Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy

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The beds on which the refugees sleep are “wooden shelves, sticky to the touch and spattered with the bloody remains of bugs.

Manning is no liberal, and questions Guy’s generosity in effect (shows it up), but there is a larger political and cultural world captured here.The Great Fortune, The Spoilt City, and Friends and Heroes comprise a remarkable impression of traumatic world events as they impinged on the daily lives of (mostly) British permanent or temporary expatriates, encountered.

The horrible truths are shown most explicitly through the story of the banker Drucker, whose son Sasha the Pringles eventually shelter in their flat. Olivia Manning (1908-1980) was born in Portsmouth, England, and spent much of her childhood in Northern Ireland. Comments that contribute civilly and constructively to discussion of the topics raised on this blog, from any point of view, are welcome. The black irony is what can hold the English summer school open (which provides Guy’s job) is this upper class prestigious (why are they numinous) is coming to lecture on Byron.

Harriet’s relationship with Guy has always been strained by his inability to put her needs even on the same level as the demands placed on him by everyone else he knows, as well as by his own obsession with his work. Fleeing to Athens, and then Egypt, their marriage comes under increasing strain amidst the chaos and upheaval of war. In these she handles her daunting wealth of material with great artistic dexterity and an admirable sense of proportion that at the same time never reduces.