The Happy Foreigner is Enid Bagnold's first novel and is a fictionalization of her experiences as a driver for the French army immediately following World War I. It is a vivid piece of history as she describes the ravages of war upon a countryside that has not yet repeopled itself. Fanny is a young Englishwoman whose good family has been willing for her to strike out alone in a foreign country among soldiers where women are few. Fanny goes eagerly, accepting primitive living conditions, long working hours, and primary responsibility for maintaining the cars that she drives for officers.
Fanny also falls in love with a Frenchman, Julien, who falls as immediately in love with her. Their tentative steps towards each other and then their machinations to snatch time together make up the central plotline. Inevitably, the constraints of their jobs separate them. Not at all inevitably, Fanny manages to make happiness for herself as she lives alone, works, and waits for Julien to reappear. Realizing that they could never have a future together, Fanny is able to live in the present and enjoy each gracious moment.
If this is not the most stylistically interesting book I've read recently, it is certainly one that lingers and resonates. Fanny is in no way a modern feminist; yet she exhibits resourcefulness, sense and sensitivity, and a comfort in her own skin that many a modern feminist might envy and hope to emulate. ( )