Seamless dual timeless, a stunning historical WW2 era novel.

Davies seamlessly uses dual timelines and the setting of Nazi Germany and its immediate aftermath, to expose us not only to the horrors of National Socialism but also to the hypocrisy and subtle racism endemic in the victorious British occupation of post-war Germany. The naval barracks at Lake Plön in Schleswig Holstein become, after the War, a British Forces boarding school. In setting The Element of Water in 1933, 1945 and 1958, she is able to show the equivocations and compromises of both sides. Davies challenges us with a less than palatable truth: we know when the war stopped for the allies, but we know little about the catastrophic consequences for the people of Germany. Sometimes it’s hard to get past that, and rightly so, but there is much to learn when you look more closely...

Reading this novel, I often returned to ask myself the same question - who is setting the good example to whom? The occupiers or the occupied? Teaching staff to pupils? Haven’t we all at some point sat on the fence, turned a blind eye to something that is fundamentally wrong when we feel the need for self preservation? ‘It wasn’t my fault... it was the times’ fault...’ ‘Where madness is normal... what ordinary person can see through it and stand against it?’

At its heart, this radical novel centres on the meeting of Isolde, child of a German refugee mother and a Nazi perpetrator, and Wolfi, son of a German officer of the Abwehr. Davies portrays the relationships of the younger generation: the effect on their characters of the traumatised or duplicitous silences of their parents. Never have I come across such beautiful, powerful, tender and moving narrative: see especially chapters 11 and 12. This gem is ultimately a tale of love and loss, fear, shame and hate - but most of all hope. Hope that it’s possible to move on and recover, that beautiful things can emerge from the worst of times.

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Julia Winwood narrates this exceptionally well. A first class performance, I was thoroughly absorbed.

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