I’d forgotten a book called A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute was my favorite book when I was a teenager until my sister remembered and gave it to me for my birthday a few weeks ago. Not two days later, Nancy suggested I try A Town Like Alice after she received my note about how much I liked North and South.
I liked the book, so much so that it made me think that in North and South and in A Town Like Alice, Nancy may have found the first books in a group of books that could include the best book I’ve ever read. Nancy found me these books after I told her what I liked in each of the books I've read that she's recommended.
So herewith, for Nancy, what I like about A Town Like Alice.
The book is about a young British woman, Jean, who is working in Malaya during World War II when she is a taken prisoner by the Japanese. The Japanese march her group of women prisoners from town to town, hundreds of miles across Malaya, promising that each town will hold a resting place that never materializes. The story begins after the war when Jean has inherited money from a relative and is living in London.
I liked the book because Jean behaves as I wish I would behave, and in doing so makes me feel inspired, not inadequate.
Jean is lucky enough to think creatively and brave enough to act on the ideas her creativity brings her. Throughout the march she eases the women’s path by wrangling illicit niceties—food, medicine—under the noses of the Japanese guards. After many women have died, she finds a resting place in a Malay village for those remaining by convincing the Japanese and the villagers to allow them to stop walking and to work in rice paddies.
Jean has the best answer I’ve heard to a question I like very much: What would you do if you were given more money than you feel you need? Jean thinks up and carries out a series of projects with her money—I love the creativity and the will here. She builds a well for the Malay village that took her in. And when she sees the women of a remote Australian outback town where she moves to marry a man she met during the way have done without ice cream parlors and dress shops, and other comforts of developed towns, she builds them those comforts.
But what I like best is that Jean is quiet about her good works in the way that only one who does not view them as deserving attention can be. She hides them, I’d say if I wanted to accuse her of design, behind her utterly run-of-the-mill presentation: She’s just a typist, someone says about her. I admire this in the same way I’m waiting to admire the first MacArthur genius grant winner who requests anonymity when they announce those prizes.
