Firstly, it is with much happiness that I find myself back in my flat in London. I’ve been away for work with no access to the internet, and so no blogging. I cope very badly without the internet, I have found: there’s the anxiety (what emails am I getting?), the fear (what if a sudden and dramatic rainstorm is predicted and I don’t know about it so haven’t brought my umbrella?) and the sadness (poor me, for I cannot keep up with the blogging world).

It’s all pretty intense.

So luckily for me, I had a massive book with me to keep me happy and occupied either side of the 11 hour working days and I made the most of it.

The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning is actually made up of three books: The Great Fortune, The Spoilt City, and Friends and Heroes. As it comes in one volume, though, and I glomped it up all at once, I’m going to review it as one book.

Books about WWII are spread thickly across the bookshelves in pretty much any bookshop of repute; and while obviously it’s a huge part of European modern history, it might sometimes seem implausible that anything new could be said about it. Of course, though, there are so many stories to tell and while there are a lot of elements that remain the same – and still significant – there are new perspectives to offer. Certainly I’d never read any literature relating to Athens in the Second World War.

The Balkan Trilogy is not just about the war, though, although that plays a major and compelling part of the narrative; but there’s also a strong character-driven element to it all. That touches where the characters end up, when, and who with.

At the beginning of the Second World War, Harriet marries Guy Pringle, an enthusiastic, giving and personable young lecturer, while he’s on leave. Having travelled back with him to Romania, where he lives and works at the University, she begins to discover that her new husband is enthusiastic, giving and personable, but nonetheless not the person she thought him. For all of his attention and generosity focused on the outside world and affection for all of the people in it (with particular reference to those who share his own brand of left-wing radical politics), there seems to be little energy expended on making Harriet herself happy, and an insensitivity to her needs.

As she learns more about Guy, Romania itself is changing: it begins as a place that feels secure and welcoming to the English couple, but with the threat of invasion from any and all sides, and internal politics that are becoming decidedly askew (not to mention the Jew hiding in their flat), the situation deteriorates, with Harriet feeling alone in a collapsing city. Restaurants and shops that were plentiful become empty, people start to leave, and there are numerous threats. Sticking it out until threats become explicitly focused on them, Guy and Harriet make for Athens.

And so the story repeats: Harriet becomes more distanced from Guy but nonetheless bound to him, and Athens which initially was a sanctuary becomes drawn into the war. The couple are forced to flee as the trilogy ends.

In theory, then, it’s all quite simple. It’s the quality of writing that really makes this worth your time. It’s wonderfully well-observed, both in terms of an account of people and places in wartime, the places that Guy and Harriet live in – and it’s worth noting that a lot of those elements are taken from Olivia Manning’s own experiences – as well as the highly-developed characterisations. There’s nothing flimsy about them or their interactions, and in particular the relationship between Guy and Harriet is complex and intriguing.

Actually, I got so absorbed in this book and the lives of Guy and Harriet that I sometimes felt so very indignant on her behalf that I became slightly inclined to irritability with the people actually around me, and had to remember that, in fact, they were nothing whatsoever like any of the characters. Which is probably good! Because neither Harriet nor Guy are wholly empathetic, but neither are ‘bad’ characters either.

How I reacted to Harriet is in some ways very similar to my reaction to Martha Quest, the central character in Doris Lessing’s Children of Violence series (which I really need to finish some day). I sometimes felt so angry at their treatment by others within an unfair society – as both are constrained and limited by their gender and their role in their relationships – that I became genuinely agitated. One of those moments in The Balkan Trilogy comes when Harriet expresses dismay at being not shown any consideration by Guy, who would rather leave her to her own devices and talk with his own friends; his immediate reaction is shock: why should she get special treatment from him when she is but ‘part of himself’? Equally, any opposition of Harriet’s to him or his political views is seen by him as a sign of her ‘immaturity’. At other times when drawn into their complex inner worlds I felt slightly uncomfortable and claustrophobic about it.

They are very different characters, though. Harriet is far more decisive and forthright and a great deal easier to anger, even if it’s not always channelled in an effective way. Guy is appealing and you want so much to like him, but he’s deeply flawed and frustrating. As a reader, you might well come to the judgement that they are both immature, which evidences itself in different ways.

I’ve focused on Guy and Harriet but I can’t leave this review without pointing out that there are lots of other characters who are just as clear and fascinating.

It’s a wonderful book, and kept me happily engrossed for the entire 1036 pages to which it stretches. Phew. I highly recommend it. Before I’d even finished the last page, I rushed out to buy the sequel – yeah, I couldn’t believe it had a sequel either – The Levant Trilogy. It’s half the size of the first trilogy, but it looks fascinating and I can’t wait to read it. In fact, I’m so very enthused that I also want to see Fortunes of War, the TV serialisation of the books starring Emma Thompson – because I love her! – and Kenneth Branagh.

Anyway, at 1036 pages all in one volume, you betcha bottom dollar that I’m going to be including this in my books for the Chunkster Challenge.

I’d also be interested to hear people’s thoughts on their own experiences with WWII fiction?