Customer Reviews

THE BATTLE LOST AND WON

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Olivia Manning writes with a brilliance and subtlety that is all her own. Any work by Manning is a treasure to behold, in particular her WWII-based "Balkan Trilogy" and "Levant Trilogy" as well as the the exquisitely written, "School for Love". For anyone who considers themself a serious reader and has not yet read Manning's fiction, it behooves them to discover her work and literary legacy.

Can Çömlekçi
Istanbul Turkey

This book, fifth in Manning's series following Guy and Harriet Pringle through World War II, is mostly atmosphere - a murky, dark atmosphere at that. Not much actually happens.

We see mostly through Harriet's eyes. Her husband neglects her while busying himself with work, most of it trivia. Their flatmates Angela, a wealthy divorcee, and Edwina, a young and attractive social climber, enjoy the unlikely relationships wartime offers - Angela with a dissolute poet and Edwina with a titled officer.

Simon Boulderstone, the young officer introduced in the previous book, is staggered by his brother's death, then transferred from his backwater unit to a headquarters closer to the action. He must often pick his way through falling shells and minefields to transmit orders to commanders at the very front.

The fateful battle of El Alamein is fought, but Manning gives us little sense of victory or encouragement from it. Mostly, the women back in Cairo sense their world emptying out as the soldiers and officers move west into Libya with the fighting.

Angela and Edwina generate gaiety with nightly partying and clubbing, but are shattered when their respective affairs with married men inevitably fail. Harriet watches her own marriage totter, as Guy avoids her, interested apparently in everything around him except her - and continuously urging her to return to England for her health.

A sense of death hangs over the book - not so much from the nearby combat, but from the disease and poverty of Cairo itself. Several scenes are placed in cemeteries, the characters visit ruins of ancient civilization, and rumors of cholera and plague abound. Harriet hears the horrifying tale of an acquaintance who survives a torpedoing while a lifeboat-full of children slowly perish around him.

The overwhelming sense is one of abandonment, as friendships and marriages deteriorate and characters think about fleeing to save themselves - not so much from an external enemy as from the pointlessness their lives have reached.