I remember having a similar thought when we read North and South. Some of the things Margaret Hale said and did were surprising (her outspokenness, her unchaperoned evening walks, the way she managed her finances, etc.). And I thought at the time that if it were historical fiction, the author would be criticized for injecting modern sensibilities and behavior into the story. But it was actually written in the era that it was set. That’s my preference for historical reading – less margin for error.
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Okay, history buffs, I went down the research rabbit hole for Carry Geysel-Vonck, Shute’s model for Jean Paget. I had posted above that Carry’s group didn’t seem to have had as many casualties as Jean’s, but I take that back. I re-read the essay and this quote is from her time spent in the Laweh-Sigala-gala women’s camp, in the mountains of South Atjeh, in the middle of the jungle and supposedly “one of the most notorious camps in Indonesia.”
Many don’t make it, weakened as they are because of the bad food and all the illnesses in the camp. Carry, with her bare hands, has to help bury many of her fellow campmates.
That’s not hard data, but it certainly sounds horrific.
Then I tried to find more info about Laweh-Sigala-gala and both Google and Wikipedia failed me. So next I reached out to a Chicago librarian (aka my daughter) and she gave me quite a bit of info on the the prison camp. I’ll copy and paste what she sent as a separate post. Skip over it if you don’t like WWII history!
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Lawe Sigala-gala was located on the site of an abandoned fiber company about 15 km southeast of Koetatjane in the Alas Valley of Aceh (in North Sumatra). After the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, German citizens in the Dutch East Indies were arrested, and many were imprisoned at Lawe Singala-gala. This page, memorializing a Dutch ship called the SS Van Imhoff, offers some insight as to what the camp was like when used for German POWs (see July 1940 on the timeline). It begins, “In those days, Aceh is an almost inaccessible area with bumpy roads. One road leads to the newly organized camp Kota Tjané, 200 km away from Medan, passing through Kabanjahe, a mountain pass at 1800 meters, endless jungle and with hardly any local population or foreign settlers…”
By 1941, the Dutch received word of the Japanese army’s imminent arrival and decided to evacuate the camp, sending the German prisoners to British-occupied India. By 1942, the Japanese had taken control of North Sumatra. In the beginning of this Japanese occupation, it seems most POWs were held in camps near Medan and Palembang. However, during 1943 and 1944, thousands of POWs were shipped to Sumatra to build a road through the jungle. This may have been one of the reasons why Lawe Sigala-gala was used. Although originally established by the Dutch for German prisoners, it became a Japanese-run POW camp from March to July 1943 and a civilian camp from August 1943 to October 1944. According to this Dutch site, it became a women’s camp towards the latter half of that timeline (September 1943), which makes sense as that is the exact month and year Carry and the other women were sent to Lawe Sigala-gala.
Believe it or not, an auction site is what started my search. A one cent note for auction included the description: "This is probably camp Lawe Sigala-gala in the Alas valley in Aceh, where in 1941 a camp was established for German inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies and during the Japanese occupation a camp for Dutch and Indonesian prisoners of war.”
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Nowadays, Carry Geysel-Vonck would have been encouraged to write a memoir or give interviews about her experience. But I think for many survivors of WW II, the object was to forget, not to remember. As Carry’s husband George said, "Others might have been flattered to be promoted to heroine; my wife was not. She was always reluctant to talk to the press and others about this period in her life. My wife did not dwell on the past. She was a strong, positive thinking woman who lived in the present.”
In his garden, over the urn with Carry’s ashes, George had a sundial which had the inscription "She passed on, proud and unbroken”.
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She certainly walked at least as much as Jean, even if she ended up in a camp, not a nice village. I am fascinated that the camp held Germans and was run by the Allies before the Japanese took over. I had not realized that there were Germans at all in the Pacific at the time.
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My thoughts exactly! But I did enjoy learning about the historical period, so thanks for all that info, @Mary13! And to your librarian daughter, too! 
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I feel like part of the charm is that Jean and Joe are kind of ordinary!
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But is Jean ordinary or extraordinary?
The point that Jean is far from ordinary crops up repeatedly. Personally, I like to think I’d rise to the occasion and not only survive the march across Malaya, captivate the one man I meet, and then go on to transform a town in the outback. I sadly suspect I’d have been one of the first casualties on that march. Maybe the charm of the book is dropping us into Jean’s shoes and making us think we could be like her.
Joe … ordinary, yeah … to me, he revolves around Jean. In some ways I think of him as a secondary character … a catalyst character.
A catalyst character is one who influences change, usually in the protagonist. The catalyst character can have a myriad of relationships with the protagonist, but somehow, they move the protagonist toward change or encourage that change to occur more quickly. Homework.Study.com
Yes, I like watching characters survive situations that would kill me in the first five minutes. 
Doesn’t matter if it’s Jean in a A Town Like Alice or Ada in Cold Mountain or Mattie in True Grit …it’s satisfying to see somebody else get out of a situation that would do me in.
Which makes me the same as about 99% of other readers, I bet. It starts young, too – I still remember my kids reading and re-reading Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. And then there’s the whole Hunger Games phenomenon. (Jean had it easy compared to Katniss Everdeen. 
)
I think the point is that these characters start out ordinary, with jobs and families that we can all relate to, and then go on to do extraordinary things under pressure – while still retaining the humility and relatability of an “ordinary” person.
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One more historical tidbit. Jean inherits the legacy that would have gone to her brother Donald, who dies in the war:
“He died in 1943, while he was a prisoner. He was taken by the Japs in Singapore when we surrendered, and then he was sent to the railway."
I was puzzled. “The railway?”
She looked at me coolly, and I thought I saw tolerance for the ignorance of those who stayed in England in her glance. “The railway that the Japs built with Asiatic and prisoner-ofwar labour between Siam and Burma. One man died for every sleeper that was laid, and it was about two hundred miles long. Donald was one of them” (p. 10).
An estimated 100,000 men died building that railway: Building Burma’s Notorious “Death Railway” - Warfare History Network
Journey through history on the Death Railway, Kanchanaburi • Fan Club Thailand.
This photo is in the second link and reminded me of the doctor that Noel speaks to, enlightening him on what his job was like tending to men on the railway (p. 16):
The Thailand tourist link observes:
…this is a stunningly beautiful location with sweeping river views and a lush backdrop of green hills. But when you cross on the train or simply walk along the tracks, it’s a poignant reminder of the horrors that took place here.
The doctor in A Town Like Alice noted the same irony — he dealt with dysentery, malaria, convulsions, starvation, exhaustion…in “one of the loveliest places in the world.”
“You’ve got this broad valley with the river running down it and the jungle forest, and the mountains…We used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvelous place it would be to come to for a holiday” (p.17).
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I can never think of the Burmese Railway without thinking of the movie The Bridge over the River Kwai. It’s entirely fictional and arguably anti-British, but it does convey the general madness of war. Slinking away whistling… whistle tune from bridge over the river kwai - Google Search
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Just catching up on yesterday and today’s comments. Great discussion! Thanks for all the interesting history information.
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We can start selecting our April book whenever you all are ready!
Unfortunately I haven’t read anything worthy lately. So I have no suggestions.
My library’s reading challenge is to read something that was adapted into a movie or TV show. The ones that looked most interesting to me:
Women talking by Miriam Toews
Eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters
The Other Black Girl: A Novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G.H. are an older couple, it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news of a blackout. (The movie sadly got pretty bad reviews.)
The Last Thing he Told Me - Laura Dave
Hannah must forge a relationship with her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bailey, to find the truth behind why her husband has mysteriously disappeared.
Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A story that explores the rise and fall of a fictional 1970s rock band named The Six.
Otherwise, I still kind of want to reread Wuthering Heights.
Finally I’m part way through The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It was a bestseller 25 years ago. The writing is just beautiful (and it’s a translation.) According the author’s website it “has elements of mystery, historical, and comedy of manner genres but it is most of all a tragic love story which echoes through time.” I hope my Spanish gets good enough one day to read this in the original.
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Thanks for the descriptions. Appreciate the info
I suggest Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I have seen lots of great reviews of it.
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@mathmom: The Shadow of the Wind was a CC Book Club Selection (April 2010). Good discussion but spoilers abound from the beginning.
@mathmom (again): Different libraries - identical reading challenge. Jan - debut author; Feb - romance with Asian characters; March - a book that’s been adapted into a movie or tv series. Some of the same books you mention and some different, such as Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson (also a debut novel) and Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka. I’ve paid attention to the 2024 reading challenge but have yet to pick a book.
Me too.
High high on my list of “I want to read.” We’ve considered a few times already but the wait list was too long at libraries. It shouldn’t be anymore.
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Also previously mentioned: Homecoming by Kate Morton. My IRL book read and discussed it last month. One and all liked it and the discussion was one of the best we’ve had. It takes place in Australia though not the outback.
Otherwise I have nothing.