‘People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had,’ [Jean Paget] said quietly, staring into the embers. ‘They don’t know what it was like, not being in a camp.’ (page 70)With this simple statement, the main protagonist of A Town Like Alice hints at the depths of the misery that she and her companions endured while prisoners of the Japanese during WW2 in Malaya. This group of British women and children were subjected to appalling conditions and gross cruelty, as they were forced to march endlessly around the region because the Japanese Imperial Army had no idea what to do with them. Ultimately, thanks to the efforts of their resilient leader, Jean, the wanderers found a permanent place to serve out the duration of the war in a Malay village, where they worked in the paddy fields for their keep.The Author’s Note at the end of the book explains that, although some details have been changed, this story is based on the true experiences of a group of Dutch women and children taken captive and force-marched over 1200 miles for nearly 3 years. Neville Shute’s depiction of the hardships and grief that they experienced, with two-thirds of their company dying along the way, makes for riveting, though heart-wrenching, reading. Certainly there is a sense of great authenticity in Shute’s writing, which suggests that he did a lot of first hand research into the events that took place.The extensive description of Jean’s prisoner-of-war experiences makes up the bulk of the first half of the book. It serves an important role for the remainder of the story in establishing Jean’s personal qualities of determination, fairness, clear-headedness and vision. At the cessation of hostilities, she was repatriated to England and resumed a dull, modest lifestyle as an office worker living in the suburbs. Little did she know that she was about to become a wealthy heiress, thanks to the legacy left to her by a distant uncle.The trustee of the bequest, her solicitor and advisor, Noel Strachan, is the first person narrator of A Town Like Alice, and he tells the story of Jean and her adventures from the contents of her many letters and occasional face-to-face conversations. Noel’s personal commentary sometimes inserts itself into the narrative, while at other times the experiences of Jean in Malaya then Australia unfold in a straight-forward third person account.After the war, Jean returns to Kuala Telang, the village where she and her companions were treated so kindly, and she uses some of her wealth to improve the lives of the women there. I found the author's depiction of the Malay villagers to be very respectful and he portrays Jean as having a great deal of cultural sensitivity to living with and negotiating with these gentle, traditional Muslim men and women. This aspect of Shute’s writing fascinated me, because it stands in sharp contrast to the offensive way in which the Aboriginals of outback Queensland are depicted in the book, reflecting the racial vilification which was so prevalent at that time in Australian society.Following her successful return to Malaya, Jean proceeds to Australia in an attempt to find the Australian soldier who had done so much to help her and her companions in the jungle. She had previously believed Joe Harman, mercilessly flogged and crucified on a tree by the viciously cruel Japanese Colonel, had died of his injuries. Jean had a strong urge to reunite with this man who had made an indelible impression on her. Wanting at the very least to see how he had recovered from his ordeal, and wishing to thank him for his assistance during the war, she secretly harboured vague feelings that she could make a life with this remarkable man. Unknown to her, Joe had gone to England in search of her for precisely the same reasons.The rest of the book follows Jean’s adventures as she and Joe finally reunite, and she goes to live in the remote, soulless settlement of Willstown in the Gulf country, near Normanton, where Joe manages a large cattle station. Willstown has about 50 unmarried men, mainly stockmen on the surrounding stations, and only 2 single women. The pub, flowing with beer, is the only meeting place in town. After a few weeks, Jean divines the reasons why the dusty ghost town is so devoid of human warmth and comfort, and once again she uses her remarkable talents for creating community spirit to improve not only her own circumstances but also those of everyone around her. With the cautious approval of her trustee, she invests a goodly amount of her money to make Willstown a pleasant place to live, so that the young women have jobs, and can stay on in the area to become wives and mothers and participants in their own community. Jean finds a meaningful life for herself and Joe, and her generosity benefits everyone around her, including Noel, who makes the long journey from London to outback Queensland to see the outcomes of his careful stewardship of this remarkable young woman. I don’t think anyone would call Neville Shute a supporter of feminism - the book was written long before the currency of that term. However, he has developed a remarkable character in Jean Paget, a woman who defied the chauvinistic sentiments of a male-privileged society and triumphed over adversity due to her own talents and qualities.I do think nearly everyone would call Neville Shute a racist. The descriptions of the aboriginals are quite atrocious and would never be allowed to go unremarked these days. Sentences like ’’[t]he sensitive, intelligent face of the manager of Carlisle, Eddie Page, who had married his illiterate, inarticulate lubra’ really jarred, as did the constant referral to the indigenous inhabitants as boongs and Abos. There is no doubt that Shute was reflecting the standards of that era, but I found his lack of sensitivity to the aboriginals stood in stark contrast to his compassion for the Muslim Malay villagers of Kuala Telang.I have no desire to defend or justify Shute’s attitudes and values. I see A Town Like Alice as an historical document. It allows us to see what the prejudice was like 65 years ago. I wonder if there was a hierarchy of prejudice, that slotted Malays, Chinese, blacks etc on a ladder, with the Aboriginal people firmly at the bottom.This book was published in 1950 and has remained in print ever since. It is still being read regularly, as demonstrated by the large number of ratings and reviews on this Goodreads page. It was a great read for me, as I enjoyed Shute’s lively writing style. Most particularly I appreciated his creation of a truly terrific female character in Jean Paget.
There are books we can't be entirely rational about. For good or bad, they push our personal buttons, and we adore or detest them beyond their own merits.A Town Like Alice is one of those books I love beyond reason. It contains courage, determination when the odds are against you, and taking action to change others' lives and the world around you for the better. It has some bittersweet moments, as well as a little bit of romance.Nevil Shute based this 1950 novel on a WWII story he had heard about Dutch women and children, who were Japanese prisoners of war, who were marched around Sumatra from place to place because the Japanese had no prison camp to put them in, many of them dying along the way. (As it turns out, he misunderstood the story: they didn't actually have to walk but were transported around the country.) He used this as the basis for this story of Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman who becomes the leader of a group of women and children who are forced to walk from town to town in Japanese-occupied Malaya (now Malaysia), in terrible circumstances. Along the way they meet a kind Australian POW, Joe Harman, a young man who helps them with food and other necessities and quickly becomes a friend to Jean. But Jean and Joe run into trouble when Joe steals some black Leghorn chickens for the underfed group. What happens then, and after, makes for a fascinating story.Malaysian villageAfter the war, Jean inherits some money, and becomes friends with Noel Strachan, the elderly English solicitor who is her trustee. Noel is the narrator for most of the novel, and sometimes his voice gets a little dry and tedious in relating tangential details, kind of befitting an aging lawyer (I can say that :D). At the same time, he has a certain old-fashioned charm and wry humor. Noel watches Jean fall in love with a distinct feeling of regret, since her new life will take her away from England, but he continues to help her as she begins to transform the Australian outback town where she has chosen to live. Queensland, AustraliaAs he decides to travel to visit Jean to help her with some legal matters, one of his law partners is concerned for his health:"I only wish you hadn't got to put so much of your energy into this. After all, it's a fairly trivial affair.""I can't agree with that," I said. "I'm beginning to think that this thing is the most important business that I ever handled in my life."I've read this book three or four times over the years. I noticed much more this time how Noel's narration sometimes gets repetitive and tedious (I wish I had a dollar for every time a character stared at someone or said "Oh my word"). I don't know if Nevil Shute deliberately wrote it that way or if that's just his style of writing. But then there's a wonderful scene or a lovely turn of phrase, and I fall in love with this book all over again.In the half light he turned as she came out of the hut, and he was back in the Malay scene of six years ago. She was barefooted, and her hair hung down in a long plait, as it had been in Malaya. She was no longer the strange English girl with money; she was Mrs. Boong again, the Mrs. Boong he had remembered all those years.It's old-fashioned in many ways, but it still moves and inspires me. And for that reason, despite its occasional weaknesses, it's staying at the full five stars.February 2015 reread/buddy read with Hana__________________Previous review:This is one of my all-time favorite books. It consists of two quite different halves, with the first half relating the travails of Jean Paget and a group of English women in Malaya during WWII, and the second half about Jean's romance with an Australian man she had met briefly during her travels in Malaya and her efforts to turn his Australian town into a decent place for women and families to live. I may be in the minority of liking the second half better than the first, not just for the romance (which is nice but doesn't take up a lot of space in the book) but more for the way in which the main character takes action to change her town. It's inspiring and enjoyable reading. Highly recommended.
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I absolutely loved this book! I saw the movie years ago at my grandma's house & fell in love with it. I couldn't forget it & decided to finally read the book. I loved it, too! Though it's not a true story, the POW experience of the women is taken from a true story in Sumatra. I love the characters from this book & the main character is a strong, confident, smart, yet feminine woman. The only thing that really bothered me in this book is the rascist treatment of the Aborigines. Since this book was written nearly 60 years ago, that was probably typical of that time.
—Jenny
Jean Paget has just learned she is to be the sole heir to her late uncle's estate. However, her uncle questions the ability of a single woman to properly manage a sizable income on her own and thus requires the estate remain in a trust managed by his lawyer until Jane reaches thirty-five. As Noel, the lawyer and narrator of the book, and Jane get to know each other details of Jane's extraordinary life emerge. I was fully engaged in this story while it was focused on the war in Malaya, but lost interest in the story and characters afterwards. One issue is Shute's style of writing simply doesn't appeal to me. It is heavily reliant on dialogue and the dialogue felt stiff. Unfortunately, my Kindle format didn't help matters. There were odd breaks in paragraphs on each page. It makes the reader assume a completion in thought or sentence when in reality there is none. I had to go back and re-read paragraphs several times. Oh my word, I felt like I would scream if I read that phrase one more time. But, finally, I think my work experience got in the way because there is simply no way the endeavors at the end of the book could ever occur. I know this is fiction but the seemingly Midas touch Jane seemed to possess just didn't work for me.I know I'm in the minority on this view. I can see the attraction. It is a sweet love story. I'm really sick right now and maybe I was just grouchy when I read it.
—Regina Lindsey
What Nevil Shute may lack in eloquence he makes up for by providing the particulars that bring to life a distant place and time. This is a love story, but not a romance. There's no sex, no sappiness, no gasping or google eyes. Just a lot of hardship, hard work, and, most notably, hope. Jean Paget and Joe Harman meet in Malaya during World War II. She is British, he Australian, and both are prisoners of the Japanese. Joe sacrifices all to provide a little food for Jean's bedraggled group of women and children who have been forced to walk hundreds of miles on meager rations. (Said forced march based on true events that occurred in Sumatra.) The few days Jean and Joe have together lead to an astonishing passel of coincidences six years later. They reconnect in Australia, where Jean uses her ingenuity, determination, and a sizable inheritance to transform a lackluster Queensland settlement into "a town like Alice."Shute really fired my imagination with his portrayal of Australia in the late 1940s. He captures that frontier feeling of newness and possibility for those with vision and stamina, when Australia was still a young country in need of development. He also nails the difficulty of life for people on the cattle stations. Communication was only by radio, and not always reliable. This was essentially a life with no roads or bridges, often no transport except horses, no fruits or vegetables available, no entertainment, extreme heat with no AC, a lot of flooding, and many miles between stations. There must have been a lot of real life people similar to the Jean Paget character who were willing to sink their sweat and their money into the possibility of something finer. I have two criticisms/complaints: 1)Noel Strachan as narrator. This is intrusive and unnecessary and at times downright awkward. Noel is the lawyer who manages Jean's trust in Britain. The convolution involves Noel telling us the story that Jean related to him, with Noel occasionally inserting himself into the narrative. I found it distracting, and there's one place where even Nevil Shute got lost in the unnecessary complication, having Noel refer to himself in the third person rather than "me" or "I." 2)Jean Paget seems to have sprung forth fully formed as this young woman full of grit and determination and leadership abilities far beyond her years. We're told nothing about early life experiences that would have developed those qualities in her. A little back story would have made her a more convincing character.
—Jeanette "Astute Crabbist"
