All Clear Read-along: Week 4 (Pages 471-641)

Welcome to the fourth and final discussion post for the read-along of All Clear by Connie Willis, which I’ve been co-hosting with Carrie at Books and Movies. (If you missed them, please go back and read the discussions for week 1, week 2 and week 3.) Oh and feel free to join the discussion if you read this book at any other point as well!

(Apologies for posting this discussion a day late: sometimes real life gets in the way of blogging.)

Note that the rest of this post contains major spoilers!

Wow, the fourth section of this book was intense. I can’t tell you how happy I was that Mr. Dunworthy’s theory was wrong! I didn’t believe it for a second (what a terrible ending that would have been), but it was a relief all the same that things worked out in the end, even though Michael died and Eileen stayed behind. I think Willis succeeded admirably in what she set out to do, which was to show how everyone in England, from ambulance drivers, firewatchers, air-raid wardens and nurses to canteen workers, shopgirls, chorus girls and librarians, contributed to winning the war.

Intellectually, though, I must admit to a couple of disappointments. First off, it bugged me that the ending was framed as the men (Michael and Colin) rescuing the women (although technically Eileen was not rescued, and both Eileen and Binnie were instrumental in the rescue as well). This just seemed so same old same old. I also kinda wished that we’d returned to 2060 at the end, although the end as it stands is dramatic and satisfying (and might not have worked as well otherwise).

I’m also left with a few questions, which I’m putting to you:

1. What does Michael mean when he says his name is not Michael or Mike Davis or Ernest Worthing or Shackleton—that in fact his name is Faulknor (page 550)? Was he really both Shackleton and Faulknor? (How is that possible?) Is he speaking metaphorically?


2. What does Polly realize when she looks at Colin and sees the resemblance (page 640)? My assumption is that Colin is Eileen’s descendant. Is that what you understood too?


3. Finally, who was it who goes back at the end of Blackout? Was it Mr. Dunworthy? (I don’t think it could have been Colin because he doesn’t return to 1940.) Oh! I just reread that section again and I understand it now: it was Mr. Dunworthy, but he wasn’t coming through from 2060—it’s when he came through as a young man...!

I almost want to reread both Blackout and All Clear immediately as I suspect that Willis sprinkled many other clues throughout the books. For example, at one point I was pretty sure that one of the characters (I can’t remember which, but I’m assuming it was Polly) bumped into Eileen’s reverend on VE-Day, and of course Colin runs into several women who knew Polly as Mary (though he doesn’t realize it).

What did you think? Were you as satisfied as I was with how things turned out? Did you have any other questions about the ending?

Thank you to everybody who participated in these two read-alongs—and thank you to Carrie for co-hosting them with me. As I mentioned before, please feel free to join in the discussion even if you didn’t read these books during the read-alongs.

All Clear Read-along: Week 3 (Pages 301-470)

For all of you who are participating in the All Clear read-along that Carrie and I are hosting this month, don’t forget that last week’s discussion is happening over on Carrie’s blog, Books and Movies. I was so enthralled by the story that I read an extra chapter by mistake! Head over to Carrie’s discussion post to read her thoughts (as well as mine) and contribute your own. Come back here on Saturday for the final discussion post!

All Clear Read-along: Week 2 (Pages 124-300)

For all of you who are participating in the All Clear read-along that Carrie and I are hosting this month, don’t forget that this week’s discussion is happening over on Carrie’s blog, Books and Movies. I just finished this section, and I’m finding this book sooooo exciting now! I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a time traveller trapped in the past during the Blitz! Head over to Carrie’s discussion post to read her thoughts (as well as mine, which I will share shortly) and contribute your own!

All Clear Read-along: Week 1 (Pages 3-123)

Welcome to the first discussion post for the read-along of All Clear by Connie Willis, which I’m co-hosting with Carrie at Books and Movies. How are you all doing so far? I just finished read the first 120 pages, which is why I’m posting this discussion post a bit late.

Although I’d been warned that I’d want to read All Clear as soon as I finished Blackout, I didn’t realize just how much these two books are actually one story that’s been chopped in half. Neither book stands on its own: All Clear just continues where Blackout left off. (For that reason I’ve decided to review them together, at the end of this read-along.)

Note that there are spoilers in the rest of this post!

As I said to Carrie during the last Blackout discussion, I’ve been tempted to plot out who is where when since it’s now clear that this is significant to the plot. (We already knew that Polly has a cut-off date, and it now seems that Eileen has one too.) I had also suggested that Douglas, the historian in the VE-Day section, is Polly (which made sense to me since it seemed unlikely that Willis would be introducing us to another historian who’d been there on that day), but I find it curious that Polly hadn’t thought about the fact that Eileen also has a cut-off date until we find out about it via Douglas in 1945 (but maybe that was just to confuse us?).

Speaking of dual identities, I originally thought that Flight Officer Lang, whom Mary picks up in Biggin Hill, might be Gerald Phipps, but in the end I don’t think he’s a historian. But where does he know Mary from? (And who the heck is Mary anyway?) Then I thought that maybe Ernest is Gerald Phipps, but he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time (Ernest is in Kent in 1944 and they are looking for Gerald in 1940), so maybe not. I find Ernest’s story is the most confusing—and I have no guesses so far as to what he’s up to!

I’m glad to see I wasn’t wrong about the Hodbins making another appearance in the story—and we obviously haven’t seen the last of them yet, though I have no idea what’s going on with them either.

Finally, I’m still undecided as to whether the historians have actually changed history (and whether Dunsworthy already knew about it). Polly’s theory about why the drops were rescheduled is an intriguing one. What do you guys think? I guess we might find something out soon, as the next chapter takes us forward to 2060 again (finally!).

Please share your thoughts in the comments! Keep in mind that I haven’t read past page 123, so please don’t comment on the book beyond that point.

The next two discussion posts will appear on Carrie’s blog at Books and Movies. I will post the final discussion post here on August 27.

Blackout Read-along: Week 4 (Pages 379-491) & All Clear Read-along in August!

For all of you who are participating in the Blackout read-along that Carrie and I are hosting this month, don’t forget that this week’s final discussion is happening over on Carrie’s blog, Books and Movies. Even though I had been forewarned, I’m a bit disappointed in the ending that’s not an ending, but I’m looking forward to continuing the story in the next book, All Clear (which I just got out of the library). In the meantime, head over to Carrie’s discussion post to read her thoughts on the end (as well as mine, which I will share soon) and contribute your own!

If you’ve finished Blackout then you know we must now read All Clear, which concludes the story. Carrie and I are therefore going to be hosting the All Clear read-along from August 1 to 27.

Here’s the schedule:

August 1 to 5 (post to go up on August 6): pages 3-123 (stop when you get to the chapter headed with this quote: “Don’t leave it to others.”)

August 6 to 12 (post to go up on August 13): pages 124-300 (stop when you get to the chapter headed with this quote: “That won’t be there in the morning.”)

August 13 to 19 (post to go up on August 20): pages 301-470 (stop when you get to the chapter headed with this quote: “Just waiting, waiting, waiting till your number came up…”)

August 20 to 26 (post to go up on August 27): pages 471-641

To join us in this read-along, head over to Books and Movies and sign up using the Mr. Linky at the bottom of Carrie’s post. (Note that the dates for this read-along have been changed; we decided to spread it out over four weeks in the end, rather than six.)