I’m glad that I read these out of order, because going from reading the last volume, where Tommy is fully mature and in his element to the first volume, where he is a child, really drove home to me how much growing up and having the time to think and experience life can make someone less annoying and more thoughtful. I think if I’d started with the first book, it would have soured me on him because he is very of his time and class at that point and keeps saying racist and snobbish things in a way that is pretty off-putting. He definitely remained snobbish his whole life, and his attitude towards people of color didn’t improve amazingly (see his remarks against race mixing later in life) but he definitely became more balanced and thoughtful in a way that made him a more interesting diary companion for the reader. The first World War seems to be the tipping point for him, with his diary and letters taking on a deeper feel and his view switching away from endless parties and lolling around.
End of an Era covers his earliest childhood letters sent home to boarding school, his time at Oxford, his subsequent attempts to find employment that will fit him (trying to pass the Foreign Office exams, working as a stockbroker, bumming around South America), World War I, and his time in India as an A.D.C., concluding with him meeting his wife. As I mentioned above, I found young Tommy to be pretty insufferable. He is a typical member of his class and age, but there’s a certain insouciant, self-satisfied air that made the endless descriptions of parties feel more endless for me to plow through. Once he enters World War I, the narrative style and focus changes completely and I was nearly moved to tears several times. The death of the majority of his friends and male relations his age is so heart-rending. While I never want any war to happen and am a life-long pacifist, you can see the effect it has on him to make him mature and take life more seriously. His time in India after that was also more interesting than the first half of the book, although it wasn’t as engaging for me personally as his later work as a private secretary. Most of it is made up of more parties and hunting, which tends to be boring reading.
King’s Counsellor is really the best of these three volumes, as it deals with World War II and is primarily his diary entries. The other two volumes are mainly letters, and I find that he is more open and honest in his diaries. He has a very cutting and funny sense of humor that isn’t always on display in his letters. There’s so much history in this volume and Tommy is right in the middle of it. His position as Private Secretary allows him to be in the middle of the action and to see all the major players, while remaining enough in the background to really see the participants and judge them. His level-headed nature and determination to uphold his standards is commendable throughout. His insights are well worth reading for anyone interested in World War II and the impact it had on those who went through it. The sheer amount of deaths he had to live through makes me deeply grateful for what that generation did to try to ensure peace. It made me think about my own grandfather and how many of his best friends he saw killed around him in Italy. Even though time has passed, the emotional and cultural impacts of war keep reverberating through the generations in unexpected ways.
If you’re going to read any of these, I recommend King’s Counsellor. Tommy is a good reading companion in that book and I really enjoyed the time I spent with him.
Warnings for: racism, war deaths