Post by pennyt on Jan 17, 2017 8:34:19 GMT
Blurb from Amazon:
On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks – an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer – is forced to confront the events that made up his life. His host is Alexander Pereira, a man who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.
The search for the past takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.
My thoughts:
In essence this is the story of 20th century Europe through the eyes of Robert Hendricks and his experiences from his birth in the middle of WW1 to the mid 1960s when his encounter with Pereira forces him to re-assess his past. It's a story of destruction and loss, and the over-riding tone almost throughout is one of sadness or, at best, resignation.
Faulks returns here to the theme of the long-reaching and devastating effects of war, overlaying it with two other themes: the sometimes unreliable and transient nature of memory, and madness. These elements are combined in the narrator, Robert Hendricks who, as a result, is not an easy character for the reader to know or to understand - he holds back information about his past; what he does reveal is sometimes shown to be unreliable or, at best, dubious; he has a deep-rooted aversion to commitment that makes him reserved and, I felt, not altogether likeable. But the last few chapters in which some devastating revelations are made, bring everything together in a very moving way.
Overall this is a fairly intellectual novel, full of big ideas and themes, that repays careful reading. Its portrait of the war-ravaged twentieth century is not a positive one, but ultimately it's a book about reconciliation with the past, and the redemption that's possible towards the end of life. Faulks's writing is always controlled and precise with, at times, insights of breathtaking perspicacity that brought me up short - he's able to pin down in just a few words thoughts or ideas that merely hover in the background of my consciousness. In summary, this is a book that appeals more to the head than the heart - though the love story at its core is a powerful one - but it's all the more rewarding for that.
On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks – an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer – is forced to confront the events that made up his life. His host is Alexander Pereira, a man who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.
The search for the past takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.
My thoughts:
In essence this is the story of 20th century Europe through the eyes of Robert Hendricks and his experiences from his birth in the middle of WW1 to the mid 1960s when his encounter with Pereira forces him to re-assess his past. It's a story of destruction and loss, and the over-riding tone almost throughout is one of sadness or, at best, resignation.
Faulks returns here to the theme of the long-reaching and devastating effects of war, overlaying it with two other themes: the sometimes unreliable and transient nature of memory, and madness. These elements are combined in the narrator, Robert Hendricks who, as a result, is not an easy character for the reader to know or to understand - he holds back information about his past; what he does reveal is sometimes shown to be unreliable or, at best, dubious; he has a deep-rooted aversion to commitment that makes him reserved and, I felt, not altogether likeable. But the last few chapters in which some devastating revelations are made, bring everything together in a very moving way.
Overall this is a fairly intellectual novel, full of big ideas and themes, that repays careful reading. Its portrait of the war-ravaged twentieth century is not a positive one, but ultimately it's a book about reconciliation with the past, and the redemption that's possible towards the end of life. Faulks's writing is always controlled and precise with, at times, insights of breathtaking perspicacity that brought me up short - he's able to pin down in just a few words thoughts or ideas that merely hover in the background of my consciousness. In summary, this is a book that appeals more to the head than the heart - though the love story at its core is a powerful one - but it's all the more rewarding for that.
