The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Book snobs, block your ears.
*whispers* I think the movie was better.
Okay, book snobs, you can unblock your ears now.
*waves to get the attention of book snobs*
To be honest, a huge reason why I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society at this moment in time was that I thought it would be funny to have two books with ridiculously long titles appear back-to-back in my list. For anyone who thought that there were super-deep reasons why I picked the books that I did, I hope this helps you see the error of your ways.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I am refusing to shorten for the rest of this review) still tells the same story as that in the movie adaptation (also called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society), but does so in a less gripping (though still interesting) manner. This is for a few reasons: firstly, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book is epistolary in nature, meaning that the entire book is told in the form of letters, telegrams and notes written by characters in the book and sent to other characters in the book. This limits how much we 'see' the characters interact; we instead only hear written reports of conversations that have already happened.
Subsequently (and secondly), this means that the characters must often be divided in order to allow a reason why the characters would write to one another rather than simply talk. Most often this problem is solved by having Juliet (our heroine, and an author who is herself interested in the story behind the titular Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) write to her agent, Sidney Stark (who works for Stephen's and Stark's), Sidney's secretary Susan Scott, or Sidney's sister, Sophie (yes, that's a lot of S's). However, this also means that some of our main characters are divided in order for us to see letters between them.
And this means that (thirdly) some of the great plot twists that happen in the book happen in less cinematically satisfying moments. The movie version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has Juliet arrive in Guernsey, meet the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, discover that Elizabeth McKenna (a prominent member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society whom Juliet hoped to meet) was arrested by the Nazis and taken to Europe, learn about the secrets of Elizabeth's life, and eventually figure out what happened to her. In the book version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Juliet learns almost all there is to know about Elizabeth via letters from the other members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society before she even arrives in Guernsey, and then the other members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society learn what happened to Elizabeth almost immediately, a plot-development that seems to exist to give a reason for them to go to the European mainland in order to be able to carry on written conversations with Juliet.
This all means that all sense of mystery dissipates quite quickly in the book version. This still leaves the love story, but even this suffers by being communicated solely through letters. The intimacy of letting a scene unfold with two characters figuring out their feelings for one another is lost a bit by having it all written down after the fact.
If this all sounds like I didn't like the book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, that would be wrong. I liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society quite a bit, just not as much as the movie The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The book is interesting but not much more. The movie is memorable.
And I have definitely enjoyed saying The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, so that's a win.
Completed 7 April 2024.
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