Songs of Silence is one of those stories which reminds me of something from my childhood. In the Sixties, my mother took a weekly journal called The Woman, (my father, on whom be peace, never tired of joking about how many "old women" there were in his bedroom). The Woman often featured quite long stories similar to this, in serialized form.

You were always left hanging at a moment of high drama. There was that annoying little line of dots, and the slogan.......to be continued.

Actually, Songs of Silence is beautifully written, and set in the hills of North Wales, which are described with skill and a love for the landscape and sheep farming.

The protagonist is a doctor, Owen, who is cracking up.... divorce and the loss of his children, who are now in Australia, has left him vulnerable and ship-wrecked. He is taken to Wales by another couple, to hide out in their cottage and recuperate.

Meanwhile, another parallel narrative is unfolding in a similar place but some years further back. (The clue to this is that one character is living in Britain before the decimalization of the currency, and the other in more recent times). Rhodri is a handsome young hill farmer living like a hermit in a cottage on the mountain, with only his dogs for company.

Curiously, in both narratives, there is a person who is mute. In Rhodri's village it is Malen, a woman-child with hair the colour of fire, and copper and poppies, and skin white as snowdrops and cotton-wool clouds. In the village that Owen inhabits, there is an old, old man, Gethin Morgan, who can not speak, but screams instead. Naturally, some people find this unsettling.

Owen has the good fortune to meet Miss Right, a primary school teacher called Gwenhwyfar Jones, a lady with "a soft, deep voice which matched her soft, deep breasts", terrific legs, and endless compassion. Together they explore the mystery of who Owen really is.... he was adopted in infancy, and now Gwen tells him he bears an uncanny resemblance to a local author.

There is a lot of discussion about what a mute person feels, and how they handle the inability to speak.... and yet in both the cases mentioned, the mute is able to communicate volumes with gestures, eyes and other body language. There is a kind of empathy for both these people, almost like an appeal for the world to be more tolerant of folks afflicted in this way.

It is a complicated little story, but one I found easy to read and rather satisfying. Little Gwen is extremely likeable, while Owen is a bit self absorbed. I keep wanting to tell him to grow up and snap out of it. I guess I would never make a counsellor.

Anyway, it is a refreshing and clever story and contains snippets of wisdom.

This is a book about the way in which war disrupts the lives of ordinary people, even when they are remote from the action. It also challenges our ideas of patriotism, courage, enmity and love.

Esther is "The Welsh Girl", living a quiet life as a farmer's daughter, and barmaid in the village pub during the Second World War. A prisoner of war camp is built nearby, in which Karsten, a German soldier who has surrendered, is placed. This camp brings disruption to the village, exposing feelings of hatred of the English towards the Germans, and of the Welsh towards the English. There is also a visitor to the village, Rotheram, a German Jew who lives in England, and whose job it is to question the German war criminal, Hess. This novel is the story of what happens when these people interact.

The notion of shame is at the heart of the novel. Esther is ashamed because she is pregnant by an English soldier who has raped her. Karsten, and the other German prisoners, are shamed by their surrender. Rotheram is ashamed because he and his mother fled from persecution in Germany. The interaction between the characters results in them realising that ideas of patriotism, nationality, and courage are arbitrary, and more complex than wartime propaganda would have them believe. Each character realises this in his/her own way.

This is a gentle novel, which is not very plot driven, which I found problematic at first. However, I like to read something different, which this is, although the themes are a bit well-worn. Once I got into the book, I enjoyed it, being especially interested in the Welsh perspective on the war. Not a riveting read, but good all the same.