Louis de Bernières' first novel in seven years resembles neither Red Dog (2001), his slight, shaggy canine adventure, nor Notwithstanding (2009), his twee portrait of village life that made Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford look like Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Instead, The Dust That Falls from Dreams sees him playing to his considerable strengths, namely staging a sweeping historical epic of love and war, one that matches Birds Without Wings (2004) and his career-high bestseller Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994) for sheer breadth, storytelling and emotional intensity.
The book opens with a sunny garden party in 1902. The event gives de Bernières the opportunity to introduce the three families which make up his large cast. Chief among them are Mr and Mrs McCosh and their four daughters. Next door are the Pendennis family, recently arrived from Baltimore, whose three boys being six inches apart “reminded some people of a set of library steps”. The other neighbours are the Anglo-French Pitts with one son Daniel already displaying an adventurous streak.
As the Victorian era gives way to the “golden cocoon” of the Edwardian age, the families’ children find their shared fun and games curtailed by the advent of war. All are suddenly made to grow up quickly. Ash Pendennis recruits as an infantry soldier and promises his fiancée, Rosie McCosh, that he will return and marry her. He never does.
Meanwhile Daniel becomes a flying ace and survives the war, but finds the peace harder to negotiate. Fighting not shellshock but a debilitating feeling of uselessness, he achieves peace of mind by wooing Rosie – only to find his marriage strained by Rosie’s guilt at moving on from childhood sweetheart Ash.
De Bernières kills off a lot of his young men and shows how loved ones left behind deal with their loss. Post-armistice, he builds new relationships, bringing together characters from all walks of life that have been shaped and scarred by the war.
As with previous de Bernières books, this one is composed of various character perspectives and narrative styles. Some chapters comprise letters, speeches, diary entries, dreams, poems and even prayers. One character viewpoint is swiftly replaced by another. At times this frustrates and leaves shorter sections feeling bitty and episodic, tiny shards in a splintered whole. It also renders certain characters more knowable, and thus more valuable, than others.
But there is no faulting de Bernières’ main strands and lead players. We have Rosie whose faith both comforts her and complicates her decision-making, servant Millie who also finds new love through tragedy, and Mr McCosh whose reckless financial speculating keeps the family afloat one minute and close to penury the next. For comic relief there is prim, snobbish, “high-spirited and slightly mad” Mrs McCosh who pens letters to the king, drives a further wedge between Rosie and Daniel, and whose idea of contributing to the war effort is having Belgian ladies to tea.
De Bernières excels with his memorable snapshots of war, from Ash enduring the carnage, the rats, the whizz-bangs and the flaming onions in the trenches, to Daniel “stunting in the clouds” on sorties or in dogfights over “Hunland” in his Sopwith Camel. Life on the home front proves as captivating as dying on the Western Front, and as female characters enlist as nurses, wear trousers and fight for the vote, we get a skilled depiction of social change.
The Dust That Falls from Dreams suffers from a smattering of unengaging sections and a wholly awful title. The rest of it is the bulk of it, and it is thankfully top-heavy with heartwarming and devastating character-led drama.
Malcolm Forbes is a freelance essayist and reviewer.
