A Partisan's Daughter
Louis de Bernieres
Vintage Books. First published 2008.
This is another very sweet book by de Bernieres. It is much simpler than his other novels such as 'Birds Without Wings'. The story is straightforward. It is London in the mid 1970s. Roza is the daughter of a Serbian partisan who fought against the Nazis alongside Marshall Tito. Chris is a boring, and bored, English middle class medical representative, making painfully self-conscious efforts to escape his dead-end home, inhabited by a stodgy wife whom he calls 'the great white loaf'. One day, in an uncharacteristically adventurous mood, he sees Roza on the road, thinks she is prostitute, and tries to pick her up. She turns down his offer, but allows him to take her home - a broken down apartment in a building marked for demolition. Here, over the next few weeks or months, during repeated visits by Chris, Roza narrates her story, from early teenage in a united Yugoslavia, just breaking up into its various tribal components, to the streets of London and her current position.
Alternating in narration between Roza and Chris, the book describes how Roza learnt the first facts of life at her home and at the University, her first love, her first heartbreak, her flight over the border to Trieste, how she got a job as a cook and lover on a sailing boat, her illegal entry into England, her experiences as a hostess in London, and her current status as a reasonably well-off layabout. Chris falls in love with her, but is unable to take it forward. He figures she may also be in love with him, but is not sure. Finally, high on drink, he tries to make love to her, with disastrous consequences.
As I said, a very sweet book, but more novella than novel. The book is set in a large typeface allowing it to go to 280 pages. But even without these publishing tricks, even as a slim novelette, the book is very much worth reading, enjoyable, with the de Bernieres trademark of lovely flowing language and sweetness and light.
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