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A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Winston's War by Michael Dobbs
4.0
‘War comes in many different colours.’
On 1 October 1938, Winston Churchill met Guy Burgess. Churchill had already made a mark on the political landscape, Burgess was certainly going to. But what brought these men together? And what political intrigues and other machinations were part of the political landscape in this period immediately before Europe erupted into war?
Winston Churchill himself could well be described as ‘.. a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma ..’. At times, while reading this novel, I could hear Mr Churchill’s distinctive voice. But my memory of his voice was of a period not long before his death when he was hailed as a great statesman and recognised as a hero. Guy Burgess is also well known, but not as a hero by many.
From this distance, some 70 years later, we live with the consequences of this war: the reshaping of countries and empires; the heroism; the greed and the tragedy. The characteristics of this war are known to many of us through hearsay, heritage and, sometimes, objective attempts to analyse cause and effect. This novel succeeds in making the individuals and the times come to life. This novel is not just about the famous and infamous: it brings to life some of the aspects of everyday life for those who usually bear the burden of decisions made by those more powerful.
Mr Dobbs writes of Churchill: ‘He mesmerised colleagues on a diet of pinched views and lean rhetoric.’ In his acknowledgements Mr Dobbs expresses his hope that ‘many readers will have their appetites whetted and their imaginations fired by the deliberate intertwining of fact and fiction to the extent that they will want to dig deeper and find out for themselves what really happened.’
I hope so too.
On 1 October 1938, Winston Churchill met Guy Burgess. Churchill had already made a mark on the political landscape, Burgess was certainly going to. But what brought these men together? And what political intrigues and other machinations were part of the political landscape in this period immediately before Europe erupted into war?
Winston Churchill himself could well be described as ‘.. a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma ..’. At times, while reading this novel, I could hear Mr Churchill’s distinctive voice. But my memory of his voice was of a period not long before his death when he was hailed as a great statesman and recognised as a hero. Guy Burgess is also well known, but not as a hero by many.
From this distance, some 70 years later, we live with the consequences of this war: the reshaping of countries and empires; the heroism; the greed and the tragedy. The characteristics of this war are known to many of us through hearsay, heritage and, sometimes, objective attempts to analyse cause and effect. This novel succeeds in making the individuals and the times come to life. This novel is not just about the famous and infamous: it brings to life some of the aspects of everyday life for those who usually bear the burden of decisions made by those more powerful.
Mr Dobbs writes of Churchill: ‘He mesmerised colleagues on a diet of pinched views and lean rhetoric.’ In his acknowledgements Mr Dobbs expresses his hope that ‘many readers will have their appetites whetted and their imaginations fired by the deliberate intertwining of fact and fiction to the extent that they will want to dig deeper and find out for themselves what really happened.’
I hope so too.