Birds Without Wings

Rating:
Summary: Great atmospheric read, but...
Review: In terms of creating an athmosphere and establishing historic perspective, De Bernies is great. As in his previous book Captain Corelli's Mandoline(one of my favorites) he looks at how war distrupts otherwise peaceful, almost idyllic life. The characters are well drawn and deeply human--from the local pasha to the potter, they all have their dreams and foibles.

What irritated me very much is DeBernies conviction, which he does not really try to hide, taht life in the little village in the Ottoman empire was perfect until some hot heads decided to impose their nationalistic ideas. Politics in the Balkans has always been much more complex than that. If you look at the idilly he describes -- we have a village where people get along, but without references to historic events, you would think taht the action was taking place anywhere between 14th and 17th century, when indeed the story De Bernies is telling happens at the beginnign of the 20th century. Yes, the nationalist movements disrupted social peace, but such disruption was inevitable if the region was to catch up with progress. Add to that some historic inaccuracies and the novel declines significantly in value...