The Road Ahead (Christabel Bielenberg)

--The blurb--
"Following her wartime memoirs in "The Past is Myself", Christabel Bielenberg continues her story from the end of the war. Germany was devastated by war and its aftermath, while to the author Britain seemed grey and exhausted. She was soon appointed "The Observer"'s special correspondent in Germany and, reunited with her husband - technically an enemy alien - she joined the struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. A near-fatal accident to her husband, and her own illness, persuaded the young couple to turn their backs on England and Germany, and make a new start farming in Ireland. Although life was harsh at first, the beautiful scenery of the Wicklow Mountains provided a haven for the family and for the hosts of young people from all over the world who joined them each summer. Christabel became involved with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and learned as much as she could about her adopted country."

--The review--
Sequels to anything are usually quite the minefield. They have high expectations attached, both for the author's reputation and for the book itself. There are certainly many successful sequels, so it's clearly not impossible. But equally, there are just as many that fall by the wayside, and The Road Ahead distinguishes itself from the start given the general absence of memoir sequels.

Anybody expecting the same pace and style as found in The Past Is Myself may be disappointed: the war has come to a close, and so the atmosphere is different from the off (it is still charged, but perhaps with more melancholy, and there is more looking ahead than nostalgia). It is also arguably more complex in political content, which again falls prey to Bielenberg's weakness of being quite vague at times. The memoir can be seen at its strongest, perhaps, at Christabel and Peter's arrival in Ireland. Their farming exploits, from finding a property to delivering lambs, inject the memoir with a bit more vigour and humour, contrasting nicely with its previous languorous pace.

Readers of this novel, then, will perhaps be more interested in Christabel and her family on a personal level (even though we arguably hear less about the children than we do about Christabel and her husband), whereas readers of the prequel will perhaps be more history-centred in their interests. This perhaps shows, then, not that expectations for sequels should not be as high, but rather that expectations for follow-ups should certainly not be the same.

Other work by Christabel Bielenberg
The Past Is Myself (1968)

The Past is Myself (Christabel Bielenberg)

--The blurb--
"A story of a British woman, married to a German lawyer shortly before WW2 and her subsequent experience as a German citizen in the war under Nazi rule."

--The review--
There is certainly no shortage in the book market of war memoirs: as well as perhaps the most famous in Anne Frank, interested readers can also choose from those of Zlata Filipovic, Vera Gissing, and Christabel Bielenberg. While these four reflect various points of view of war from various different countries, Bielenberg's memoir differs in that it offers not just political insight, but also political involvement. The imprisonment of her husband, the execution of her friends and her interview with the Gestapo all cause readers to draw breath and admire the shrewd quickwittedness that is displayed by the author. An interesting extra dimension is also brought by the fact that Christabel is British and living in Germany with her German husband, as well as the fact that the memoir is not insular in terms of class (Bielenberg enjoyed a very middle-class upbringing, and this is highly evident, but she seems to slot in equally effectively with the rural working-class community of the tiny Black Forest village in which she lives).

The memoir is tightly-packed and full of plenty of good material from someone who is highly intelligent and humorous, and the quasi-nepotism that is exhibited in her entry to journalism is still grimly reminiscent of today's market. Bielenberg's skill in character development is also notable, which is perhaps further demonstrated by her introduction to the follow-up, where she explains that she has written it due to the curiosity of her readers as to what happened to her and her family next.

This does not mean that the memoir is without its faults: Bielenberg can be extremely vague at times, particularly on the more complicated points of the story, and this is something that also dogs the sequel. Nevertheless, this does happily not prevent the memoir from being an authentic, memorable and well-written piece of history, and should successfully spur all interested readers on to the next instalment.

Other work by Christabel Bielenberg
The Road Ahead (1992)