Random Acts of Heroic Love

Being an English teacher, when people ask me what my favourite novel is they often expect me to answer with something that is appropriately literary. 'War and peace' perhaps. Or maybe 'Anna Karenina'. But my favourite novel is a little known book called 'Random Acts of Heroic Love'.

I never understood those people who said that they finished a book and then they turned back to the first page and started over again until I read this one. When I got to the last page (and what a revelation the epilogue is) I did indeed turn back and start again. When I decided to include this one as one of the six books in my dissertation everyone warned me that it was a bad idea. "You end up hating every book that you ever study in depth" they said. But that's simply not true. The more that I read this book, the more that I fall in love with it. But what exactly is it that makes this book so special?

The book opens with a bloody scene. If you'd read the blurb you might imagine that we are flung head first into the war section. However, as you read on it emerges that in fact this is the middle of a very twenty-first century carnage. The character of Leo wakes up in a foreign hospital bed and realises that his fiancee has died in an accident that he too was involved in. Depressing stuff huh? But that's the thing, the book isn't depressing at all. It's a story of hope. Sure there's plenty of times when Leo feels entirely hopeless and when he seems to the reader to have lost it completely - the leaf collecting springs to mind. But don't we all do this to some degree? Who hasn't lost someone they cared about and then momentarily spotted them whilst walking down the street only to be disappointed? Death is not neat and easily compartmentalised and nor is love.

But what's this got to do with the First World War? Well Leo's is not the only story to be caught up this beautiful novel. Alongside Leo's tale we hear Moritz's voice. A soldier in the First World War, he has been captured and separated from his darling Lotte. He too has lost, not through death but its impact is still profound. Historically the stories are poles apart and yet the comparisons seem to come thick and fast. As the author says himself in an interview 'love transcends time and culture'. Just like 'Birdsong' the past seems to have a message for the present.

Whilst there is talk of a film and this book was featured by Richard and Judy's book club it seems that there is still very little known about it. It's never really taken off in the way that I think it should have and deserves to have. Perhaps this is because of its dual timescale. Lovers of romance are put off by the war sections and lovers of adventure are put off by the romance sections. But this is a real shame because it fits together seamlessly. Love and loss affect every person across every timescale but so does hope.

And if that hasn't convinced you then have a look at this book just to see the pictures. As Leo pieces his life together he produces a scrapbook of memories and things that remind him of Eleni. The pages of this are then used to separate the two stories. The pictures are beautiful and worth a look in their own right.