The best literary novels on the heroism and the flaws of the English during WWII

As a huge fan of Ian McEwan’s early novels with their dark drama, especially The Innocent, I initially gave up on this book after the first 70 pages—but then, thankfully, resumed a while later. 

What seemed a genteel novel about manners transforms into something much more sinister and dramatic. I loved the tense atmosphere of it, with much of the story condensed into one hot pre-war summer’s day and then the later serious repercussions from what, at the time, seem fairly harmless childish actions.

I remember reading this in my student bedsit and being transfixed. I was studying art but had just decided that I wanted to be a novelist. As such, I loved the opening lines: “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

It is a simple yet beautiful book about love, belief, and betrayal. I’m not religious, but the testing of someone’s faith and how it may make them act stuck with me. Also, the facade of the ‘stiff upper lip,’ but underneath, the vulnerability.

Although it is not set in England, it is clearly about England, the English, and the war.

As with the other books mentioned so far, I read them upon release before later seeing the subsequent films—and sadly, much of the imagery from my mind has been overwritten with often brilliant cinematography, which is never as affecting as what you imagine. I just recall that, at the time, I saw ultra-vivid scenes from the page that transported me, and that became a prime aim of mine to replicate. 

I found the prose sparse but poetic, albeit by then, I’d already fallen in love with slightly more complex sentence structures. Still, I marvel at how Ondaatje wrote such a dense and affecting novel in only 320 pages. 

While not specifically about WWII, this is obviously a product of the conflict that Orwell, or Eric Arthur Blair, had just lived through and the psychological terrors of conflict, propaganda, double-speak, and brainwashing.

I grew up in Hayes, on the outskirts of London, where Orwell worked as a teacher in the 1930s. I later drank in the same pubs that he did. I often wondered if the woods in this book were the ones in which I had played. 

The novel seems to be even more relevant now,  40 years after 1984 and almost twice as far into the future as the year 1984 was in 1948. Also, as scary as rats are, I’m glad Orwell didn’t choose tarantulas. 

It is a beautifully atmospheric, Blitz-era novel about passions and complex relationships in the noir blackout and who can be trusted in such times. 

Published just after the war, it captures the period in a way that those born decades later can only dream of doing. My mum was an un-evacuated child in London during the Blitz, and her school was bombed to the ground by the Luftwaffe—but luckily, on a Saturday.

England is flawed as a nation, then and now, but it’s important to remember the unique evil of the Nazis. Most individuals are flawed in much more minor ways. The novels I have chosen all contain imperfect people making mistakes. To me, that’s true life. It’s what I relate to.