of the wounded is balanced by cases of healing to the body, mind and spirit.
Futility is balanced by love.
It was noted that the author was inspired by " actual wartime diaries, historical hospitals, and real hospital ships"
I do caution that there is a fierce explicitness to descriptions of "gaping fissures in once healthy bodies."
Keneally leaves no stone of authenticity unturned.
The reader is left with a deeper understanding of the personal cost paid by the WWI soldier.
In doing MP3 audio, I may have missed the author's reference to the title (Daughters Of Mars)
My interpretation led me to Mars...the Roman mythological god of war.
They will work as nurses in places ranging from Gallipoli to the Western Front.
I found Keneally's account of WWI battlefield medicine fascinating.
We see, through 2 obscure heroines, both the horrors and
Show More
the miracles of war.The agony of the wounded is balanced by cases of healing to the body, mind and spirit.
Futility is balanced by love.
It was noted that the author was inspired by " actual wartime diaries, historical hospitals, and real hospital ships"
I do caution that there is a fierce explicitness to descriptions of "gaping fissures in once healthy bodies."
Keneally leaves no stone of authenticity unturned.
The reader is left with a deeper understanding of the personal cost paid by the WWI soldier.
In doing MP3 audio, I may have missed the author's reference to the title (Daughters Of Mars)
My interpretation led me to Mars...the Roman mythological god of war.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rosalita
An extraordinary story of Australian sisters serving as nurses during World War I, and the ways that the war transformed a relationship that was cordial but distant into a loving embrace of family and sisterhood. It is filled with warmth and heartbreak, and finely drawn characters who assert
Show More
themselves in the reader's imagination with quiet authority. The horrors of war never lessen no matter how many books I read about it, and Keneally's setting the novel at various removes from the front does nothing to blunt the impact. The ending is heartbreakingly satisfying, and it will stay with me for a very long time. Show Less
LibraryThing member passion4reading
Australia, 1915: the sisters Naomi and Sally Durance volunteer to serve as nurses in the First World War; from Alexandria, Egypt, they are first shipped to Gallipoli, and later serve near the front line in France.
As short as the synopsis is, the novel with its 500+ pages subjects the reader to the
As well as portraying the horrors of war in quite graphic and often terrifying detail, but often beautiful prose, the novel also depicts how as a result of the fighting gender and class divisions were loosened if not completely broken down at times in those involved in caring for the soldiers, allowing women in particular a certain freedom of speech and action they didn't otherwise possess. In addition, the book holds up a magnifying glass to society and examines issues of politics such as the question of conscription and the women's suffrage movement that was entirely unexpected but received with interest and gratitude. The reason it doesn't quite get the full five stars is that I felt the pace was dropped a little too much in places after the tension-filled action sequences; others may argue that this is just what is needed to balance the two.
In short, the novel shows the best and worst humanity is capable of and it will stay with you for a long time once the last page has been turned; as such it is a book to be savoured, treasured and re-read.
As short as the synopsis is, the novel with its 500+ pages subjects the reader to the
Show More
whole gamut of emotions, and I felt an immense solidarity with those two brave and spirited women, maybe not least because I used to work as a nurse myself – though of course in rather less harrowing circumstances. Naomi and Sally are complex figures, and I warmed to them the more the novel progressed as they, by their own admission, used to come across as 'aloof' before the war changed them. Supporting characters are also well drawn and I became invested in all of their fates, shedding the odd tear here and there when someone or other didn't make it to the end of the novel. What impressed me most about the book were the numerous depictions of individual acts of true heroism away from the front line – front line action doesn't feature at all except for reports by the soldiers – that to me were incredibly moving; these are the unsung heroes of the war.As well as portraying the horrors of war in quite graphic and often terrifying detail, but often beautiful prose, the novel also depicts how as a result of the fighting gender and class divisions were loosened if not completely broken down at times in those involved in caring for the soldiers, allowing women in particular a certain freedom of speech and action they didn't otherwise possess. In addition, the book holds up a magnifying glass to society and examines issues of politics such as the question of conscription and the women's suffrage movement that was entirely unexpected but received with interest and gratitude. The reason it doesn't quite get the full five stars is that I felt the pace was dropped a little too much in places after the tension-filled action sequences; others may argue that this is just what is needed to balance the two.
In short, the novel shows the best and worst humanity is capable of and it will stay with you for a long time once the last page has been turned; as such it is a book to be savoured, treasured and re-read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LyndaInOregon
Intense novel about two Australian sisters who serve as military nurses in Europe during WWI.
Keneally brings the horror and the perversity of modern warfare into play as he follows the women, their fellow nurses, and the men they grow to love, reveals a harsh secret standing between the sisters,
Keneally brings the horror and the perversity of modern warfare into play as he follows the women, their fellow nurses, and the men they grow to love, reveals a harsh secret standing between the sisters,
Show More
and then in the last few pages begins to play switcheroo with the reader. Whether he is making a point about the randomness of life, or playing with some experimental form remains unclear. Some readers will undoubtedly be furious and some confused, but few readers can remain indifferent to this stylistic affectation. Show Less
LibraryThing member Suzannie1
loved this book, showed true insight to how it was really in world war one and how the nurses had to cope , vry very good and I love Thomas Keneally's books anyway.
LibraryThing member m.belljackson
For the intense depiction of the horrors inflicted on the world by the Germans during World War I,
The Daughters of Mars deserves a full Five Stars.
For the disappointing and phony ending, it barely rates One.
The Daughters of Mars deserves a full Five Stars.
For the disappointing and phony ending, it barely rates One.
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9781864712254
Physical description
592 p.; 9.1 inches
Pages
592