‘Past Caring’ is only the second book from Robert Goddard I’ve read, but it shares many key ingredients with ‘In Pale Battalions‘. Again it is about generations in England around World War I, a heritage house again takes a role, but most of all, it is about time. ‘In Pale Battalions’ lets us explore morality — right and wrong in the time of war. In ‘Past Caring’, I believe there’s one central line in the book that begs the question of whether or not people attract bad luck through no fault of their own — and how to redeem yourself. The book goes into British turn-of-the-century politics and perhaps because of that — lacks the polish of In Pale Battalions, mostly in pacing. But it’s again an intricate page-turner that cleverly fits together. Like any great book, halfway in the story becomes so captivating that you want to take off from work for it, or keep reading during the night to get to know how it ends. And it is constructed partly on reality, as key historical figures weave their way through the story — and fictional ones were so realistic that I tried to find them on Wikipedia, thinking they might have been real, even when they were not.
On the author: One observation is that reading Robert Goddard is a lonely experience, in that on Reddit his books are barely discussed, nor are any in-depth plot discussions available online. (Goddard sharing his name with a rocket inventor does not help with search results). But perhaps Goddard’s readers are not found so much online. This book was published in 1986, before I was born. Stephen King did tweet about Robert Goddard, so that may have helped his recent popularity a bit, but he also pointed out his books are not available in the US. Perhaps I do not need such an outlet for this book, as my dad and I have been reading this book eight thousand kilometers apart at the same time, and I’ll soon be back in the Netherlands.
