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HTML:One of Nevil Shute�??s most exciting novels, Pied Piper is the gripping story of one elderly man's daring attempt to rescue a group of children during the Nazi invasion of France. It is the spring of 1940 and John Sidney Howard wants nothing more than to enjoy his fishing holiday in southern France in peace and quiet. However, the Nazi conquest of the Low Countries puts an end to that, and he is asked by friends to take their two children back to England. Crossing France with his young charges seems simple enough at first�??until the Germans invade, rendering them fugitives. As Howard struggles to sneak across France, he picks up several more helpless children of various nationalities. They walk for miles in an endless river of refugees, strafed by German planes and hiding in barns at night. By the time Howard and his flock of little ones reach the Channel, his plan of escaping on a fishing boat has become utterly impossible, and in their final confrontation with the invaders, all their lives are at… (more)
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Circumstances turn grim for this little group as the Germans overrun France much quicker than anyone expected and Howard finds himself and the children cut off from escape. Also they appear to be picking up more children as they travel. Eventually he goes to the home of people that he met on a previous trip to France and the daughter of this family, Nichole, agrees to accompany him to the coast and help him and the children find a fisherman with a boat to get them over the English Channel.
This is a story to give one faith in the goodness of humanity. The characters are ordinary people that are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to save these children. Howard himself is a seventy year old man with a gentleness and decency that shines through every situation, his handing of the children is truly heart-warming. The children come across very real, caring more about play and food and not really understanding about the war. There is an uplifting moment when Howard discovers that there is a connection with Nichole that he didn’t know about, yet even with these sentimental events the book never feels contrived.
Pied Piper is both an exciting and believable story of courage and compassion in the face of danger and uncertainty and I loved it.
While vacationing in Switzerland Howard is willfully ignorant of the encroaching danger. Despite many attempts to find war work, he's been told he's too old. Then his son, an aviator, dies and he leaves England and the war behind. After weeks of fishing and ignoring the news, he's approached by an English couple who ask if he'll take their two children back to England with him; they will remain in Geneva where the husband works for the League of Nations. He agrees to this since he knows the children from the weeks they've spent in the same hotel and suddenly wakes up to the fact that the war has taken a bad turn.
A delay occurs on the first leg of the journey when the little girl develops a fever. A chamber maid at their hotel asks if he'll take her niece with them and deliver her to her father in London. He can't refuse, nor can he abandon a child on the road whose parents have been killed by a bomb, or a Dutch child being stoned by panicked villagers for being a "traitor". By now, pushing a pram with their belongings in it, the party has joined the refugees heading west. (This journey was also described in Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise.) He manages to distract the children, find shelter in barns and to feed them; Shute states many times that the infinite patience of old age made this possible although not all old people are patient. But it's believable because Howard is such a gentle soul, sees his mission as his duty, and is ready to die if necessary to bring these children to freedom.
In Chartres, he finds a family he and his son once met on holiday and the daughter, Nicole, helps them by accompanying them to the Channel and arranging for a fisherman to take them across. This part of the trip is the most harrowing with a meeting with a German officer (you can just see Otto Preminger in the role), a revelation from Nicole, and a strange and novel twist to the story.
I loved the book but the ending was incredibly abrupt. I expected there to be some conversation between Howard and the unnamed person at the club - who is, indeed, telling us this story in the third person. Instead, they just say good-bye! There's also the problem of Howard's telling the story in the first place: the German has warned him that if any of this gets out, his French friends will be killed. And a warning to people with no knowledge of French: there's a lot of it here and it isn't always translated so could lead to confusion.
Anyway, here's my two cents about the reason for the abrupt ending of such a carefully constructed book: it was written in 1941 and published in January 1942. It's a timely tale and I'm sure the publisher was pushing for an early deadline. In July 1942 the movie (starring Monty Wooly) premiered. The screenwriter, Nunally Johnson, must have taken the pages from Shute as quickly as he wrote them to get the screenplay done that quickly! In any event, the book and the movie were a tremendous success. It was propaganda at its best: an enthralling story with a noble hero overcoming incredible odds.
Extended review:
In Pied Piper, Nevil Shute explores some of the same themes I've met in others of his novels. As in Trustee from the Toolroom, he shows us an ordinary man who faces an extraordinary situation and rises to meet it. As in A
I never read anything by Nevil Shute prior to April of this year, and this was my fourth of his novels. His writing expresses a spirit of adventure and a kind of down-to-earth honesty that I find engaging on both an intellectual and an emotional level. I also tend to trust British authors, and especially those of fifty or more years ago, to render the language with confident command and graceful style. Their education shows, as does their knowledge of the classics. I know I'm in good hands: my time will be well spent and my attention rewarded.
As this novel progressed and our main character, John Howard, took on greater and greater challenges, I began to hope for a certain kind of ending. I wanted Howard to realize and consciously acknowledge that he has accomplished more than he ever would have thought possible. I wanted him to feel his strength as it has grown under the pressure of circumstance. That this is not the ending Shute gave us tells me that he would not have considered such an ending faithful to his character. I trust Shute's authorial instincts well enough by now to assume that he knows his characters deeply and well. Still, the romantic in me would have liked to see it turn out that way for Howard.
But this is not a fault in the book; rather, it's one way in which a good novel holds up a mirror to ourselves and shows us aspects of our own being that we might not otherwise recognize.
Like the Japanese soldiers in A Town Like Alice, the Germans are depicted in shades of gray and not in undifferentiated black. I like the way Shute discovers humanity in all his characters, even the brutal ones. All human beings, of course, are no more and no less than what it is possible for human beings to be.
Each of the four Shute novels that I've read so far has afforded me one of the chief pleasures I take in reading fiction: I feel as if I'd had a real experience of some kind. I've been through something. I've gained a genuine sense of fulfilling some purpose and opening my borders to broader awareness. There's a kind of presence that lingers with me after the cover is closed, as if the spirit of the novel or its principal characters had joined some incorporeal fellowship of memory or mind or being. I welcome Shute's creations into that company.
I have always enjoyed Shute's writing. I find it quietly humorous, colorful, full of adventure when called for and, most of all, populated with richly-drawn characters—he's simply a born story teller. Of those books I've read, this is one of his best: John Howard is a wonderful character and his kindliness, courage and worries about the situation had me from the start. Though he published this in 1942, Shute resisted any temptation to fill this with tirades and was content to provide a simple, heart-warming, slightly poignant, and completely satisfying story.
This is a quiet story of a decent man doing the best he can in extraordinary circumstances, which doesn't shy away from some of the horrors of war:
Their rest finished, he led them out upon the road again. To encourage them upon the way he broke one of the chocolate bars accurately into four pieces and gave it to them. Three of the children took their portion avidly. The fourth shook his head dumbly and refused. ‘Merci, monsieur,’ he whispered. The old man said gently in French: ‘Don’t you like chocolate, Pierre? It’s so good.’ The child shook his head. ‘Try a little bit.’ The other children looked on curiously. The little boy whispered: ‘Merci, monsieur. Maman dit que non. Seulement après déjeuner.’ For a moment the old man’s mind went back to the torn bodies left behind them by the roadside covered roughly with a rug; he forced his mind away from that. ‘All right,’ he said in French, ‘we’ll keep it, and you shall have it after déjeuner.’ He put the morsel carefully in a corner of the pram seat, the little boy in grey watched with grave interest. ‘It will be quite safe there.’
Published in 1942, it's difficult to imagine this sort of book being written now. I can't help thinking that an equivalent would have an overly saccharine ending. I think I first read this when I was about 13 or so - I didn't think that I would remember it but certain episodes came back very clearly, so it obviously made an impression. Recommended.
Extended review:
In Pied Piper, Nevil Shute explores some of the same themes I've met in others of his novels. As in Trustee from the Toolroom, he shows us an ordinary man who faces an extraordinary situation and rises to meet it. As in A
I never read anything by Nevil Shute prior to April of this year, and this was my fourth of his novels. His writing expresses a spirit of adventure and a kind of down-to-earth honesty that I find engaging on both an intellectual and an emotional level. I also tend to trust British authors, and especially those of fifty or more years ago, to render the language with confident command and graceful style. Their education shows, as does their knowledge of the classics. I know I'm in good hands: my time will be well spent and my attention rewarded.
As this novel progressed and our main character, John Howard, took on greater and greater challenges, I began to hope for a certain kind of ending. I wanted Howard to realize and consciously acknowledge that he has accomplished more than he ever would have thought possible. I wanted him to feel his strength as it has grown under the pressure of circumstance. That this is not the ending Shute gave us tells me that he would not have considered such an ending faithful to his character. I trust Shute's authorial instincts well enough by now to assume that he knows his characters deeply and well. Still, the romantic in me would have liked to see it turn out that way for Howard.
But this is not a fault in the book; rather, it's one way in which a good novel holds up a mirror to ourselves and shows us aspects of our own being that we might not otherwise recognize.
Like the Japanese soldiers in A Town Like Alice, the Germans are depicted in shades of gray and not in undifferentiated black. I like the way Shute discovers humanity in all his characters, even the brutal ones. All human beings, of course, are no more and no less than what it is possible for human beings to be.
Each of the four Shute novels that I've read so far has afforded me one of the chief pleasures I take in reading fiction: I feel as if I'd had a real experience of some kind. I've been through something. I've gained a genuine sense of fulfilling some purpose and opening my borders to broader awareness. There's a kind of presence that lingers with me after the cover is closed, as if the spirit of the novel or its principal characters had joined some incorporeal fellowship of memory or mind or being. I welcome Shute's creations into that company.
Pied Piper is such a rich story. Howard starts out with two children and a certitude that surely France couldn't be taken and ultimately ends up desperately fleeing occupied France largely on foot with a growing troop of lost children. Really, it's brilliant Shute's occupied France filled with German soldiers busy making war and conquering juxtaposed with Howard and seven children under the age of eleven, children who have hardly the faintest idea of the danger of what's going on. Shute plays off their innocence against one of the darkest times in history as the children plea to see the tanks and the planes, even at their peril, happily swim in a creek as the Germans populate the countryside, and keep enquiring as to whether they will soon be riding the train with the sleeper car when, for British children, riding in a train at all could be perilous.
The stolid, grey-faced Germans looked on mirthlessly, uncomprehending. For the first time in their lives they were seeing foreigners, displaying the crushing might and power of their mighty land. It confused them and perplexed them that their prisoners should be so flippant as to play games with their children in the corridor outside the very office of the Gestapo. It found the soft spot in the armour of their pride; they felt an insult which could not be properly defined. This was not what they had understood when their Fuhrer had last spoken from the Sport-Palast. This victor was not as they had thought it would be.
As the old man traverses France in search of the best or, really, any way out, the children he meets and takes under his wing all have their own heart-rending stories and reactions to their situations that cast a different sort of light on the events of World War II. Along the way, Howard not only manages to fill up the void of his own history by attempting to escort the future out of a war zone, but also is re-acquainted with someone who will ultimately help him reconcile his own feelings about the loss of his son.
Pied Piper is a beautiful story with so many dimensions that I couldn't hope to chronicle here, nor would I want to, and risk ruining the experience of this story for others. It deals with so many aspects of World War II and occupied France that I'd hardly considered before and all in a story that's so engrossing that you barely realize the power of its insight until after you've nearly passed it by.
Will they make it, as the German presence becomes ever more pervasive? Jolly good read.
Visiting a ‘safe’ area of France in 1940 to have a holiday and do some fishing, he spends a pleasant few days in a hotel, enjoying the peace and quiet during the day and getting to know the other guests at dinner time. But whilst he is there, news comes that the Germans are about to invade France and he resolves to leave. A young couple who live in Geneva persuade Howard to take their two children, Ronnie aged 8 and Sheila aged 5 back to England to stay with relatives where they will be safe. Howard eventually agrees and the next morning the three of them set off on their journey. It will be an easy one – a train to Paris and then another to St Malo, where they will be able to board a boat for the UK.
But plans are thwarted when Sheila becomes unwell. They make an unscheduled stop at Dijon, and whilst there, the threatened invasion takes place. Howard agrees to take an older child, niece of a maid at the hotel – but as transport becomes severely disrupted and they must continue their journey by any means possible – mostly on foot but occasionally by hitching a ride or finding a train that is running. Along the way, Howard, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, picks up other children and a young woman and together they try to make it out of France and back to the safety of England.
I read this for a reading group discussion but I would have picked it up sooner or later as it’s been one I’ve been meaning to read for years – it was on my parent’s bookshelf long before I was married! What a fantastic story – I was hooked from the word go. It was wonderful – amusing in places, sad and happy at the same time – a story of hope and courage. Although the situation – an elderly man travelling with a group of children from ages 5 to about 12 – seems unbelievable, it isn’t at all – it’s totally convincing! I almost want to start it again from the beginning – and that seldom happens – highly recommended!
There are many authors that at one time were very popular, and yet these days seem to have been almost forgotten in the mists of time. Unfortunately Nevil Shute appears to be one of these, and I really can’t understand why. True his books are ‘of a time’ but the
Pied Piper is no exception and stands as one the strongest works in the Shute catalogue. As usual with his novels there is no gratuitous violence, no dramatic sex scenes and no bad language, just pages and pages of well written prose with a gentle storyline that persuades the reader to join him over the duration.
We follow an elderly gentleman who becomes trapped in France just after the outbreak of the Second World War. He decides he needs to return home and somewhat reluctantly he agrees to take a friend’s children with him, as the parents fear for their safety with the approaching Nazi war machine. Desperately trying to make his way back home to England he picks up an ever growing number of children that have fallen on hard times (hence the title), and despite his advanced age shows us what the ‘Keep calm and carry one’ message really meant. With constant setbacks and obstacles in his path he must draw upon his ingenuity and limited resources. The journey however isn’t just a physical one and acts as a metaphor for the healing process he must undertake following the death of his son.
The plot has a number of twists and turns, and the ending when it comes is most unexpected. Although Shute is a subtle writer, when he needs to sock it the reader he is unafraid to add the specific details required and the reader is left under no illusion as to the horrors of war.
Shute should have a legacy as being the master of writing about ordinary people thrust into situations where they become extraordinary. Maybe this isn’t his greatest novel (my own favourite is ‘On the Beach’) but it as good a place to start as any.
It's set during WW2 and was written while the war was still ongoing and the outcome unknown.
War is not kind to old men. Too old to fight and with little sense of purpose, John Howard goes to southern France to take a break
While there, he is asked by an acquaintance if he will take their two children back to England for safety, as the war is spreading further and they no longer feel safe.
Howard agrees, but what should have been a simple journey home gets more and more complicated as the Germans start advancing across France. Trains get cancelled, food gets harder to find. Being English suddenly becomes very dangerous, and to make life even more difficult, there are other children that the war has left in dire straits.
One of the reasons this story works so well for me is that Howard is a very believable character. He's not a man given to emotional outbursts or temper - he's calm and organised and takes things as they come. Which is not to say that he isn't worried or concerned or uncaring, but he's 70 and he knows his own physical limitations and he also knows exactly how hard you can push young children before everything becomes too much for them. Therefore, when he has to take things slowly, he accepts that and doesn't waste energy over things he can't control.
He manages to shield the children, as far as he can, from a full understanding of what is going on around them, and oddly enough, this makes the reader even more aware of the impact of war.
In a quiet, understated way, this is war from the civilian angle, long streams of refugees, people dying in allied bombing raids, the ongoing struggle for food and shelter.
Do they make it safely to England?
Read the book and find out for yourself.
This is a road trip and a suspense thriller with an undercurrent of family relationships and love. Mr Howard is a marvelous character. He’s unaccustomed to children but does his best; the boy and girl are only eight and five, after all. They don’t know to be frightened of German soldiers or tanks or airplanes. They’re excited by the adventure. They also need to be fed and clothed and bathed and given shelter. Sometimes they need to be entertained or to play. Sometimes they just don’t want to walk any more, or eat dry bread, or speak French. Along the way Mr Howard encounters other refugee children. He can’t very well leave them alone, so he takes them along as well.
There are several people who help Mr Howard – a ride here, a place to sleep there. I really liked the subplot of Nicole, a young French woman whose father once befriended Mr Howard and who agrees to help him. Their conversations help to uncover the hurt and pain each has suffered and that they share. And the reader witnesses how they open up to one another and begin to heal from past hurts.
Courage does not always involve fighting the enemy. Mr Howard and Nicole display the kind of quiet courage that comes from a deep conviction that what they are doing is correct, and a strong faith that somehow, they will prevail.
Howard, seventy years old and unable to find something to fill his days becomes restless and decided to visit the French Jura. He is there in April when the Nazis invade Belgium. He makes immediate plans to return to England and reluctantly agrees to take two young English children along with him. So begins a road trip across France as they try to reach the French coast. Along the way Howard collects another five children of varying nationalities and is assisted by young French woman, the daughter of an old acquaintance, who shares a common grief with him. The fact that the story is being told in the first person means that I'm not giving too much away in saying that Howard is ultimately successful.
I found this a poignant tale of love, loss and loneliness where the Nazis are only the indirect enemy. Instead, the plot centres around the frailties of age, both in the very old and in the very young. Howard's weak heart, Sheila's and Ronnie's heedless English chatter coupled with their slow painful progress supplies much of the story's tension. The characters are well drawn, the prose is sparse but beautifully effective but perhaps what is most remarkable is that this story was first published in 1942, only two years after the events that it portrays supposedly happened and whilst WWII was still raging, its final outcome still unknown. This story speaks of another gentler age and deserves to be more widely read.