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The Balkan Trilogy (Fortunes of War #1-3)

Olivia Manning

Paperback | Pages: 1033 pages

Rating: 4.17 | 1707 Users | 211 Reviews

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Original Title:	The Balkan Trilogy
ISBN:	0099427486 (ISBN13: 9780099427483)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Fortunes of War #1-3, Balkan Trilogy #1-3
Characters:	Harriet Pringle, Guy Pringle

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Yes, but first a few words about how I'm an idiot:

Since you're here reading this you probably understand that it's no problem to wait.

"Yes, we can do your car service on Friday. Do you want to leave your car or would you like to wait?"

"Oh, I can wait."

I can wait, because I have a book. And, I not only have a book, I have a 924-page book which I have been fairly enjoying and have a mere 100 pages left. So, yes, I can wait. I can grab a coffee, decline biscotti, and find a leather seat as far away from the television as I can. I can open my book and, without adult supervision, advance another 40 to 50 pages to the end. You, you, will understand that in the pinball journey that is the human day, a 45-minute time-out, with just a book for company is no problem at all. Indeed, it is bliss.

And so, on Friday morning, I opened the garage door, my copy of Olivia Manning's 'Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy' in hand. I had, as I always do with books, treated it lovingly; despite its size there was no crease to the spine, no dog-ears, no underlinings. After two weeks, it was still pristine. The only evidence of human involvement were the pages of notes stuck in the back, notes that soon might be turned into a proper, thoughtful review. You laugh, but it could happen.

As the garage door opened, however, through the pouring rain, I could see that the yard waste bin had already been emptied by the local government sub-contracted service.

So I placed Olivia Manning on the trunk of my car and ushered the bin back to its accustomed spot. I have to say that at the precise moment I placed the book on my trunk I had an uneasy, deja vu-ey feeling. But I did not remember the box of Titlelist Pro-V1s that the et ux found down the road one day, remarkably still housing 11 of the original 12. Because in the two minutes it took me to retrieve the garbage can, 40-thousand headmen played segue through my brain, and I did not think again of 'Fortunes of War' for the 25 minutes it took to get to the car dealership.

Which is when I looked on the passenger seat and saw no book.

Did I mention that it was pouring? Cats and dogs. Biblical. Build an ark, ye heathen, kind of all week rain.

The et ux found The Balkan Trilogy in roughly the same spot where she found my golf balls, but a golf ball, it seems, handles weather better than the written word.

Properly lubed, I drove to the bookstore where I had purchased my now-ruined, unreadable copy of The Balkan Trilogy and entered, knowing exactly where the 'other' copy was shelved. The nice lady at the counter asked if I was looking for a specific book. HAH! HAH! I thought but did not say. Instead, I told her my story, my lament.

And, no, I did not get a cuddle with a "That's okay. That's okay." And I did not get a discount.

I had, what we call it, a book emergency. I would like to think I have learned from this. But I’m not hopeful.

And now, back to your previously scheduled programming:

It was a pre-war marriage, the Pringle’s, which makes it sound more like portent than a save-the-date calendar event. A hurried thing, too. Don’t want to miss that war. A young English couple. He (Guy): an idealist-communist, too myopic for soldiering (and maybe just too myopic, generally); a teacher of English literature, determined to do ‘his part’ by, well, teaching English Literature. She (Harriet): an observer, really; defined, even by herself, as a wife. Yes, these are the very words she uses to describe her life. They meet, they marry. We don’t know why. Then he, almost immediately oblivious, and she, almost immediately unhappy, are off to Rumania.

The War, that other war, is off-stage. We track it through a rumor in a bar, a shouted headline. As such, it’s a kind of ‘real-time’ look at the War, without the historical hindsight or its established truth. It’s ‘news’ overheard in a queue for food or whispered in an unheated flat.

The story told is semi-autobiographical, and not very semi. The Pringle’s life tracks pretty closely that of Olivia Manning and her husband. The reader stops, then, when ‘Harriet Pringle’ has this moment of introspection: I haven’t any parents. At least, none to speak of. They divorced when I was very small. They both remarried and neither found it convenient to have me. My Aunt Penny brought me up. I was a nuisance to her, too, and when I was naughty she used to say: ‘No wonder your mummy and daddy don’t love you.’

I’m sure some of the story here was meant to be satirical, but I’m not sure even Manning knew how much. Because I was left with this: Why were they there? What need for an English teacher, his wife and cohorts, soap-opera-ish friends and enemies . . . in Rumania, first, and then, when that country was overrun, in Greece, and then boarding the last boat to Egypt?

Seriously, the Nazis are coming, the Nazis are coming. So, let’s put on a stage production of Troilus and Cressida. Again, the Nazis are coming, the Nazis are coming. Should we do Othello? Or maybe Macbeth? Or can we do our part with a lecture, something to cheer the locals, like Byron: the Poet-champion of Greece?

Anyhow, I hope Manning was being satirical. Armies shattered, peasants starving, leaders deposed, yet the members of the British Legation feed their higher purpose by innocently reading Miss Austen.

And, oh, there’s no time for sex. Not the Pringles, certainly. A tender hand upon the other’s hand is all. And even when moved to adultery, hand upon the hotel room doorknob, well, instead, let’s have some tea.

It was like this: I did not ‘like’ a single character yet found myself riveted, enough so that I’m looking forward to The Levant Trilogy to see what happens in Egypt to the Pringles. It was on that last boat there they sat sleepless by the thumping engine, the bugs, and the jog-trots of cockroaches and blackbeetles. . . . Guy sat on the boat-deck, his back against a rail, and read for a lecture on Coleridge. The women, in a stupor, sat round him.

Particularize Out Of Books The Balkan Trilogy (Fortunes of War #1-3)

Title	:	The Balkan Trilogy (Fortunes of War #1-3)
Author	:	Olivia Manning
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 1033 pages
Published	:	November 19th 1992 by Arrow (first published 1960)
Categories	:	Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. War. World War II. Classics

Rating Out Of Books The Balkan Trilogy (Fortunes of War #1-3)

Ratings: 4.17 From 1707 Users | 211 Reviews

Judgment Out Of Books The Balkan Trilogy (Fortunes of War #1-3)

It really was amazing. I knew nothing of Romania/Greece in WWII. Looking forward to reading the Levant Trilogy next.

I put this book on my 'abandoned' shelf a year ago with the comment that I didn't have the patience.. but THIS year I am sitting in Venice with lovely time to just get lost in books and had time to thoroughly appreciate the characters and time and the 'drama' of the small British ex-pat group who populate this novel.Add to this my favorite aspect of a very good read - wonderful narrative of place and mood - and I was wrapped up in this for many days of good reads.HIGHLY recommended!! to all my

Why am I giving only 3 stars to a book I enjoyed so much? Probably because it verges on being a fantastic read but doesn't quite make it. Harriet! I could have throttled her many times. Newly married and initially happy to settle for the few crumbs of attention her self-absorbed husband cares to throw her way, she seems to spend her time with men who are as equally self-absorbed as her husband in their own way. There were no characters with whom I could feel any empathy but the main characters

This is written much more like a memoir than novels. They are rich in detail of local color but thin on plot. It has good description of the Balkans in about 1940.

"Full of Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing"What I took away from this 1000 page book is:"The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!""Let's go to a restaurant" "Let's go get a drink""The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!""We can't leave because we are such good people and can't leave the little Jew boy behind, even though he's ungrateful and super rich, like all Jews""The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming!""We can't leave the Russian/Irish prince behind, from the goodness

I heard so much about this book, i couldn't wait to read it. I got the Kindle trilogy and started. The only thing that kept me going was the fact this is the first book I have ever read that was set in Romania, and which even weaved a few of my parents' language which i speak (badly) into the story. So, there was a very personal angle - as the events take place in Bucharest, and at eve and then in - the Second World War, a time when my parents were there.However, I just couldn't really connect