Fortunes of War: The Balkan
Trilogy, a series of three novels by late British novelist Olivia Manning is
not the usual book I would pick up and read. It’s not like a Science Fiction
novel, which I only pick up maybe once or twice a year, but it is far from
something I have a massive interest in. But since I try to read at least one
900 page book a year, this was something I came across while searching and it
fit the bill. While it is not all bad, I don’t think a normal person would find
enough joy in a book like this to read all 924 pages of it at a time. Since it’s
three books, I am curious as to how reading them one at a time would offer a
better experience. But as a whole, it reminded me of better and even only
slightly better books that I came across, and I don’t see myself reading the
second trilogy of this story any time soon. It’s a war novel set during WWII,
but there are no battle scenes and only a few deaths, focusing on the lives of
Harriet and Guy Pringle, and how the war steadily encroaches on them and the
lives of those around them. It reminded me a lot of Julie Orringer’s The Invisible
Bridge for how the horrors of war introduce themselves in unconventional manners
as well as Vikram Seth’s mammoth A Suitable Boy, not only for its length but because
the length is made up of quiet, residential moments instead of scenes of grandeur.
But the characters, which there are a lot, don’t really stand out very much,
expect for Prince Yakimov whose arc is funny, moving and tragic, and the pace
is dreadfully slow, leading me to feel all 924 pages. A book like this takes a
lot of patience, which isn’t always bad, but I don’t think there is a reward
for such patience at the end of this gargantuan book.
Rating: 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment