sharkybookshelf 's review for:

Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones

4.0

---

Kosovo, 1999 - Barry has been deployed as a civil engineer attached to the British Army in the immediate aftermath of the Kosovo War, charged with rebuilding critical infrastructure.

Intrigued by the blurb, I bought this on a whim and although the topic - essentially the mindset within the British Army - is fairly niche, I enjoyed it. More character study than plot-driven, the setting of Kosovo is largely secondary - it’s easy to imagine the story anywhere, after any war. Attached to the Army but not part of it, Barry is both an insider and outsider at the same time, which makes him an interesting narrator. It’s not a particularly flattering portrayal of the British soldiers - their boredom and disdain seep through the entire novel, and, as with anything British, class casts a long shadow over everything. They are not themselves fighting but they are encountering the immediate aftermath of a war - inevitably this takes a toll on the soldiers’ sense of normality and the increasing disconnect between the lives of the soldiers (and attached contractors) and that of their families is well depicted. An immersive stream-of-consciousness exploration of the mindset within a British peacekeeping force.