Customer Reviews

The Fracture Zone: A Return To The Balkans

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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?

It's a pleasure to read reminiscences of masterful writers such as William F. Buckley (his sailing books have won him a well-deserved place of honor in sports writing) and Simon Winchester... and as he has seen Yugoslavia in her salad days, prosperous and peaceful, then returned to catalogue the horrors that followed her dissolution, Winchester is the perfect guide through that terribly unhappy place.

Winchester takes us with him on journeys along the Dalmatian coast (through land that is now divided unequally between Croatia, the Bosnian Serb Republic, and the patchwork government of Bosnia-Hercegovina), through the vainglorious, charming and not yet war-torn land of Montenegro, across the ghastly fields of Kosovo just as the Serbs withdrew before NATO forces, across Macedonia, then through parts of Eastern Europe that have been spared the advantages of Serbian leadership and thus remain peaceful and happy.

All through his travels, Winchester shows us the people who live in these lands, shares with us his bemusement at the human capacity to live around disaster and his shock and sorrow at our capacity to abandon our humanity when we go a-warring, to save our worst outrages for our close neighbors, and forget that Europe has been Christian for nearly 1800 years or, for that matter, what the word "Christian" means.

Winchester's command of the history of the area is intimidating and overpowering... he shows us entire worlds that we never suspected even existed... capital cities nestled in remote mountain summits and ruled by dynasties of hereditary bishops, places where there are two Orthodox churches vying for a shrinking pool of believers, customs sublime and gross.

I usually hesitate to award a perfect score to a book, no matter how well-written - but Simon Winchester has defeated me. His is a complete book, and for me to criticize it would be sheer effrontery. Buy it, read it, and be delighted.

For someone not to well versed in the history of the recent Balkan war this is a great read. I like the author's insightful historical aspect to the book and his unbiased reporting. It is a book that gives much incentive to think about the people living in that region and the author makes a very honest attempt to be nonjudgmental. If you do not know much about the Balkans and have asked yourself why such violent confrontations have happened there over and over this is certainly a good start. The only negative about this book is the bad editing and the the convoluted sentences that sometimes have to be read over again several times to make sense.

Simon Winchester says the journalist writes the first draft of history. This book is a fine bit of journalism as well as a quick read. The writing is personally reflective, and loosely associated with events in Kosovo in 1999. It reads more like a travelog than a heavy duty investigative report like "The Haunted Land" by Tina Rosenberg.

Wincester is sensitive to history. He recommends "The Bridge on the Drina" about the sad history of the Serbs by the Croat Ivo Andric who won the Nobel Prize. He also intersperses bits of history about many geographic points he travels through between Vienna and that city that some still think of as Constantinople.

Books by journalists who served as correspondents during the military action contain less censored and probably better written material than what appeared in original on-the-spot news articles they might have written. The writer has had time to reflect on what transpired, obtain additional historical and contextual information, correct misinterpretations and generlly improve his or her writing.

As part of my job and because of a personal interest I have in the Balkans, I have been reading material about this part of the world for some years, including the Andric book and books by the University of Michigan historian John Fine. I read this book as part of my continuing education and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the Balkans.

A very probing look into the Balkans, Winchester's book raises simple yet profound questions about the hatred between so many peoples in the Balkans. The author did a very good job of putting the smoldering anger and resentment in historical perspective taking us not just back to the Austria-Hungary and Ottoman empires, but even further back to the Byzantine empire! It is this historical perspective that makes the questions so well thought out. In the end, Winchester has no answers, and I found myself disappointed that I could not have simple answers to such difficult questions. I walked away from the book with a better understanding, but every bit as puzzled, as when I entered the book, so it has provoked me to look deeper into the subject. It has put me on a path to learn more about the region.

Poor copy editing and, on occasions, unreadably complicated sentences... Much less well written than "The Professor and the Madman." Obviously the author and the publisher were in a rush to get the book out before Christmas. The subject is complex, and this justifies (at least in part) the complexity of the sentences. The author does a pretty good job (for a journalist who, by definition, must be superficial). The main point, of the Balkans being torn BETWEEN, and especially BY, Vienna and Constantinople (Istanbul), is a very insightful one and the book is thus worth reading.

This book is great for understanding the reasons for the wars in the former Yugoslavia- wars which may yet spread beyond those artificial boundaries. It's refreshing to see researched opinion, rather than emotional polemics, about that troubled region.

The Fracture Zone is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. It provides a mosaic of perspectives on the former Yugoslavia centering on the UN-led end of the most recent conflicts in the region. Although the effect can be a little unsettling, the advantage of the approach is to make the experience more personal and more human than a narrower, more disciplined method would have done.

The book's premise is to share the author's experiences through the context of his former visit during peaceful times to the same region, historical perspective on why and how the tensions and conflicts have evolved, and on-the-ground insights from conversations with those who hate and those who do not.

The effect is not unlike what one's own experiences might have been like if a time machine brought us first into the year 1858 in South Carolina and then in the same area in the year 1865. Without more perspective, someone from Kosovo would not be able to understand what had happened between the two times. That is what the author has been trying to accomplish in this book.

Through flashbacks and narration, you will travel twice (once before the wars, and once after them) through the former Yugoslavia on a journey starting in Vienna and ending in Istanbul. You will have many unforgettable moments, like seeing thousands of displaced refugees squatting in a former alpine meadow while overwhelmed army forces try to save lives. You'll learn what a Sarajevo rose is (no, it's not what you think). And you will find how historical lessons can be used as excuses to fan current hatreds of those who are similar and different from oneself.

All of this has an incredible immediacy because this is like the worst of the Nazi era, being relived in many ways in our own times.

The author keeps asking, why? He poses some answers, but ultimately, it is unanswerable. Perhaps in time, we can make sense of this terrible tragedy.

Here are some cautions: Anyone who wants a serious history will not like this book. Anyone who wants a brilliant essay will be even less satisfied.

If you are open to a new approach to understanding an extremely complex circumstance, you will find this book to be interesting. It will expand your curiosity, and that will be good. We all need to ponder the lessons here, to help avoid their recurrence. Share this book with one other person, so the memory will expand.