Customer Reviews

Guernica: A Novel

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Guernica is a riveting story that details the lives of the Ansotegui and Navarro families before, during, and after the bombing by the German Luftwaffe. After the death of his mother, Justo Ansotegui's father recedes with grief and eventually disappears leaving his eldest son in charge. He takes on the responsibility of care for his two younger brothers along with the family property Erottabari with no one to guide him. The brothers are creative in their management of the farm using games and pranks to make the most mundane chores fun. This is the setting in which the story begins, in the heart of the Pays Basque region of Spain.
I really loved following Justo's story and found myself in tears a couple of times. I knew next to nothing of the Basque people and their traditions prior to reading this, let alone the climate of the country surrounding the bombing. I found myself looking online for more details about events and will probably look for more books in the future about the Basque people. I received this book through the LTER program and loved every bit of it.

Warning: I loved this book

It might have been clever or catchy to sub title the novel Guernica: A Love Story but that's what it is to me. While familiar with Picasso's painting (which I was blessed to see a number of years ago), I knew very little of Basque history. Boling takes a family of brothers and follows it through the devastation of war. The book will make you feel happy and sad. It draws out laughter as well as tears. A great holiday gift that is unique enough to inform even the most discerning reader.

Hiking in the Basque country is one of the hiking vacations that I want to do, so I was eager to read this book. However, it took me awhile to get into it, but I couldn't put it down when Boling started telling the devastating German bombing of Guernica, the heart of Basque country, on the eve of World War II.

In "Guernica", Boling skillfully weaves the histories of Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the creation of a mural Guernica by Picasso with the lives of fictitious characters from two families, the Ansotegui and the Navarro. He makes learning history less boring, at least for me.

"Guernica" is the well-written saga of two families living in the Basque Region of northern Spain in the first part of the 20th Century. The town of Guernica was made internationally famous on April 24, 1937 when the German Condor Legion, fighting for the Nationalist forces of Franco in the Spanish Civil War, bombed and strafed the town continuously for several hours to both intimidate the Basque people, who supported the Republican side in the conflict, and to test the Germans' tactic of terror bombing that would be heavily used in WWII.

The bombing of the town is a central part of this book, but the novel is much more about the lives and culture of the Basque people before and after the event. It is rich in characters, enjoying relatively simple lives, who become the civilian victims and bystanders of first a civil war and eventually the wider European conflict. Ironically, the latter war saw Spain become a kind of haven for victims from other countries right on the heels of the Basques' (and Spaniards') own internal tragedy.

"Guernica" provides a real insight into the world view of the Basques and explains why they are not completely comfortable with their position as citizens of Spain to this day. The descriptions of the geography and culture of the place will encourage the reader to visit the Basque Country and soak up the atmosphere of a very ancient and independent civilization.

This is a fine book, written by someone who knows how to present narrative and dialogue in an entertaining flow. Recommended.

This novel is quite an achievement. It really does teach you a lot about the Basque people and region in the early 20th century, and it gives you some great characters to care about.

What weakens it is it's way too long. He goes on and on describing things excessively, which made me feel that he was actually trying to write this like a movie screenplay with way too many details laid out. And I did not like the personal appearances of Pablo Picasso, which seemed rather presumptous about how he was feeling about things--it seemed jarring, given that nearly everybody else is a fictional character. Why invent personal feelings of Pablo Picasso?

Also, there were occasional sentences where a word seemed to be missing, or there was some other grammatical failure that a good editor would have caught. However, I guess nobody gets editors anymore; also, I read the Kindle version, so maybe there were some technical glitches that resulted in lost words.

Finally, for such a lengthy novel, it actually did not give enough background about why the Basque people were historically separate and had their own (non-Romance) language. I ended up doing a lot of internet research to get a grasp on that. And it was like all the Basques were WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL people--it was over the top in glorifying the Basques to make them more saintly victims, which gave it a propaganda feeling at times. Just to be clear, I totally believe that the Nazi/fascist carpet bombing of Guernica was deplorable in every possible way, but the depiction of the people of Guernica as a whole was syrupy and idealized.

Nonetheless, I REALLY, REALLY liked this novel. It's a pity we will probably never see it on the big screen since the story is too long for a feature film and too risky as a mini-series. I definitely recommend the book for people interested in early 20th century European history, especially Spanish history.

Guernica, the debut novel for Seattle journalist Dave Boling is set in the months before the outbreak of WWII in the Basque region straddling southwestern France and northwestern Spain, this novel is a beautiful meditation on the power of love and a heart-wrenching exploration of the devastation the machinery of war visits upon the innocents of all ages. While this book tells the tale of the people at the heart of Basque culture in Guernica, it paints on a canvas even larger than Picasso did for his epic mural. This intimate portrait paradoxically sprawls across the sweeping events of the era and illuminates--through fiction--the horror of war, the heroism of living a meaningful life in the face of unimaginable heartache, and the dignity of doing the best you can in the worst of circumstances. This was a five-star read for me, and is a fine example of how fiction at its best illuminates and informs the best and the worst in us.

A wonderful historical novel about a family living at the time of the bombing of Guernica. Gives excellent background of Basque traditions and families. My husband is Basque and it renewed my respect and love of these Basque people. You will enjoy the book tremendously. I have an overwhelming desire to visit the Basque Country of Spain after reading the story. Bravo to David Boling!

I just read this book and really enjoyed it. I noticed the title because I remember studying the painting "Guerica" in school. I tend to love historical novels and I liked that aspect of this book; as the other reviewers have said, you learn quite a bit about the Basque people. Although I also think you have to take what you learn with a grain of salt in a historical (fictional) novel. I think novels like this are great in combination with learning real history. It can give you a taste of what things were like, rather than learning dry facts. But this book was also a love story (actually several love stories). I am often accused of liking novels that are "depressing" and while this one has its share of that, it is also uplifting and about finding joy in life again despite horrific past circumstances. Highly recommended!

This is a solid and thought-provoking historical fiction novel of a tragic period in Spanish history. The Basque culture came alive through the strong characters. This novel describes life before the bombs dropped and how the tragedy transformed the characters' loves, families and livelihoods and the different paths each chose to survive. "Justo learned from Miguel that if you lose someone you love, you need to redistribute your feelings rather than surrender them. You give them to whoever is left, and the rest you turn toward something that will keep you moving forward."