THE MOON IS DOWN by John Steinbeck

This book has taken my book club by storm. There is plenty of information, reviews, study notes about this book on-line, as there is with most of John Steinbeck's novels. Published in 1942, it would seem to  be the famous book that you have never heard of, which includes me. And I have read John Steinbeck before too - The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath - probably his most well known novels.

A small coastal town in a fictitious country, widely lauded as Norway, is taken over by an invader during a war,  widely lauded as the Nazis during WWII. Norway was actually a neutral country when the war started, and had been neutral during WWI so was ill prepared for an invasion. Resistance became the name of the game and this is exactly what this novel is about. It's a slow burner of a novel, even though it is so beautifully put together, as well being extremely compact - so much said in so few words.

The invaders don't really want to be there, and don't really know what to be doing. They feel unsafe, vulnerable, unable to be effective conquerors, neglected to a certain extent by the high command of wherever it is that they are from. The loss of freedom on the part of both the community and the occupiers lies heavily on both sides. The conquered have a certain advantage in that they know the lie of the land, and can be passive aggressive in their own unique way. Things take a turn for the worse for when one of the town's leaders is executed, changing the fine balance that had sorted of evolved. From that moment on, passive aggressive is out the window, a resistance movement begins to take shape and the badness really begins. AT one point, there is a huge mammoth parachute drop of dynamite and chocolate on the town and the region, which just serves to inflame the occupying force even more, making them realise that they are never going to win this particular section of the war. And you have to wonder why an invasion ever took place in this small remote community in the first place.

It is not a happy book. Despite the fortitude and defiance of the locals, and unlike my fellow bookclubbers, I didn't find it uplifting. It was just more of the same horrible, tragic and unnecessary war stuff that we seem to continually find ourselves confronted with in the world  we live in. There is never a happy ending in anything like this, I was glad when I had finished it. Well written yes, but just not for me.