markk

This is an interesting book but a frustrating read. In it Katherine Knight provides a history of the experience of rationing — the limits imposed on the food people could purchase, their enforcement, and how people sought to cope with them in their preparation of their meals. Beginning with the establishment of the rationing regimen, she examines what rationing was like from the perspective of consumers in different areas and how people coped with rationing in a variety of circumstances.

 

Such a book captures an important aspect of life in the Second World War, and Knight has done her research to reflect it. Yet much of her labor is spoiled by her writing, which veers between summary, reportage, and memoir. It’s clear that Knight’s personal experience with rationing was a powerful motivation behind writing this book, but too often it intrudes into her narrative as a distraction. It doesn’t help, either, that she lumps in information from sources (such as personal conversations) that are impossible to verify, making the book more impressionistic than it deserves to be. More disciplined writing and better editing would have gone far towards providing readers with the excellent book this subject deserves, yet in the end Knight proves just a little too personally invested in her subject to be the one who writes it.