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ISBN:0743206401
Andrew Greig Genre Fiction English
Author: Andrew Greig
ISBN13: 978-0743206402
Title: The Clouds Above: A Novel of Love and War
Format: lrf azw doc lit
ePUB size: 1226 kb
FB2 size: 1882 kb
DJVU size: 1284 kb
Language: English
Category: Genre Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (September 25, 2001)
Pages: 256

The Clouds Above: A Novel of Love and War by Andrew Greig



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A Boston Herald Book Club Pick. Set against the Battle of Britain, The Clouds Above evokes the extraordinary summer when Great Britain's survival lay in The Royal Air Force, two thousand very young men, are thrown directly into the fierce struggle with the Luftwaffe. Len, an RAF Sergeant pilot, and Tadeusz, a Polish pilot serving in the RAF, become close friends despite their obvious differences, each aware that neither of them is likely to survive.

Although THE CLOUDS ABOVE has all the suspense and pathos you'd expect from a novel set in those legendary days, it also goes deeper, giving a real sense of what it was like to be alive then. It is as if the intensity of war and love awakens both Stella and Len to a fierce lyricism they might not have otherwise achieved. I still loved flying, that was something," Len thinks.

That Summer is the fourth novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig. It was retitled The Clouds Above: A Novel of Love and War for the . Working class Len Westbourne, an inexperienced fighter pilot, falls in love with Stella Gardam, a more worldly radar operator. Stella's friend Maddy is killed in a bombing raid and Len's squadron colleague, Polish pilot Tad, dies in a flying accident.

A Novel of Love and War. by Andrew Greig. A fine novel, every bit as good as the one to which it will inevitably be compared: Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Pub Date: Oct. 4th, 2001.

The Clouds Above book. Told in chapters alternately narrated by the two lovers, and drawn from author Andrew Greig's mother's diaries chronicling her experiences as a nurse during the war, The Clouds Above deftly portrays both the adrenaline-rush horrors of aerial combat and the fragile but heightened romantic passions of wartime.

Saturday, 25 August 2018. That Summer (Greig novel). That Summer! That Summer. Told in alternate chapters from the perspectives of Len and Stella, That Summer is a love story told against the background of the Battle of Britain.

Depending on the study guide provider (SparkNotes, Shmoop, et., the resources below will generally offer The Clouds Above A Novel of Love and War chapter summaries, quotes, and analysis of themes, characters, and symbols. The Clouds Above A Novel of Love and War. We found no such entries for this book title. Please see the supplementary resources provided below for other helpful content related to this book. Helpful in understanding various critiques of the style and substance of the book.

Andrew Greig - That Summer - Novel in Scotland - Working class - Radar - Battle of Britain - Hawker Hurricane - Hardcover - Paperback. That Summer is the fourth novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig. That Summer (2000) (published as The Clouds Above : A Novel of Love and War in some markets). Eric Gregory Award The Return of John MacNab Electric Brae (novel) In Another Light Lesley Glaister. That Summer (Greig novel), a 2000 novel by Andrew Greig. That Summer! That Summer (song) That Summer (Drury novel) That Summer (Dessen novel) That Summer (Greig novel). novel by ScottishScottish novelnovel. That Summer is the fourth novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig

It was retitled The Clouds Above, A Novel of Love, working class Len Westbourne, an inexperienced fighter pilot, falls in love with Stella Gardam, a more worldly radar operator. Stellas friend Maddy is killed in a raid and Lens squadron colleague, Polish pilot Tad. Told in alternate chapters from the perspectives of Len and Stella, Len is injured when his Hawker Hurricane crashes and goes off to recuperate with Stella in the countryside. 5. When They Lay Bare – When They Lay Bare is the third novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig  . Electric Brae: A Modern Romance was the first novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig. The title is a reference t. mage: Andrew Greig Electric Brae. In Another Light is the fifth novel by Scottish writer Andrew Greig.

Andrew Greig (born 23 September 1951) is a Scottish writer. He grew up in Anstruther, Fife. He studied philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Glasgow University Writing Fellow and Scottish Arts Council Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow Contents. In Another Light (2004). Romanno Bridge (2008).

The Clouds Above is not only a love story set during the Battle of Britain, but also of the battle itself. Andrew Greig recreates with sure touch that extraordinary summer when Great Britain's survival lay in the hands of two thousand or so very young men. The aerial combat scenes are so vivid that to read this book is to be with these men up in the blue sky, where ten seconds is a very long time and everything happens in a rush of adrenaline and terror.Len, a Royal Air Force Sergeant pilot, and Tadeusz, a Polish pilot serving in the RAF, are thrown directly into the fierce struggle with the Luftwaffe. Despite their obvious differences, they become close friends, each aware that neither of them is likely to survive.In this tumultuous and uncertain time Len falls in love with Stella, a young WAAF radar operator. She is trying to endure her own war: making the transition from a sedate middle-class English life to service life with other young women, being bombed and seeing her fellow WAAFs killed, listening to young men die every day, and trying to find an intense, if brief, happiness with a young man who risks his life daily.In chapters alternately narrated by the two young lovers, Len and Stella wrestle with the foolhardiness of a romance in wartime, even as the battle in the sky intensifies.
Reviews: 6
Cesar
I love World War II history. Somehow from the depths of hell and the jaws of death, there seem to be magical, romantic times and this book has it all.
The most fascinating thing about the book was being able to get into the heads of the two main characters. We are with Len as he climbs into the desolute back country of Scotland, alone with him and his thoughts while a war is being fought hundreds of miles from where he is.
You can clearly see the strength of the British people over and over in the pilots' determination to fly many sorties each day, see their friends killed and go back and do the same thing the next day.
After Sept. 11, I am convinced that we too might be able to go shopping in Oxford street while another part of London was being bombed. Of course, your heart would not be in it, but showing courage and determination was just a big a part of defeating the enemy as were the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
For anyone who loves history and romance and the dramatic times of the 1940's, this book is a must read. When you are finished you better understand the words of Winston Churchill when he said " that never in the course of history have so many owed so much to so few."
kewdiepie
I was born (barely) while World War II was still being fought. And, even though it was over two months later, to my parents' generation it was the defining event and I grew up in its shadow. The Battle of Britain, especially, was a David-and-Goliath story to make my heart pound: the exploits of the Royal Air Force, the grim courage of the civilian population, the small beleaguered island nation against the Nazi war machine. What a drama.
Although THE CLOUDS ABOVE has all the suspense and pathos you'd expect from a novel set in those legendary days, it also goes deeper, giving a real sense of what it was like to be alive then. It evokes not only the outer signposts of a country under siege (the constant danger, profound fatigue, late trains, rationed food) but its inner landscape --- for this book, as its subtitle suggests, is a romance. Drawing on the wartime diaries of his mother, who was a nurse, Andrew Greig alternates between two voices: Len Westbourne, a young RAF pilot and Stella Gardam, a WAAF radar operator trained to spot enemy aircraft. The device makes sense both structurally and emotionally. We get the queasy normality of life on the ground versus the dizzy, sped-up horror of aerial battles. We get middle-class, university-educated, initially snobbish Stella versus gangly country boy Len, whose father works in a factory. And we get the slow, unbearably sweet progress of their love, which they first resist as too big a risk (the RAF was not known for its long lifespans), until the war makes them see that no longer is anything safe nor is there any reason to hold back.
The war in this novel is more than a conflict --- it is an enormous catalyst for change. "One day there may be a generation without a great war," Stella thinks. "What will they do then to know themselves?" Adolescent habits and attachments fall away as planes are shot down, radar huts bombed and dance halls blown to smithereens. Conventions and social divisions loosen and totter --- Stella makes friends with Maddy Phillps, an ebullient if "unrespectable" charmer and with her "posh" sergeant, Foxy Farringdon (perfect teeth, perfect nails, country house, upper-class drawl). Len draws close to a Pole serving in the RAF, Tadeusz, a bitter, tragic figure whose country has already fallen victim to Hitler. The pilots, in fact, form a club more select than any elite London establishment.
Both of them try not to become morally numb --- Len agonizes over what it means to kill, while Stella imagines a young Fraulein at a radar screen on the other side of the Channel. They struggle to live and, at the same time, prepare to die, recognizing finally that this contradiction is the human condition, not just a byproduct of war. "How can we love anyone in wartime?" Stella thinks as she and Len ride back on the train from a week's leave in the country. "It's too stupid. Then I looked round the train . . . and saw that everyone on it was going to die, sooner or later. How can we love in the face of that? Then again, how can we not? Wartime is like real life but more so."
Part of the "more so" is that war tends to knock out both past and future; life is experienced mostly in the present tense. To reflect this immediacy, Greig tells his story in short bursts, moment by moment. Some of them are unspeakable (Stella's coworker lying dead after a raid; Len blowing off a Luftwaffe pilot's head), while others are extraordinarily joyful. One summer day, Len and Stella picnic by the river and she swims naked. They have begun to allow themselves to think of marriage and children. Len imagines that he may survive; Stella, in an act of faith and hope, makes love without contraceptives. At least for the afternoon, they snatch back the future that the war has stolen from them.
Greig is a poet as well as a novelist (THE CLOUDS ABOVE is the first of his books to be published in this country) and it shows. This is a beautifully written novel, with a fresh, unsentimental use of language that feels natural to the story. It is as if the intensity of war and love awakens both Stella and Len to a fierce lyricism they might not have otherwise achieved. "I still loved flying, that was something," Len thinks. "That lift as I came unstuck from the earth again. The sense of dreamy freedom, for all the noise, as I watched dabs of clouds passing by beneath, and below them the green fields, roads, and farmhouses, as we set our course for War." Or Stella: "Len's youth and vulnerability and kisses had dragged the heart out of me, and it lay so open I wondered if it couldn't be seen beating in the moonlight."
THE CLOUDS ABOVE received excellent reviews, but it hasn't been talked about much. It should be. Get this glorious book. Read it and give it to friends. It will break your heart and also make it soar.
--- Reviewed by Kathy Weissman
Mamuro
I found this book in Scotland last fall with the title "That Summer", so I wasn't aware that it was available in the US.
The story is a bit slow to get started. It isn't clear at first that we have two narrator/characters plus an omniscient narrator. I set the book done several times before it finally gripped me & I had to finish it in the middle of the night.
Greig tries to make us understand what it was like to live with uncertainty, fear, love, & death from moment to moment. The characters seem to be discovering themselves as we watch. Len & Stella examine every feeling as it occurs. This may sound tedious, but it illuminates what I find most interesting about WWII. I want to understand how people felt, how life looked to them. I am not interested in planes or tactics, although I understand that many are. Far more interesting to me are the secrets of the human heart. WWII, and the Battle of Britain in this story, brought out the best & the worst in people. Len & Stella confront the hate, love, grief, & joy that is part of life. They find their love for each other as they learn to face all these emotions.
"The Clouds Above" is like a tightrope act. Will the characters survive? They face danger all the way as we hope & pray that they will make it to the other side.
Blackstalker
While a book by a published poet, as Greig is, framed by a wartime diary might seem an unlikely reason to reassess your life and what is owed to those who went before "The Clouds Above" will upset your expectations wonderfully. Written as both a love story and a tale of the horrors of war for those too young to understand or avoid it is ultimately a comment on the immediacy and beauty of existence. Four friends, two pilots and their girlfriends during the 1940 Battle of Britain , relationships formed by the happenstance of war dare to love while learning that those attachments might at any moment be destroyed by an enemy fighter or a bomb plunging through a dance house roof. And similarly, abetted by Grieg's felicity with the written word, the reader comes , against rising dread, to care greatly for characters who might just survive to realize their dreams. The book brings vividly to life the human cost of war during a time when we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by an image of high technology warfare that hurts no one but "evildoers." The real cost, Greig points out, is to those we love. The real damage, it becomes clear, is to ones heart.
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