My first read by Penelope Fitzgerald. I found her story of wartime BBC behind the scenes surprisingly poignant and very well-written. Annie's character was utterly fascinating in an understated way that intrigued me with every scene she was in. The ending just about broke my heart. I'm looking forward to reading more of Fitzgerald's works now. ( )

This is on the surface a light-hearted look at life at the BBC during the Blitz. Lots of acronyms, things not going quite to plan, and working around the bombing of London. There are human stories in here and it has sadness as well as comedy. ( )

I don't tend to be drawn to comedic novels, but like Fitzgerald's work, and after Beth's (BLBera) recommendation I took the plunge, and enjoyed this eccentric tale of BBC personnel during WWII. Humorous it was, but underlying that were small domestic details in the lives of those under duress. Fitzgerald communicates what it felt like in homes and on the streets. And the friendships that kept an element of sanity (mostly) alive. ( )

"Human Voices" isn't a long book, and it's not a particularly difficult read. Still, I read it twice before writing this review. It is, much like its setting -- the BBC's Broadcast House during the Second World War -- an oddly self-contained and emotionally restrained novel. It's also a good one, and I'm a little surprised that less than five hundred readers have it in their libraries. Its concerns range from the BBC's arcane bureaucratic structure during this period -- which seems to have been dictated as much by tradition as much as by organizational charts -- to the nature of love and friendship. Fitzgerald uses her characters here to ask what it means to love somebody whose particulars you despise. And it's beautifully written. As is startling common in Fitzgerald's novels, there are sections that last just a few pages but describe her characters so perfectly you might as well have read an entire novel about their experiences. Her writing is, as usual, rich, dense, and marvelously accurate. More specifically, her description of how one of her characters, a certain Annie, grew up with her father, a piano tuner, and made her way to the BBC is particularly good, the sort of thing you could use as an example of what really good writing is.

But mostly, "Human Voices" is about the importance of telling the truth, which, according to the author, who worked at the BBC during this period, the Beeb committed it to doing, as much as it could. And it's also about getting the job done: this book makes you understand how aware Britons were during the Second World War of how precarious their survival was, and how doing any job took an enormous amount of mental fortitude. It's a good description of what George Orwell called "writing inside the whale," working under conditions so dangerous as to be unimaginable, yet still managing, somehow, carry on. There are some lighthearted bits in "Human Voices," but most of it is, understandably, suffused with dread. Weeks seem to last months, and months years. Characters float in and out of the story, die suddenly, or undergo huge life changes in just a few paragraphs. "Human Voices" characters know that they are living in momentous times, and, by and large, act accordingly. Many of them have flaws, but, by the time I finished this one for the second time, I had found a lot to admire about just about all of them. Recommended. ( )

During the 1980s, Penelope Fitzgerald became a (or should that be ‘an’?) habituée of the Booker Prize shortlist, after having won with her third novel, Offshore, in 1979. She was, however, rather a late starter when it came to novels, waiting until nearly the age of sixty before publishing her first book. She had, however, had a long literary career, editing the magazine World Review along with her husband during the 1950s, and through it being responsible for the initial publication of several significant works, including J D Salinger’s collection For Esme, With Love and Squalor. Prior to that, she had worked for the BBC during the Second World War.

This novel draws upon her wartime experiences at Broadcasting House, which she portrays in a loving, though far from hagiographical, way. In this novel, set in 1940, just after Churchill’s accession to Downing Street, truth was paramount, and the Beeb strove to render as impartial an account as possible of the progress of the war. Of course, for the overwhelming majority of the country, the BBC meant radio in those days, television being very much a minority interest.

While its campaign to retain independence from governmental influence was being maintained, it was also riven by internal strife, between the Department for Recorded Programmes and the Directorate of Programme Planning, responsible for live broadcasts. Sam Brooks, the head of the former, is a dreamer, forever seeking to capture the essence of Englishness through recordings of everyday activity (perhaps not too dissimilar from the segments of ‘Slow Radio’ that have become so integral to Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme on Sunday mornings), while his live broadcast counterpart, Jeffery Haggard, is eager to have every news bulletin, and any political speeches, delivered live across the air.

Fitzgerald indulges in some gentle and entertaining satire, such as when the ageing French General Pinard, having freshly escaped from the German Occupation back home, is invited to address the country. His speech goes off at a wholly unexpected tangent before he succumbs, almost fortuitously, to what proves to be a fatal coughing fit.

It is, however, principally a novel about individuals, and their relationships, and Fitzgerald deftly captures the friendships, interdependencies and petty jealousies of people from different backgrounds forced to work together in often uncomfortable proximity. Reflecting its time, all of the women fulfil sadly subservient roles within the BBC, although they emerge as by far the stronger characters. How different might the story have been if there had been a Carrie Gracie on hand to galvanise their spirits. ( )