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The Tin Soldier
The Tin Soldier
A man who wishes to serve his country, but is bound by a tie he cannot in honor break — that's Deny. A girl who loves him, shares his humiliation and helps him to win — that's Jean. Their love is the story.
Book Excerpt
balance her books.
Jean went on with her knitting, Hilda did not knit. When she was not helping in the office or in the house, her hands lay idle in her lap.
Jean's mind, as she worked, was on those long white hands of Hilda's. Her own hands had short fingers like her father's. Her mother's hands had been slender and transparent. Hilda's hands were not slender, they had breadth as well as length, and the skin was thick. Even the whiteness was like the flesh of a fish, pale and flabby. No, there was no beauty at all in Hilda's hands.
Once Jean had criticised them to her father. "I think they are ugly."
"They are useful hands, and they have often helped me."
"I like Emily's hands much better."
"Oh, you and your Emily," he had teased.
Yet Jean's words came back to the Doctor the next night, as he sat in the Toy Shop waiting to escort his daughter home.
Miss Emily was serving a customer, a small boy in a red coat and baggy trousers. A nurse stood behind the
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3.5
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A story of World War I and its great impact on a number of society people, including starry-eyed Jean McKenzie. It travels down a number of half completed paths and ends with no real resolution. There's a woman who might be evil, but isn't allowed to be, and some off-stage tragedy, but nothing dramatic ever really happens to the lovestruck principals.
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Derry is said to be a coward because he's an able-bodied man who doesn't go to war but people don't know how bad he wants to go and do his part. He is bound by a promise that he made to his deceased mother that he'd stay with his dad who has a drinking problem. He meets Jean and things progress quickly. Then the tin soldier goes to war. It would have been better if it had told of Derry's homecoming but as it is you can only speculate. But it's still good read.
09/09/2007
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