Reviews

More of the same. Guy is busy all the time. Harriett plays around with other young men but never commits. The Germans make life difficult and the war gets too close for comfort. The same cast of insufferable British ex-pats create minor intrigues and petty squabbles. I’m going to say adieu, and leave them all approaching Egypt, where, I’m sure they’ll carry on just the same. I did enjoy Manning’s beautiful descriptions of Athens and the surrounding countryside, but her characters are dreadfully tedious.

toniapeckover's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Such a slow, quietly building trilogy. This last of the series was my favorite, I think, because the characters finally start to learn themselves and learn how to love each other. There's another trilogy that follows this I just might have to read.

neom's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

3.75

gh7's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Like the other two books, I found this (mildly) entertaining but if you consider this trilogy runs to over a thousand pages you do find yourself realising that Olivia Manning, though a good writer, doesn't have an awful lot to say about life. She lucks out to some extent in that she finds herself living through a moment of history that has few chroniclers. But there's also the strong suspicion she's seeing it all through a distorted lens. Manning clearly takes all her material directly from life without much of a filter. Little attention is paid to architectural artistry. She throws in everything she experienced as if one thing is as relevant as another. She also repeats herself a lot. A habit ex-pats who have a tendency to repeat the same daily cycles over and over resort to. Essentially these books are about living in an ex-pat community as much, if not more, than they are about the second world war. Having had some experience of the ex-pat community in Florence I sense as communities they haven't changed much through the years. The members tend to stick tightly together as a means of keeping everything foreign at bay. They rarely learn the language. Which means the language they have is staunchly self-protective and neurotic. And this is the world Olivia Manning's cast of characters form. Poor Harriet, Manning's heroine, has far more to fear from the benumbing mediocrity of her company than the Nazis. No wonder she's always moaning. First and foremost, her manchild husband who, like perhaps like every other character in this book is running away from reality rather than fascism. I realised at the end of this trilogy that it's doubtful if a single one of Manning's English characters would even be capable of producing a child. Such a band of hapless misfits might provide a high dosage of whimsical humour but I'm not sure they provide much reality. The Rumanians first and then the Greeks are little more than local colour in Manning's books. Forget empires, the English, as represented here, would struggle to organise a jumble sale. You almost begin to sympathise with the Germans (certainly a new and disturbing experience, though clearly unintended). Perhaps it would be better if this old world of unearned and condescending entitlement ceased to exist. Which is why this is one of the most eccentric literary depictions of WW2, as if it was some kind of social experiment which all Manning's characters dismally fail.

drcdoyle's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

4.25

muggsyspaniel's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

More of the same from Manning here, we're still following the Pringles but this time they are in Greece. Yakimov is still around and a few other familiar faces from the previous books make appearances but there are plenty of new characters and the marriage hits a rocky period with the arrival of Charles.
It's beautifully written as always with a distinct air of melancholy throughout and you feel your there with the all too human characters.
I suppose I'll have to read the second trilogy now...

More...