This book started out very strongly with a beautiful love story and stunning writing. I was intrigued from the beginning while I was wondering how this was going to turn into a book about WWI.
The war started, and the beautiful writing continued. Some scenes were amazing, others - I must admit - didn't really catch my attention. I was waiting for those beautiful scenes that I knew would come, and they did come.
This is exactly what my reading experience of this book was like. Some parts deserved 5 stars while others deserved 3; however, there wasn't one point in this book where I wasn't interested in knowing what would happen next.
I did question some of the characters' decisions and behaviour, and that combined with some of the story's weaker parts make me rate it 4 stars - but all in all, I really do think this is a beautiful book worth the read!

Shocker: For me, I liked the BBC series better than the books! I saw the series first, then tried to read the books. I had to DNF them barely half way in: the descriptions of the trenches and the horrible conditions were too graphic for me. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The Long Engagement was another brilliant adaptation of a book (by Sebastien Japrisot) which I also ended up DNFing - once again because it was just too graphic. (There is no doubt in my mind that WWI was absolute hell on earth. Too bad we humans couldn't learn our lesson the first time!)




In my younger, braver years, I'd already read a fair amount on the subject in Delderfield's many novels, and my heart couldn't take another volley of shrapnel, blood, guts and gore!



If you have a stronger stomach than mine, go ahead and read the books. I highly recommend the BBC One movie adaptation: excellent acting by Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Poesy. I bought my own DVD copy of the series. It was a brilliant adaptation and of course all of the actors were outstanding.

This book is a bit of a mixed bag really. The romance is quickly introduced and proceeds with relative alacrity, but the essence of it left me unconvinced. The standout part of the whole novel is Wraysford's time in the trenches during the Great War. I have never read a book that has ever given me a clearer idea of what this battlefield was like, and the horrors that these men lived through and then carried with them. It is some of the most powerful writing I have seen, and the chilling coldness with which Wraysford treats all this is really evocative. He has seen it and lived with it for so long, tempered by a lost love, that he merely lingers, waiting for the inevitable. The final third, in which one of Wraysford's descendants enacts an oddysey into her lineage is not so well done. I can understand the intentions, but it just falls wide of the mark, and was in the end so ineffectual as to become almost redundant. I would reccommend it though, if only for Wraysford's wartime experiences.

I believe there are novels that affect you long after you have closed the book and I do believe that this is one of them. It was fated for me to read this book (at least I believe it to be so) since as I walked into the library, this book was propped up on the shelf seeming to send a message saying take me home. I listened and am ever so grateful I did take this powerful book home and to heart.

My grandfather (age sixteen) fought in the Argonne forrest and was gassed in WW 1. He was in the trenches and as I read I pictured him there among the rats, the mud, the awfulness of war. Perhaps this connection made the book not just another book about a war, but one that held memories for me of a beloved man who was just a kid fighting a onerous war.

Stephen, our protagonist was the ultimate soldier, not because he wanted to be, but because his humaneness made him so. He endeavored to remain, while carrying on a torrid affair with a married woman, aloof and separate all his feelings that he had buried so long. He was an orphan in more than the physical sense as he tries to understand himself and the turmoil of emotions, and the heinousness of war. Reading this book and knowing the conditions under which these young men lived and died was a nightmare come true. Is it any wonder that these boys, at least the ones who managed to get through the war as Stephen did, were left indelibly marked by tragedy, grief, and the smell of death. Oftentimes, it got to the point in my reading where I felt I just could not go on, and yet I could not stop. I was in a extremely small way like the soldiers forced to look at things deadly unpleasant and vile.

The book was utterly mesmerizing in its portrayal of Stephen and all the things that ultimately made him what he later would be. He was a broken man, as I am sure all those young boys who survived were. Yet, survive he did almost as if fated to do so. With so much carnage surrounding them, I am sure oftentimes even in survival, they wished to be among the dead.

The writing and story, so powerfully told were only slightly marred by the woman, Isabelle, Stephen's love. She eventually, at least to me, became an intrusion in the story. I also, did feel that the granddaughter's part did not enhance the story as well.

All in all, this was Stephen's story and one that all should hear no matter how many years have passed since The Great War. When you think of courage, of determination, of the best that men can be in a situation where there is nothing but death and decay, you will think of Stephen's story.

I waver between two or three stars for this book. The writing is serviceable, but often terminally pedestrian, and occasionally clumsy (“Stephen lifted searching eyes above the soup spoon as he sucked the liquid over his teeth”). The plotting is similarly ham-fisted, with its tepid “romances”, and unaffecting, though undoubtedly well-researched war scenes (“Stephen watched the men go on madly, stepping over the bodies of their friends, clearing one firebay at a time, jostling one another to be first to traverse. They had dead brothers and friends on their minds; they were galvanized beyond fear. They were killing with pleasure. They were not normal”). It’s as though Faulks had decided that, after dutifully wading through volumes of war correspondences and field reports, he would create certain characters representative of the era and then assign random period characteristics to them. They remain as shallow as a soldier’s hasty grave, and thus their historically accurate gory deaths are devoid of pathos. But the turning point for me was the totally extraneous subplot involving Elizabeth, Stephen’s granddaughter, and the eye-rollingly unbelievable climax of her story. In her late thirties, involved in an unpromising affair with an older married man, Elizabeth develops a sudden interest in her grandfather’s war diaries and discovers facts about her family’s past --- in a particularly slow-witted way:

“Elizabeth did some calculations on a piece of paper, Grand-mere born 1878. Mum born…she was not sure exactly how old her mother was. Between sixty-five and seventy. Me born 1940. Something did not quite add up in her calculations, though it was possibly her arithmetic that was to blame.”

Umm --- my nine-year old knows how old I am. Elizabeth was raised by her mother, Francoise, and is the managing director of her company. There is no indication whatsoever that her mother wants to keep any family history secret. The implication is that they are curiously dull, or so bovinely indifferent, that such basic facts simply never came up in their family life.

Or perhaps, her abject ignorance is a clunky plot device.

Whatever. By this point, I’m plodding through the story like a WW I soldier through waist-high muck. But wait, Elizabeth is also historically challenged:

Francoise: “I was sent to Jeanne from Germany, where I had been living, because my real mother had died. She died of flu.”

Elizabeth: “Of flu? That’s impossible.”

Francoise:t“No. There was an epidemic. It killed millions of people in Europe just after the end of the war.”

Er, Elizabeth --- how did you get past high school?

Elizabeth and her married lover proceed to “create an autonomous human life from nothing”, and this is unequivocally portrayed as something gloriously life-affirming. Somehow, Stephen’s wartime heroism inspired her to conquer her impending mid-life/ biological clock crisis by procreating. Screw the wife and kids. They’re obliviously happy. Francoise is non-judgmentally supportive. Stephen’s legacy lives on. The end.

Two stars it is.

An ABSOLUTELY stunning read.
The horror of war is described in minute detail; the grim horrors of trench warfare are laid out in impressive detail.

The kind of book to make you feel bad for having given other books five stars

So British. A little old-fashioned at the edges, with some overwritten parts, but there are sparkles here. It feels cinematic; I wouldn’t expect an HBO adaptation, but rather a BBC one. It’s less cynical about war than today’s attitudes are, but the fact that it’s about the First World War and not the Second makes the hopeful message more acceptable. The parts without the protagonist aren’t necessary, but they’re short enough not to become a problem.

I wanted to read this book for a long time as I knew it was considered one of the best novels for the First World War. Finally, this moment arrived and the first thing I can say is that I'm sorry it did not come earlier. This is a book that I highly appreciated from his first page and until the end, it offered me a lot. Its writing style is particularly beautiful and emotional, with the author showing the necessary self-restraint to produce an elegant result, without exaggeration and unnecessary sentimentality. with this as a vehicle, he tells us a very moving story, with some of the very distinct and complete characters that the author moulds with mastery.

The story begins in France a few years before the start of the First World War, when the world still unsuspecting for the imminent disaster was looking at its work in a place that would be one of the focal points of the war. During this quiet time, a forbidden love blooms and evolves in a way that is very common, with passion dominating, leaving logic aside. Whatever this evolution is, however, the important is that is something beautiful, as long as it last, and this beauty the author gives us as a gift, wrapping it in the most elegant way.

Then, then, war comes and things are completely different. The two lovers, like a whole generation, change as they are injured by its consequences. Our hero participates in some of the toughest and bloodiest battles of the war and he sees all his barbarity, as people die as they walk towards the machine guns under a rain of shells, the result being nil as the trench war has brought a stalemate. Next to him are his co-warriors who also witness this situation and wonder if there is any point in all of this. Everyone reacts differently, others lose their logic, others pretend to do just a job that will soon end and they will return home, others try to use their patriotic feelings and hate for the enemy to find a balance, but everyone is convinced that something is wrong, that things are not as they said, and that the notions of heroism, duty and sacrifice make no sense in this slaughterhouse. The only positive thing in this hell is that all this brutality and the constant threat of death unite them and forge the most powerful friendships that offer the only consolation.

That's what I think is the best part of the book, as the writer, without trying to do philosophy, puts his simple thoughts through the characters he creates, and because these characters have a truth on them, each representing different pieces of society, these thoughts have something special and carry to the reader all the trauma created by the war, with disappointment and resignation dominating as the memories of peaceful life seemed very distant.

After all this, the author takes us many years later, at a time when that great war is almost forgotten. There the story closes its cycle, as the granddaughter of the lovers tries to learn more and so she becomes part of the story and its continuity and so in a way the author shows us what is the meaning of all of this, leaving us with something optimistic.

A really wonderful book that definitely has a place in the classics of the genre, next to the more well-known masterpieces. Above all, however, it gains a special place in my heart.

Ήθελα να διαβάσω αυτό το βιβλίο εδώ και καιρό καθώς γνώριζα ότι θεωρείται ένα από τα καλύτερα μυθιστορήματα για τον πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο. Επιτέλους έφτασε αυτή τη στιγμή και το πρώτο που μπορώ να πω είναι ότι λυπάμαι που δεν ήρθε νωρίτερα. Πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο που το εκτίμησα ιδιαίτερα από την πρώτη του σελίδα και μέχρι το τέλος του μου πρόσφερε πολλά. Ο τρόπος γραφής του είναι ιδιαίτερα όμορφος και συναισθηματικός, με το συγγραφέα να δείχνει την απαραίτητη αυτοσυγκράτηση ώστε να προκύψει ένα κομψό αποτέλεσμα, χωρίς υπερβολές και περιττούς συναισθηματισμούς. Με όχημα αυτή τη γραφή μας αφηγείται μία πολύ συγκινητική ιστορία, με πρωταγωνιστές μερικούς πολύ ξεχωριστούς και ολοκληρωμένους χαρακτήρες, που τους πλάθει ο συγγραφέας με μαεστρία.

Η ιστορία ξεκινάει στη Γαλλία λίγα χρόνια πριν από την έναρξη του πρώτου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, τότε που ο κόσμος ακόμα ανυποψίαστος για την επικείμενη καταστροφή κοιτούσε τη δουλειά του, σε ένα μέρος που θα είναι ένα από τα επίκεντρα του πολέμου. Μέσα σε αυτήν την ήσυχη εποχή ένας παράνομος έρωτας ανθίζει και εξελίσσεται με έναν τρόπο πολύ συνηθισμένο, με το πάθος να κυριαρχεί και να αφήνει τη λογική στην άκρη. Όποια και να είναι αυτή η εξέλιξη, όμως, σημασία έχει ότι είναι κάτι το όμορφο, όσο και να κρατήσει, και αυτήν την ομορφιά μας την κάνει δώρο συγγραφέας, τυλίγοντας την με τον πιο καλαίσθητο τρόπο.

Ύστερα, όμως, έρχεται ο πόλεμος και τα πράγματα είναι εντελώς διαφορετικά. Οι δύο εραστές, όπως μία ολόκληρη γενιά, αλλάζουν καθώς τραυματίζονται από τις συνέπειες του. Ο ήρωας μας συμμετέχει σε μερικές από τις πιο σκληρές και αιματηρές μάχες του πολέμου και βλέπει από κοντά όλη του τη βαρβαρότητα, καθώς δίπλα του άνθρωποι πεθαίνουν καθώς βαδίζουν προς τα πολυβόλα, κάτω από μία βροχή βλημάτων, με το αποτέλεσμα να είναι μηδαμινό καθώς ο πόλεμος χαρακωμάτων έχει φέρει το αδιέξοδο. Δίπλα του βρίσκονται οι συμπολεμιστές του που γίνονται και αυτοί μάρτυρες αυτής της κατάστασης και αναρωτιούνται αν υπάρχει κάποιο νόημα σε όλα αυτά. Ο καθένας τους αντιδρά διαφορετικά, άλλοι χάνουν τα λογικά τους, άλλοι προσποιούνται ότι κάνουν απλά μία δουλειά που σύντομα θα την τελειώσουν και θα γυρίσουν σπίτια τους, άλλοι προσπαθούν να χρησιμοποιήσουν τα πατριωτικά του συναισθήματα και το μίσος για τον εχθρό για να βρουν μία ισορροπία, όλοι, όμως, έχουν την πεποίθηση ότι κάτι δεν πάει καλά, ότι τα πράγματα δεν είναι όπως τους είπανε και ότι οι έννοιες του ηρωισμού, του καθήκοντος και της θυσίας δεν έχουν κανένα νόημα σε αυτό το σφαγείο. Το μόνο θετικό σε αυτή την κόλαση είναι ότι όλη αυτή η βιαιότητα και η διαρκής απειλή του θανάτου τους ενώνουν και σφυρηλατούν τις πιο ισχυρές φιλίες που προσφέρουν τη μόνη παρηγοριά.

Αυτό νομίζω είναι και το καλύτερο μέρος του βιβλίου, καθώς ο συγγραφέας χωρίς να προσπαθήσει να κάνει φιλοσοφία καταθέτει τους απλούς του προβληματισμούς, μέσα από τους χαρακτήρες που δημιουργεί, και επειδή αυτοί οι χαρακτήρες έχουνε μία αλήθεια πάνω τους, με τον καθένα να εκπροσωπεί διαφορετικά κομμάτια της κοινωνίας, αυτές οι σκέψεις έχουν κάτι το ιδιαίτερο και μεταφέρουν στον αναγνώστη όλο το τραύμα που δημιούργησε ο πόλεμος, με την απογοήτευση και την παραίτηση να κυριαρχούν καθώς οι αναμνήσεις της ειρηνικής ζωής έμοιαζαν πολύ μακρινές.

Μετά από όλα αυτά ο συγγραφέας μας μεταφέρει πολλά χρόνια μετά, σε μία εποχή που εκείνος ο μεγάλος πόλεμος έχει σχεδόν ξεχαστεί. Εκεί η ιστορία κλείνει τον κύκλο της, καθώς η εγγονή των εραστών προσπαθεί να μάθει περισσότερα και έτσι με αυτόν τον τρόπο γίνεται η ίδια μέρος της ιστορίας και η συνέχεια της και έτσι με έναν τρόπο ο συγγραφέας μας δείχνει ποιο είναι το νόημα όλων αυτών, αφήνοντας μας με κάτι αισιόδοξο.

Ένα πραγματικά υπέροχο βιβλίο που σίγουρα έχει μία θέση μέσα στα κλασικά του είδους, δίπλα στα πιο γνωστά αριστουργήματα. Πάνω από όλα, όμως, κερδίζει μία ιδιαίτερη θέση στην καρδιά μου.

Wow. Moving, sombre and human, I feel like everyone should read this once.

This was my first WWI book, and I can't imagine another giving me a more 'realistic' view of the soldiers in the trenches. The atrocities of WWI are unimaginable, yet somehow Faulks is able to help us imagine them, and feel the depths of sadness and despair that can be the only appropriate response to such senseless genocide. After reading the book, I went back and read the foreword, written by Faulks, and found that 9.7 million men died. I had no idea. I loved that the author was able to take us on a journey with Elizabeth in 1978, who was also discovering the horrific nature of the war for the first time.

I was particularly struck by two passages in the book that showed society's reaction to soldiers returning from war midway through - when Stephen came from the frontline and tried to buy a shirt, and was hurried out, and when Weir returned home from his harrowing experience with no greeting and no acknowledgment from his family.

The only drawback for me was the start of the novel. A bit smutty, unrealistic and unnecessary. I felt it didn't fit with the rest of the novel, and I struggled to stay invested in two such unusual and pretty unlikeable characters. I was glad I powered through, and would love to hear the author's thoughts on why he wrote it that way.

5 very sad stars. I'll be viewing ANZAC day very differently this year.

For quite a way into this book I kept putting it down and feeling disinclined to pick it up again. I wasn't sure why I found it so heavy going. There's no doubt that its brilliantly written, it wasn't dry and boring, but for some reasonI just couldn't get into it. I realised that I really didn't ike the main character and consequently had no interest in what happened to them. However I persevered with reading although slowly.

Then the war started. Oh my goodness what a book!! I knew the first world war was meaningless and had no good reson to keep going. I knew the Generals virtually murdered the men through their stupidity and indifference to reality. I knew too that life in the trenches was appalling .I have watched documentries and read books on the subject but nothing had made me feel as disturbed as this novel has. It is written so amazingly you feel as if you are there, witnessing every death as they did. I read the whole middle section of the book on the verge of tears and with a tightness in my chest. The journey of the soldiers from enthusiasm to pain to despair to coldness and indifference in the face of suffering was excrutiatingly realistic.
The jump to the 1970s came as a sort of relief from the pain but was no less gripping. Sebastian Faulks is an amazing writer .Everyone should read this

Buddy Read with Silver Raindrop. :0)
We will leave comments with each other below our reviews, for those who are interested.

I have listened to only twenty minutes. I love the prose style, the narration of the audiobook by Peter Firth is excellent and the events already have me terribly curious. Steven is creeping around a house in his socks searching for who has screamed! The depiction of Amiens, where the house is located, is perfect. I have been there, so I know. Unfortunately the narrator pronounced the city name incorrectly, but his baritone singing of a song in the text has me forgiving this error. And there is a discussion which illustrates how the French and the English view each other...... Funny! I guess you could say I like this from page one.

I could not stop listening to this book. It is wonderful. I just finished. I haven't been able to do anything except listen to this book. Excellent narration by Peter Firth. I loved it. I loved all the emotion - horror of war and passionate love. And great lines and so much to think about...... Can I collect my thoughts?!

This book has everything. It is exciting and horribly moving and oh so wonderful. It is like life: full of the worst and most wonderful.

There are lines you must ponder. Why does one fight in a war? Who do we fight for? Do you fight for your land, your family, your friends....or for those comrades who have fought and died next to you? You are in the trenches and in tunnels, in the middle of bombardments. You are in a tunnel and you may be suffocated and buried alive. This book is about fear. This book is about the warfare of WW1.

But there is humor and passionate love too. Their is death and there is birth. There is hope and despair. The story takes place during WW1 in the trenches in France. It also has events set later, in the 70s. Most authors cannot switch between different time periods. In this book the two are wonderfully intertwined.

This book rips you apart, scares you to death, rolls you in passionate, sensual love, one minute has you giggling and then later pondering the essence of life and death and fear. The book is an emotional roller coaster. And you will learn what it was really like to fight in the first world war. You can swallow the horror because it is balanced by humor and love and passion and even hope and happiness.

I loved this book. So far this is the best book I have read about WW1.
(See my WW1 shelf if you are curious for other titles: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...

Ooops, I think I am gushing!