Loved the sharp writing and while this deals with a fascinating location/time in history, what i loved most was the style and the way the characters were drawn. Just fantastic writing!

The Great Fortune
by
Olivia Manning

This is the first in Olivia Manning’s Balkan trilogy of novels, first published in 1960. The Balkan trilogy was later followed by the Levant trilogy and all six novels follow the travels, in Europe and the Middle East, of Harriet and Guy Pringle during the Second World War. These six novels are also collectively known as The Fortunes of War which was the title of an exceptionally fine BBC television adaptation from the 1980s which starred Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.

The novel opens with Harriet and Guy Pringle travelling by train to Bucharest, Romania, to start their life together as a newly married couple. Guy, an enthusiastic communist, works as a lecturer for the British Council in Bucharest and the couple had met only a few weeks before, in England, where Guy had spent his summer holiday. After what must have been a whirlwind romance and wedding, they are returning for the start of the new academic year as the summer of 1939 comes to an end.

We are almost immediately given our first experience of Europe at that time in history. Guy, who we very quickly see is a friendly and generous hearted person is happily in conversation with an older man, a German refugee, escaping Germany and heading for Trieste. Harriet, who does not speak German, is excluded from the conversation. The mood changes abruptly when a ticket collector enters the carriage. The refugee’s mood is transformed from happiness to worry, confusion, panic, and fear. He is scrambling to find his ticket and soon realises that he no longer has it. Much worse is the fact that he cannot find his money, his papers and, most importantly, his visa. He is soon led from the train by some anonymous officials and Guy impulsively and generously gives the refugee what little money he has. Guy says, rather helplessly to Harriet, “What will become of him?”. They perhaps cannot know the answer to that question yet, but we, the readers, have the benefit of hindsight.


This episode also gives us a first glimpse of the nature of Guy Pringle. Gregarious, enthusiastic, interested in those around him as well as impulsive, generous, and essentially optimistic, with great faith in the essential goodness of people. We also see a little of how he sees Harriet. At one point, as she does not speak German, she asks Guy what they are talking about and his only response is to quieten her while he carries on his conversation. I think here we see two aspects of Guy’s personality. It is natural for him to invest all his attention and energy into the person he is engaging with to the exclusion of others regardless of how close he is to them. It is not surprising therefore that Guy is popular and inspires admiration and loyalty among his friends. But it soon becomes clear to Harriet that she does not merit the same attention and consideration from Guy even though he constantly expresses his love and affection for her. In his eyes her status seems to be different to that of his friends and colleagues. It is as though he believes that she has become merely an extension of himself and that they have become one entity. His work and ideas are what are important and everything else is secondary. His expectation is that Harriet will feel the same and it does not seem to cross his mind that she might not. In short, he takes her for granted.

In the foreground of this novel we, therefore, have Harriet and her relationship with her new husband Guy. It is clear from the beginning that, whatever the attraction and love she feels for him, she is only beginning to understand this person she has decided to spend the rest of her life with. It is this relationship, and Harriet’s search for happiness within it, that is at the heart of this novel. And the backdrop, against which the events of this and the other novels of The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy are played out is, of course, the Second World War.

Harriet and Guy arrive in Bucharest at the same time as the fall of Poland and as refugees are streaming into the city. Shortly afterwards the Romanian Prime Minister is assassinated by members of the Iron Guard, Romania’s fascist movement. The Pringle’s, together with the rest of the British contingent of expatriates in Bucharest. attempt to carry on with their lives and duties even as the influence of Germany and fascism over Romania inexorably increases and the news from the rest of Europe worsens.

It is well known that these novels are partly autobiographical to the extent that the author’s husband was an academic working for the British Council in Romania when World War II broke and they did spend the war years travelling around eastern Europe and the middle east, only returning to the UK once the war was over. This fact gives the author’s writing a powerful sense of authenticity as much of the detail of place and the novel’s cast of characters is clearly based on lived experience. The expat community she describes so well can be seen as a disparate group of academics, journalists, diplomats, and others thrown together by no more than their common nationality and finding themselves far from home in a country overshadowed by war and the threat of Nazi Germany.

These characters, created by the author, are all in their way interesting and clearly defined individuals that we come to care about. Perhaps the most eccentric of these is Prince Yakimov, an Irish Russian émigré, who is both entitled and indolent, and always on the scrounge and playing on the good nature of others to get by. The author deftly creates him as a comic and sympathetic character.

While Guy Pringle clearly revels in this ready made ex-pat audience of colleagues and admirers it is Harriet, as the newcomer and, importantly, the outsider, that sees them clearly. While Guy is driven by his fascination for literature, politics and ideas, Harriet is more interested in people and has a better understanding of their motivations needs and desires. It is through her, more acutely understanding eyes, that we see the events of the novel play out before us.

I was aware that Olivia Manning’s work was highly respected and that these two trilogies of novels are seen as masterpieces of twentieth century English writing. In the event this multi-layered and beautifully written novel exceeded even my high expectations and proved to be a fascinating and enjoyable read.

I would like to express my thanks to Net Galley and Windmill Books for making a free download of this book available to me.

The story is chiefly about a young couple and their first year of marriage in Romania on the eve of war. Guy, a young English literature professor returns to Bucharest after a summer in England, with his new wife Harriet, a woman he met and married within a month. We know nothing about that month, their romance, or why/how they came together so impulsively.

"Supposing she had known him for a year and during that time observed him in all his other relationships? She would have hesitated, thinking the net of his affections too widely spread to hold the weighty accompaniment of marriage."

Displacement Heightens Perceptive Ability

Over the course of the novel we get to know through Harriet’s perceptive observations and awareness of her own flaws and Guy’s, their characters, why they act in the way they do and the effect they have on each other, due to their differences. These aspects of personality are reflected through the way they interact and respond to others around them.

"Guy’s natural warmth towards everyone could easily be misinterpreted. She herself had taken it for granted that it was for her alone."

It took a little while initially to overcome my reluctance in be among this crowd, (averse to novels where purposeless woman follow their husbands around wondering why they are unhappy with life), many of the characters and their behaviours in the set-up stage of the novel are tiresome, but the ability of Harriet to see through each of them, in an effort to better know her husband, after a while becomes more and more engaging.

Finding an Ally in Foreign Territory

She finds company in Guy’s friend Clarence, the similarity in their perceptions is both a comfort and an admission of her own more selfish inclinations.

"The difficulty of dealing with Guy, she thought, lay in the fact that he was so often right. She and Clarence could claim that their evening had been spoilt by the presence of Dubedat. She knew it had, in fact, been spoilt not by Guy’s generosity but by their own lack of it."

Harriet lacks purpose and so it’s no surprise that her energy and focus turns towards analysing and judging others. In a way she reminded me of Hadley Richardson in Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife and Zelda Fitzgerald in Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler, women who find themselves in the shadows of the larger player, their husband’s lives, men whom other people are drawn too and seek attention from, leaving the wife as a companion and bed warmer for the few hours he finds himself solitary.

They too, are stories of the lives of young internationals, professors, diplomats, journalists, the locals they fall in with, the cafes, restaurants and hotels they frequent, the political background constantly a source of conversation, the lack of family and a rootlessness that drives them to seek each other out in this environment that throws people together, who wouldn’t otherwise cross paths. Harriet however, due to her lack of involvement in events, becomes the detached witness, the reliable narrator, of character(s) and of this twentieth century war.

"It is precisely her position as a civilian external to the public sphere and to the war effort, together with her apparent lack of faith in politics, that validates her as a detached witness." Carmen Andrés Oliver

Shakespeare Foretells All

The novel becomes even more interesting and ironic when Guy decides to produce an amateur production of the Shakespearean play Troilus and Cressida, deliberately diverting the attention of his fans and followers, young and old, at a time when war is creeping ever closer and everyone else not involved in his amateur dramatics is frantic with worry. The play is the tragic story of lovers set against the backdrop of war.

Harriet is embarrassed by the idea of the play, sure it’s an endeavour that will fail, hoping it will, despite the fervour with which everyone invited to participate has responded.

Now she was beginning to realise she might be wrong. Contrary to her belief, people were not only willing to to join in, they were grateful at being included. Each seemed simply to have been waiting the opportunity to make a stage appearance.

Dropped as one of the players, Harriet is upstaged by Sophie, a woman whose affection for Guy and history that precedes her, adds to the tension of their marriage.

The Great Fortune is Life

As the novel ends, they take a look inside the window outside the German Bureau, where a map is updated daily and what they see leaves us wondering what will happen next, as Europe itself is a bed of tension and danger, depending on where one’s loyalties lie.

"When they reached the window, they saw the dot of Paris hidden by a swastika that squatted like a spider, black on the heart of the country.

They stood staring at it for a while. Soberly, Guy asked: ‘What do you think will happen here? What are our chances?"

Harriet responds:

"We’ll get away because we must. The great fortune is life. We must preserve it."

It is a unique novel in its close observation of the response to pending war of a small community of English people thrown together by circumstance, viewing the approaching war from inside a part of Europe that is less well traversed in English literature, given less attention at the time of writing and being rediscovered again now.

Olivia Manning, OBE (1908-1980)

Manning met her husband when he was on leave for a month in July 1939 from his first British Council post in Romania. They married in August and nine days later he was ordered back to Bucharest, so the couple left London as war was looking likely to commence. During the war, they lived in Romania, Greece, Egypt and Palestine.

She returned to England in 1945. She wrote novels, short stories, sketches, screenplays, nonfiction books, essays and reviews. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1976, and died four years later.

The Great Fortune was first published in 1960.

First published over sixty years ago this is a beautifully written evocative novel. Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity, the story closely mirrors events in Olivia Manning's own life.
There is quiet but devastating empathy for the people of Bucharest as inevitably their lives are drawn into the war that began in 1939. Manning saw everything through the eyes of a writer and artist and she brilliantly illuminates the lives of ordinary people.
It is compelling and warm and subtle but dares to take on the prejudices of the time. Deeply pleasurable.

The first book in her Balkan Trilogy, which is considered by many to be her masterpiece. It is a semi-autobiographical account of her time in Romania at the outbreak of WW2.

Guy, an English teacher returns to Bucharest with Harriet, his new wife. They haven't known each other long and she not only had to get used to get husband but also a new country, and then, on top of that, war is declared.. Most of this takes place during the 'phoney war', where not much happened, and the community of ex-pats that populate the novel, are concerned but not overly worried.

The writing gets across a real sense of time and place that clearly comes from experience, and one wonders how loosely, (or not), the characters are based on real people. There are many in this that I just wanted to give a good shake, particularly 'poor old Yaki' used to the high life, but now a man of straightened means, I initially felt sorry for him, but he became increasingly irritating as he does nothing to help himself but relies on other people to do everything for him.

I felt a palpable sense of unease when the community learn of Dunkirk, it's now they seem to understand just how serious their situation is. I love forward to The Spoilt City, the next in the trilogy.

*Many thanks to the published and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review*

This book is Book 1 of "The Balkan Trilogy" first published in 1960. It is absolutely ages since I read this series of books and watched the associated TV series. I had forgotten how good they are - they are both absolutely wonderful.

This is a story of wartime Europe. The story of Guy and Harriet, a young English couple who arrive in Europe in 1939, just prior to WW2. The characters are written so beautifully they appear totally real and believable. Also included in the book is a great introduction by Rachel Cusk.

It is really good to see this book being republished and it will be a very valuable addition to our library. I really hope that the publisher will continue to republish the next two books of the series.

A wonderful read!!

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for sending me this ARC.

Back in 1987 I watched with pleasure a BBC TV series called The Fortunes of War. It starred Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson, who met during the filming and got married afterwards. I'd never read the books it was based on, so when I was offered a NetGalley version of the first novel in what became a 6-part series I was intrigued enough to download a copy. The series is actually two trilogies, The Balkan Trilogy and the Levant Trilogy, and follows the fortunes of a Communist English University lecturer Guy Pringle and his wife Harriet. At the beginning of this first book, it is 1939, and they are newly married. They travel to Rumania where Guy has accepted a job teaching English Literature at a British Council educational institute in Bucharest.

Told from Harriet's point of view, the novel combines an account of her difficulties in adjusting to this new life in a strange country, to the threat of a German invasion, and, above all to the happy-go-lucky attitude of her new husband, who is delighted to surround himself with numerous hangers-on. One of these is the English-educated White Russian Prince Yakimov, who uses his rather tarnished charm to sponge endlessly off the rest of the expat community. Harriet is appalled when Guy offers to let him stay in their spare room, but as usual his wishes prevail and Harriet has to put up with it. She also has to put up with Sophie, an attractive young Rumanian girl who pursues Guy relentlessly - she's particularly disturbed when she discovers that Sophie had suggested to Guy that he could marry her so that she could get a British passport.

It's very hard at first for Harriet to find her role in this strange expat community, but she gradually makes friends with some of Guy's colleagues and his friends in the diplomatic service. She finally makes a good woman friend of her own, the beautiful Bella, an English woman with a Rumanian husband.

The last part of the novel recounts the events surrounding a production of Troilus and Cressida, which Guy decides to stage for the English community and his students. Harriet thinks it's a dreadful idea, but agrees to take the role of Cressida. However soon after rehearsals start, Guy announces that he has replaced her - with Sophie, of course - and Harriet is demoted to the designer. Everyone throws themselves in with amazing enthusiasm - Yakimov, in particular, shows real star quality - and Harriet is amazed and pleased when the one evening performance is a huge success.

Of course all this is taking place as the German army makes inroads in Europe - at first everyone is very optimistic, but the atmosphere changes at the news comes of the annexation of Paris. The British are anxious as it seems likely that they will not be able to stay in Rumania, and indeed the next novels in the trilogy will show Guy and Harriet moving around Eastern Europe, and then, in the Levant trilogy, the Middle East. The historical background makes this an interesting book to read for anyone wanting to know more about the politics of WW2.

Evidently all this is more or less autobiographical, as Manning herself did indeed marry a Communist English Literature lecturer and had what sounds to me a thoroughly unsatisfactory marriage, travelling round all the places that appear in the novels. I couldn't warm to Guy at all, and wished Harriet would stand up to him a bit more (though she does try, without success). She loves him in spite of it all, which I found a bit sad.
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I've come across Olivia Manning's Balkan Trilogy in the past and never really fancied reading it. I'm glad I decided to give the first novel in the trilogy a chance - I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting to. It felt very dated in places (the comments about the native Romanians for example) but I found the portrayal of the English expats waiting for war to turn up really interesting. I also loved the little details, about the restaurants they go to and the propaganda windows.

I'm definitely not averse to reading the rest of the trilogy now!

A novel which grew on me. Eagerly awaiting publication of parts 2 and 3 of the Balkans Trilogy. Dear publisher, sooner rather than later please!

I really enjoyed this. It is very different to what I normally read. It reminded me of studying English in school but in a leisurely way with no exam pressure. I was meant to go to Bucharest at Easter so reading a historical perspective was nice.

I'm such a sucker for books like these, full of nostalgia and whistfulness. But there is nothing cliche in this novel. It feels alive and current and so well realised.

The Great Fortune by Olivia Manning is the first book in the Balkan Trilogy, set during the beginning of the Second World War in Bucharest. The book explores the uneasy expat life in a country anticipating war from the point of view of Harriet Pringle, a lonely newlywed who starts to realise that she doesn’t really know her new husband Guy.

The strength of the book is in the characters. I particularly enjoyed charming no-hoper Prince Yakimov, who lives a hand-to-mouth existence mooching off his friends.

The book was a good read and I am now making plans to read the other books in the trilogy.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

If negotiating the terms of a new marriage, especially to a partner known for no more than a few months, is challenging, then how much more so when set against the start of WW2?

Guy and Harriet Pringle have met and married over the summer break before travelling to Bucharest where Guy is a British Council lecturer. There's no overarching plot to this semi-autobiographical novel, it's more a meandering portrait of characters: Harriet's realisation that Guy's big heart and interest in everyone around him means he might never prioritise her or their relationship; the jaw-droppingly selfish Yakimov who will survive whatever happens (and who seems to have wandered in from a Dickens novel, so close is he to caricature); Sheppy trying to mobilise an assorted array of British businessmen and lecturers into some kind of strike force against the Germans.

Although first published in 1960, this has quite an old-fashioned air about it, not least in the general superiority of the British characters as they rather nastily dismiss anyone not English. There are some interesting characters but the dated attitudes towards empire and nationality, however accurate to the time, are off-putting, especially as they appear to reflect Manning's own cultural values. An interesting portrait of a historical place and time, but I found it disappointing that it endorses rather than critically examining the cultural framework of the British - this is no The Jewel in the Crown of the Balkans.