24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Enlightening Guide to a Shattered and Benighted Land, February 23, 2002
For a thousand years the Balkan peninsula has been the situs of vast cultural upheavals -- the sensibilities and hatreds of the Slavic peoples pushed and pulled and molded by the East and West, by Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Islam, Communism and Nazism. The result is a tragic legacy of manipulation, of hatred, of violence and of death.
Simon Winchester proves himself the perfect guide to this shattered and tragic realm. He is part History Professor, part Philosopher but always a masterful Storyteller. With this and his previous books (especially "The Professor and the Madman") he proves himself to be one of the most eloquent and gripping narrative writers working today.
Some other thoughts:
1. This book ought to be required reading for every American and a warning about the horrible consequences of hate. One of the greatest tragedies of the Balkan conflict is that, as Winchester puts it, "almost all the people who have been so horribly at odds with one another are all, in essential ethnic terms, the self-same people." And lest Europeans and Americans feel smug in their own situations, let them remember the calamities of Antietam, of The Somme, and of Auschwitz.
2. The smart reader will prepare himself or herself with two things before reading. First, a good map. The history of the Balkans is so utterly complex on many different levels, not the least of which is geographically. Second, a good dictionary. Not since Henry Kissinger have I read an author with his quiver so full of (to me) new and interesting words: e.g. from only the first fifty pages I noted, emollient, osmotically, ordure, gyre, excrescences, orotund, refulgent, meretricious, harquebuses, embrasures, barbicans and ravelins.
3. The editing of this book is horrendously sloppy -- it is an embarrassment to Harper Collins. I have never seen so many typographical errors, missing phrases and other stupid mistakes.
4. This is not Winchester's best work. The early chapters are among his best work, but the narrative loses significant punch beginning in chapter six, which deals with the authors time in Montenegro.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Balkans for beginners, October 19, 2000
Veteran journalist Simon Winchester retraces his steps through the Balkans 20 years after a brief vacation there, to rediscover a region where the geography is as dizzying as the political and ethnic agendas. His journey from Vienna to Istanbul encompasses the crisis in Kosovo and in a series of astute vignettes, Winchester meets some of the major players and the victims. All around him is a simmering cauldron of hatred which has spilled blood yet again and the issues provoke more questions than can ever be answered. Winchester has questions of his own, but he is unable to answer them in any depth. But then, most Westerners have also had trouble analysing the Balkan history of bloodshed. He is only skimming the surface here and for guidance refers to the great works of Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric, whose book Bridge On The Drina remains a classic text to understanding the background of Balkan turmoil. Unfortunately, Winchester departs Kosovo in June 1999, just after NATO enters the region to restore some semblance of calm. I wish he had remained to write about what happened next. The book fizzles a bit when he goes to Bulgaria. There is now a bewildering plethora of books on recent Balkan upheavals. Winchester's wry observations would serve well as a beginner's guide to one of the most troubled and fascinating places on earth.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Between a romp and a hard place, March 2, 2000
This review is from: The Fracture Zone: A Return To The Balkans (Hardcover)
The clue to this book is in the comments right at the end. Simon Winchester takes a stab at the books of "terrible dullness and labyrinthine sobriety" that make up most that get written about the Balkans.
Instead he takes us on a romp. His journey from Vienna to Istanbul spans the period of NATO's bombardment over Kosovo last year. He snatches at images and characters along the way. He is good at it. He has an eye for eccentrics and characters and the contradictions that constantly spring out the tortured landscape around him. It is a good read. His trip into Pristina ahead of the KFOR troops is vivid stuff, though he leaves too soon to continue his journey east. He is more generous to the Serbs than most daily news reports, simply because he acknowledges a wider and longer context.
His attempt to explain WHY the Serbs responded with such (at times) unspeakable violence in Kosovo is clumsy and ill thought out. But this is not intended to be serious history, or even serious journalism. It is, for the most part, lively and engaging - a touch rushed - but also clear-sighted about a place mired in the history of wars and the consequences of wars.
The saddest man was the Sarajevo newspaper editor who put out his publication under fire throughout the city's long seige, who is so depressed by the corruption now thriving in the peace, that he is nostalgic for the days of war. If that's the legacy, what hope is there?
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
