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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book years ago and it immediately became a favourite. I hadn’t read anything about the WWI before and was shocked by the misery and death of trench warfare.
Rereading it now was a different experience. It’s still a powerful book but I felt less emotionally engaged. Even the main character felt more distanced, but perhaps this was intentional.
I also found some of the writing to be a bit (dated) convoluted and lost my way with descriptions of trench or tunnel arrangements.
Overall though it’s still a wonderful book and will always hold a place in my heart.
Rereading it now was a different experience. It’s still a powerful book but I felt less emotionally engaged. Even the main character felt more distanced, but perhaps this was intentional.
I also found some of the writing to be a bit (dated) convoluted and lost my way with descriptions of trench or tunnel arrangements.
Overall though it’s still a wonderful book and will always hold a place in my heart.
This is a wonderfully poetic book about the atrocities of the First World War and how the human being can be pushed to the extremes of human nature before caving in and giving up. It's a powerful and moving ode to humans and to the hopeless nature of war.
The book is split into seven sections and focuses on two main characters; Captain Stephen Wraysford and his time during WWI, and his granddaughter Elizabeth as she navigates her life in 1970's England. One of the things that the sections focusing on Elizabeth manages in great detail, is the feeling of disconnect away from the war and how the generations that have followed don't have the same feeling about the war that those who did live it.
Faulks manages to draw you in to the chapters and make you want to see each of the characters live and survive, even though you know that many of them won't make it to the end of the war. Each of the characters leaves you grieving for their deaths and reiterates the futility of the war.
This is such a well written book that I want everyone to read it, it made me cry in a number of places and it also helped to make WWI feel more real.
The book is split into seven sections and focuses on two main characters; Captain Stephen Wraysford and his time during WWI, and his granddaughter Elizabeth as she navigates her life in 1970's England. One of the things that the sections focusing on Elizabeth manages in great detail, is the feeling of disconnect away from the war and how the generations that have followed don't have the same feeling about the war that those who did live it.
Faulks manages to draw you in to the chapters and make you want to see each of the characters live and survive, even though you know that many of them won't make it to the end of the war. Each of the characters leaves you grieving for their deaths and reiterates the futility of the war.
This is such a well written book that I want everyone to read it, it made me cry in a number of places and it also helped to make WWI feel more real.
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The pacing of this book didn’t work for me, the last quarter of the book was so manic and intense it made the middle section seem completely glacial. But, how do you criticise a seminal World War One novel…. I don’t know.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, War
This was such a pleasant and heartbreaking read and I shall watch the movie as soon as possible ! Mr. Faulks, you did a very good job ! Looking forward to your other creations !
I really enjoyed this, its a bit on the long winded side - but Faulks' portrayal of life in the trenches will stay with me for a while.
I very seldom end reading a book halfway, but with this one I did. I agree, the pieces about the horrors of the first world war are gruesome and captivating described; but we already have so many of those stories (not to mention the Ur-source Vom Westen Nichts Neues). Faulks brings his story from the point of view of Stephen Waysford, a man who even after 100 pages still remains quite superficial and shows little or no emotion, apart from a sudden passion for his landlady, an Obvious double of Emma Bovary. The twists and turns the story takes are often implausible and especially the psychology of the protagonists is not really elaborated. I snapped off in the middle part, which is situated in the 70 's in London, and where the clichés started to pile up so high (the hard-working Elizabeth is mistress of a Eurocrat who doesn't want to leave his wife; but she feels her biological clock ticking and absolutely wants a child; but for some reason she feels flaring up a passion for what happened in the first world war), that I no longer persevered my reading. A real disappointment!
Among other things that are good in this book, four things in particular struck me as seeming extremely well done:
1. The description of how the soldiers felt when they were on leave in England, how they were looked at and treated and how seeing "normal" life in London created a huge gap between the soldiers life and their old life/life back home.
2. How the question of the purpose of the war was brought up several time with different soldiers really wondering why they were there.
3. How some soldiers did not want to go back home and did not want to be confronted with the gap separating them from their old life. How they felt no one could understand them and they couldn't talk to their loved ones because of what they had live
4. how the future generations felt this need to find out more about it, how we want to understand what happened, what a member of our family went through
1. The description of how the soldiers felt when they were on leave in England, how they were looked at and treated and how seeing "normal" life in London created a huge gap between the soldiers life and their old life/life back home.
2. How the question of the purpose of the war was brought up several time with different soldiers really wondering why they were there.
3. How some soldiers did not want to go back home and did not want to be confronted with the gap separating them from their old life. How they felt no one could understand them and they couldn't talk to their loved ones because of what they had live
4. how the future generations felt this need to find out more about it, how we want to understand what happened, what a member of our family went through
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes