ABOUT THE BOOK

Blind Howard, an ex-RAF veteran, possesses an acute sense of awareness, and can see almost better than the sighted. Morse code patterns his universe and keeps his mind tuned to the big and sometimes bad world. Noble Laura, his doting wife, is loveliness personified. Then Howard becomes acquainted with the nefarious Richard, and soon the idyll of his life with Laura starts to crack. Morse is the common denominator in the alliance.

But before long, Howard and his world of dots and dashes, dits and dahs, takes on new darker horizons when he clicks into a drugs racket. Howard, the code-breaker, becomes Howard the buccaneer. He leaves lovely Laura for a wild voyage in search of a woman whose voice he has fallen in love with; and a sea-journey with maverick sailors on a heroin heist.

Alan Sillitoe was born in 1928, and left school at fourteen to work in various factories until becoming an air traffic control assistant with the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1945. He began writing after four years in the RAF, and lived for six years in France and Spain. In 1958 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' was published, and 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner', which won the Hawthornden prize for literature, came out in the following year. Both these books were made into films.

Further works include 'Key to the Door', 'The Ragman's Daughter' and 'The General' (both also filmed), 'The William Posters Trilogy', 'A Start in Life', 'Raw Material', 'The Widower's Son', 'Her Victory', 'The Lost Flying Boat', 'Down From the Hill', 'Life Goes On', 'The Open Door', 'Last Loves', 'Leonard's War', 'Snowstop', 'Collected Stories', 'Alligator Playground' and 'The Broken Chariot' - as well as eight volumes of poetry, and 'Nottinghamshire', for which David Sillitoe took the photographs. He has also published his autobiography, 'Life Without Armour'.

 

Here are some readers' thoughts on The German Numbers Woman by Alan Sillitoe:

"Now in his late fifties, Howard has been blind since his aircraft was shot down in the war. The book creates his enclosed world in such a convincing way that an almost claustrophic atmosphere is created. His devoted wife Laura can see but carries a dark secret within herself. However, Howard has access to another world that is his alone. This is the world of radio and morse code where he can voyage over the seas and make acquaintance (albeit a one-sided one) with a whole range of characters like the German Numbers Woman of the title to whom he can attribute stories and characteristics. It is when he falls in love with one of these characters of the airways when he eavesdrops on her communicating with her lesbian lover, and co-incidentally meets Richard, a fellow-devotee of morse code who also makes real voyages over the ocean that his life changes.

Some knowledge of morse code would probably have added to the enjoyment but I still found this part of the book very interesting. The way Howard and Richard somehow entrap each other so that Richard arranges for Howard to share a voyage on a drug-smuggling boat while Howard plots against the venture and causes Richard to go to jail is well done. Howard's life as a blind person and how he copes, and his relationship with Laura are also well explored.

However, when Howard leaves his private world to take part in a real-life adventure on the boat I found it less compelling and eventually got bored with what felt to me like an interminable voyage. The meeting with Judy (his love of the airways) seems implausible and even more implausible the happy ending with sight almost miraculously restored and a life of bliss with Judy thereafter. Even Laura is happy.

The writing I found somewhat unclear at times. My reactions are mixed. Generally speaking I enjoyed the first two parts of the book but not the third."

Member of Raheny Readers Group.