Love and War in the Apennines (1971)

I initially picked this as a travel book, but in this tale of Newby´s wartime incarceration, escape, and subsequent concealment by poor Italian villagers he does very little travelling at all. Let me start with the positives. He tells the story with great energy. Newby acknowledges that these events have left a strong impression on him. His descriptions of the lives of these Italians is vivid, authentic and uplifting. They come across as tremendously stoic and humane. There is a constant sense of tension that impels the reader to follow Newby´s trail from house to house, and to rock shelters and caves on the high mountains. Newby makes very little of his importance in the military, as a prisoner or as an escapee. He honestly observes that it is others who are arranging his shelter and concealment. He talks about that relationship which reflects the considerable courage on the part of the Italians as the German grip on the countryside tightens. Even in the romance - which became the love of his life - he seems to take the passive part, but acknowledges the strength of the remarkable Wanda. All these elements make this a great story, a memoir and a homage to the kindness and honour of strangers, in a special (redeeming) moment in the history of Italy. For all of this, this is a very commendable book.

POSSIBLE SPOILER FOLLOWS: But then - and perhaps I have taken a set against Newby - I found myself deeply disturbed in the very last paragraph of the book. Coming back to the villagers after the War he is offered the chance to meet the two people who at different times revealed his location to the authorities. His host notes that these two were impelled by honorable motives - in their own minds at least. Both had turned down the immense cash reward the Germans were offering for information on escaped prisoners, and the second had forced a deal on the authorities to protect the village from retributions. But this person had been ostracized within the community for it, very nearly shot for it at the end of the War, and lived in misery ever since. Newby himself had noted at one point that the best thing he could do, as conditions became very difficult, was hand himself in so as to spare his protectors the efforts they were making on his behalf, and the very real risk they ran of being killed for sheltering him. This was a risk they were willing to run; as his protectors said, sheltering Newby was the only thing they could do to strike back at the regime they hated, and to support the forces that had assembled to overthrow it. But Newby understood that the Germans wouldn´t stop at an arrest or two, they were quite likely to destroy the village as an example to others. So here is a moral paradox at the centre of the story, and Newby seems to have a very good understanding of all of the dimension of it. He seems to have taken the offer to meet his betrayers as an offer to meet and condemn them. So he refuses, citing his desire to let matters rest. Others (notably Simon Mawer ) have referred to this as evidence of a tremendous forgiving quality. But I wonder - the context of the offer seems to suggest that it was an offer to meet and personally forgive the betrayers, to settle their guilt (noting that this is a strongly Catholic community). But Newby refuses. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding (his or mine), but my feeling about Newby himself (damaged by my reading of his Slowly Down the Ganges ) doesn't come out much better after reading this. Having said that, the heroes of the book (as Newby would say himself) are the Italians, and for the sake of their story being told (and told very well) I recommend this book highly. ( )

A footnote: The "Michael" mentioned in the opening chapters as Newby's companion in the POW camp was Michael Gilbert, the prolific author of mystery stories. One of Gilbert's books is set in a POW camp -- the US title is "The Danger Within," I believe the British title was different.

I devoured this book in just 24 hours and enjoyed every page. Eric Newby was captured in Italy after an abortive SAS style raid and spent several years as a prisoner of war – ironically he found his life partner in a little village in the mountains where the brave Italian villagers sheltered him and many, many other allied troops. Not a story that I have heard much about before – and nor had the author, so, as he explains, he wrote this book. He seems to have written several more about his subsequent world-wanderings.

I shall be buying and reading them too now – have found another author to read and to enjoy.

Novelist Simon Mawer has chosen to discuss Eric Newby’s Love and War in the Apennines, on FiveBooks (http://five-books.com) as one of the top five on his subject - Forgiveness, saying that:

“… ‘There is a great moment where he returns to the place where he was sheltered when he was an escaped prisoner of war. He only lasted a few months moving from house to house working almost as a sort of slave labourer in a mountain farm. Then he was betrayed.. .…”.

The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/simon-mawer ( )

Newby was a commando who was sent ashore from a submarine to attempt to destroy German aircraft on a German airfield in Sicily. The effort was for naught & while swimming back to the sub, he and four of his 5 companions were picked up by Sicilian fishermen. He ended up in an Italian prison camp. When the Italians pulled out of the war, Newby & the other prisoners fled the camp before the Germans took over. The memoir covers the period he was on the run from the Germans & the Italian Fascist militia constantly on the move from one hiding place to another all aided by Italian families who faced death for doing so. He fell in love with one of his rescuers and married her after the war but that is covered in another book entitled "Something Wholesale". Much of the time Newby was hiding in primitive facilities in cold, wet weather and his descriptions of his discomfort come off the page to the point that I felt the chill. His warm feelings for the poor, uneducated people who did everything to keep him free & alive appear to be the main reason he has written this volume. ( )