EXCERPT: When Anton arrived the following day, he found that Delphine had set up a work table for him at the window overlooking the park.

Having never lived with a woman before, still less with one who fascinated him so much, he found it difficult to settle down to work. Panama seemed more than remote, it seemed unreal. Emerald and her devotions, Maxwell and his brandy bottle, the giant wheel that turned the lock gates lying flat in its braced iron bed . . . Perhaps he had in truth caught yellow fever and hallucinated all these things.

What was real was the smell of coffee from the kitchen next door, the sound of Delphine singing to herself as she tidied, her footsteps on the wooden floor. He went in, stood behind her and put his arms around her waist, then pressed himself against her.

ABOUT 'SNOW COUNTRY': 1914: Young Anton Heideck has arrived in Vienna, eager to make his name as a journalist. While working part-time as a private tutor, he encounters Delphine, a woman who mixes startling candour with deep reserve. Entranced by the light of first love, Anton feels himself blessed. Until his country declares war on hers.

1927: For Lena, life with a drunken mother in a small town has been impoverished and cold. She is convinced she can amount to nothing until a young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke, spirits her away to Vienna. But the capital proves unforgiving. Lena leaves her metropolitan dream behind to take a menial job at the snow-bound sanatorium, the Schloss Seeblick.

1933: Still struggling to come terms with the loss of so many friends on the Eastern Front, Anton, now an established writer, is commissioned by a magazine to visit the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place of healing, on the banks of a silvery lake, where the depths of human suffering and the chances of redemption are explored, two people will see each other as if for the first time.

MY THOUGHTS: Snow Country is a book of dreams, yearning and hope balanced against the horrors of WWI and the approach of WWII, and the struggles, both political and personal, of the period in between. The scope of this novel is huge, almost too huge, and I sometimes felt swamped by it, rather than encompassed by it as I have with other works I have read by this author.

Lena is the common thread, the character who ties the other characters to the story. She is from a poor background, poor in both money and upbringing. She was also a poor student, leaving school with few academic skills, but natural abilities in other areas. All Lena really wants is to be loved, and a good part of this story is devoted to her journey towards finding that love. It is not a smooth, nor a predictable path.

My favourite characters were those of Delphine, a Frenchwoman with whom a young and inexperienced Anton falls in love; and Martha, a therapist at the psychiatric institute. My least favourite character was Rudolf, whose only great passion is politics, and who seems incapable of recognizing human emotions in others, or of responding to them.

This is a very slow moving read with a lot of dialogue. At times I found it hard to get to grips with the characters. Even after finishing it, I am still not sure if Lena's, Rudolf's and Anton's stories were merely a vehicle for the political history of Austria between the wars, or vice versa. Looking back on this reading experience it was like stumbling down a long, unfamiliar path in the dead of night, with no light, and no idea of where you are going.

I did love the section devoted to the building of the Panama Canal. It was such a huge feat, built at the cost of so many lives, and I had never before considered the logistics of the task. Faulks made this very real for me.

There is some beautiful writing in Snow Country, but this is nowhere near the author's best work. My personal favourite is Birdsong.

⭐⭐⭐.1

#SnowCountry #NetGalley

I: #sebastianfaulks @randomhouseuk @hutchheinemann

T: @ SebastianFaulks @RandomHouseUK @HutchHeinemann

#comingofage #historicalfiction #mystery #romance #sliceoflife

THE AUTHOR: Sebastian Faulks was born in 1953, and grew up in Newbury, the son of a judge and a repertory actress. He attended Wellington College and studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, although he didn’t enjoy attending either institution. Cambridge in the 70s was still quite male-dominated, and he says that you had to cycle about 5 miles to meet a girl. He was the first literary editor of “The Independent”, and then went on to become deputy editor of “The Sunday Independent”. Sebastian Faulks was awarded the CBE in 2002. He and his family live in London.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House UK, Cornerstone, via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review is also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

A novel of intrigue, mystery, and style set from the end of the 1st WW to the 1930’s. Filled with images of struggle examining the meaning of love and survival in Europe at the start of the rise of facism and the world wide destruction that would inevitably follow. My first Sebastian Faulks read was Birdsong and have been an admirer of his writing style ever since. Recommended.

Beautifully written. The main characters are Anton and Lena Anton has a all consuming love affair with Delphine but the 1914 war gets in the way and Anton tries to find purpose. . Lena is a damaged girl who’s looking for stability after a broken childhood. Both meet again in an asylum where Lena is working and Anton comes to write an article. Waves of sadness travel through the book. I was completely hooked by the characters and wanting to know their fate

My thanks to Random House U.K. Cornerstone Hutchinson for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Snow Country’ by Sebastian Faulks in exchange for an honest review.

Sebastian Faulks is best known for his literary historical fiction and this novel is the second in his Austrian trilogy, following on from his 2005 novel, ‘Human Traces’, in which two psychiatrists establish Schloss Seeblick, a sanitarium on a lakeside in Carinthia.

In 1914 nineteen-year-old Anton Heideck arrives in Vienna seeking to make his name as a journalist. He also works part time as a private tutor, and there he meets Delphine, an older French woman. He falls deeply in love. Then his country declares war on hers.

Moving forward to 1927, we are introduced to Lena, whose impoverished life is changed when a young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke, spirits her away to Vienna. Things don’t go well and she eventually ends up taking a menial job at the snow-bound Schloss Seeblick sanitarium.

By 1933 Anton is now an established writer and has been commissioned to write an article on the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. Yet he is still coming to terms with the death of so many friends on the Eastern Front and cannot forget Delphine.

Woven into the story of these broken lives is the wider story of Europe as it recovers from one war and moves inevitably towards another.

As always, Sebastian Faulks writing is exquisite and his descriptions of the landscapes were breathtaking. ‘Snow Country’ is undoubtedly a melancholic novel that explores aspects of philosophy and psychology. In addition, as readers we can appreciate the novel’s depiction of the rise of fascism during the interwar period.

This was a novel that I admired for its beauty and ideas though I didn’t engage with its characters as much as I had hoped.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

I was rather disappointed with this book. It's beautifully written overall of course, but it didn't go anywhere for me. The 2 main male characters were very similar but also under-developed and Lena just wasn't convincing. Why did she behave as she did ? The really intriguing characters for me were Delphine and Martha, but they only appeared for small sections at the beginning and end respectively.

I have really enjoyed many of Sebastian Faulks previous novels - Birdsong is one of my all time favourites. But I'm afraid this one just didn't hit the mark for me. I found it very slow paced and apart from Lena, I didn't feel much for any of the characters. I am sure that others will enjoy this character driven book but it just wasn't for me.

Snow Country is a beautiful examination of 20th century Europe as the characters negotiate the coming and aftermath of both World Wars. Although the threat/realisation of conflict impacts the story it is the personal exploration that is key. Lena, a product of a drunk mother's promiscuousness, experiences each stage of her life with a naivety that allows her to reacts almost purely from instinct, living in the immediate rather than concerned with the consequences. Influenced by the European intellectuals of the era based in Vienna, Faulks explores a more Bohemian existence. Politics, religion and love are all explored with no singular pathway securing happiness for any, rather it is the combination and yearning for something better/bigger than themselves that makes Faulks' characters so exquisitely drawn. The need to heal and become whole resonates through Anton and Lena reflecting that of the civilization.

I was excited to see the new Sebastian Faulks on NetGalley, having read and loved Birdsong many, many years ago!

Snow Country spans the years between 1903 and 1933 through the First World War and the rumblings of the second. We’re taken through this time of political unrest with three characters; journalist and tutor Anton, idealistic until his country declares war against that of the woman he’s fallen for, Delphine.
Fast forward to 1927, and to Lena, a young woman with ambition, stuck in a small town with an alcoholic mother, but sees a way out with marriage and a move to Vienna. Her husband Rudolph is the third main character, a political idealist struggling with the huge unrest at the time. Her metropolitan dreams are crushed though and she takes a job as a cleaner in a sanatorium called the Schloss Seeblick.

It’s now 1933 and Anton is an established writer visiting the sanatorium to write an article on it, where his and the other characters lives finally converge.

I think this was a truly ambitious novel; covering a wide period of time where quite a lot happened, historically speaking! I’m always interested in the world war eras and enjoy historical fiction so I had high expectations for Snow Country.
Some of the descriptions of the landscape around the sanatorium are beautiful and some of the more graphic war scenes are very realistic (the opening chapter is a fairly full on field hospital description, not for the faint of heart!) but that said, I didn’t hugely warm to any of the characters. Even though there’s a real focus on all three; Anton, Lena, and Rudolph, they didn’t always feel fleshed out enough for me and so it was hard at times to empathise with them.

The dialogue can be a bit stilted with some longer meandering passages in between that slowed the storyline down.
That said, I would still read more from Faulks again in the future, this one unfortunately was not for me.




With thanks to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouse for the opportunity to read an advanced reader copy of Snow Country, available to buy from today.

Snow Country is the second in a trilogy of books, the first being ‘Human Traces’. It can be read as a stand alone book, as I did, and works very well that way. The principal characters are Anton, a journalist, and Lena, a poor girl born to an alcoholic mother. The novel spans the time during and after the First World War as their lives interconnect at various points. In essence it is a love story but so much more. The arcs of Anton and Lena’s life stories before they meet are fascinating and when they are thrown together at the Schloss Seeblick we are introduced to a whole different set of characters. As always with Sebastian Faulks, his writing is incredibly beautiful, he just pulls you into a world and you can visualise every detail of place and people. I found that Snow Country meandered in parts and sometimes there was almost too much going on, but I still didn’t want to stop reading. I look forward very much to last part of the trilogy and meeting Anton and Lena again. Thank you to #netgalley and #randomhouse for allowing me to review this ARC

Another wonderful story from one of my favourite authors, Sebastian Faulks. His voice is so distinctive this could have been written by no other. While 'Snow Country' is the second of a promised trilogy, the first being 'Human Traces', it can be read as a stand-alone novel. Spanning the period from WWI to the 1930s, it shows us Austria as it is thrown into the turbulence of the pre-war rise of Facism through the eyes and experiences of its complex main characters, who are connected in ways that are possibly chance, possibly fate. The setting, Schloss Seeblick, is an enlightened therapeutic resort employing humane therapy techniques and therapists, rather than the horrors of most psychiatric institutions of the time, and it is not only the people who have come there for healing who are healed. Anton and Lena, the two main characters, are from very different backgrounds and come to Schloss Seeblick to work: Lena as a maid and Anton, a journalist and writer, to write a story. This is not a simple story, and nothing is predictable. Thoughtful readers will find themselves often putting it down while they think about the meaning of the character's experiences, and when they complete the book, Anton and Lena (pronounced Layna as the author's note at the beginning of the book tells us and which meant I always thought of her that way) will stay vividly in their hearts. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance review copy.

I hadn't realised until I finished this novel that it is the second part of a trilogy. Not that it mattered. It stands alone although I would now like to read the first part. Set in the period from the beginning of World War I to the early thirties it takes place mainly in Vienna and in a psychiatric institution and concerns the intertwined lives of three characters, Anton, Lena and Rudolph. As with his masterpiece Birdsong, Faulks depicts the horrors of the first world war in graphic and horrifying detail but doesn't linger on this and indeed most of the novel concerns the love lives of the three main characters..

I enjoyed this book. It was a little difficult to get into but livened up towards the end. It's not my favourite Faulks novel but it is worth reading. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Snow Country is the second novel of Faulk’s planned trilogy. This part is placed in Austria and played out during the years 1903 and 1933, encompassing the first world war and events that would eventually lead to the second. It is in some ways a continuation of ‘Human Traces’ – the first book in the trilogy – but can also be read completely independently.

Schloss Seeblick, a sanatorium for the mentally ill, is set in the Austrian hills and represents the geographical heart of the novel – not only is this the link to the trilogy’s first part but it is also the place where the three main characters eventually meet and where the course of their actions is set for when they leave it.

The novel starts with a very graphic description of a surgery in a field tent. This is how we meet Anton Heideck, one of the main protagonists. In the next chapters we are taken into the Styrian town where he grew up and then we accompany him to Vienna, where he studied philosophy and later made a living as a journalist. Here he meets the love of his life, Delphine.

We are then transported to Carinthia, where we witness Lena, the second big player, growing up and meeting Rudolf, the man who she falls in love with and who takes her to Vienna. From here, all three of them, Anton, Rudolf and Lena, will make their way to Schloss Seeblick, for different reasons, though at different times nevertheless meeting there at some stage.

Similar to his other works, Faulks does not disappoint when it comes to depth of his literary characters, he takes time to develop them carefully and lovingly, which makes reading this novel a truly enjoyable experience. The historical backdrop and the excursions into the human mind and the mysterious ways it works, are sometimes a bit on the laborious side but they do add another and important dimension to this story of love, loss and self-preservation. I feel richer for having met Anton, Lena and Rudolf - but also Martha, who heads up Schloss Seeblick and who I hope very much to meet again in the third part of this trilogy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I normally know how I feel about a novel quite early on and that view seldom changes as I progress through the story – but this one was different. Set in Austria in the first half of the 19th Century, we follow quite a cast of characters as they live through the build-up to The Great War and events thereafter (the war itself getting only a bit part role in this particular tale). The characters we’re introduced to include:

Lena – born to an alcoholic mother who enjoys the experience of pregnancy but rather avoids what comes after.

Anton – a roaming journalist who witnesses the building of the Suez Canal before experiencing the horror of war.

Rudolf – an earnest young lawyer whose political views prove to be at odds with his country’s ruling party.

Martha – who runs a sanatorium which was co-founded by her father (this having being detailed in the author’s earlier book Human Traces)

There are others too, perhaps too many for my taste, whose lives are to intersect. Love is found and love is lost – and sometimes love is found again – as historical events unfold around them. I felt the narrative was jerky and I struggled to get into its flow. I was interested in what was happening around the characters but not gripped by lives of people who kept flitting in and out of the frame. Amongst the cast, Lena appealed to me most: she’d led such a tough life, struggling to find anything at all to latch on to – could it be that there would at least be a happy ending for her?

There was a point mid-book where I actually contemplated giving up on this one, it wasn’t my thing (in truth, historical fiction rarely is) but the quality of the writing alone kept me going. And I’m glad I stuck with it because as the tale entered it’s final third I suddenly found myself interested in the plight of a number of the players, the same people who had failed to arouse my interest to this point. Things started to come together, the links clicking into place. Now I was wondering – and more importantly caring - how it was all going to play out.

I’m not going to give away anything that would spoil the book for future readers, but I will say that the ending is both suspenseful and satisfying. So how do I rate this book? Well, for me the first half merits three stars at best but the back end is more four star territory. So it’s flip a coin time, but I’m going to go with how I felt at the book’s conclusion: so it’s a slightly generous 4 stars from me.

I was surprised to read that this was the second title in a planned Austrian trilogy and that whilst it was a stand alone title , it follows 'Human Traces' which I read several years ago. I remember the first title being full of research about the brain, psychiatry and mental health and was a little apprehensive how this title would follow it.

'Snow Country' is much more about human relationships than its predecessor and traces the effect that one person can have on another's mental health. The characters are sympathetically developed and I got completely caught up in Anton's story. His passionate love affair with Delphine, early on in the novel, blazes so intensely and deeply only to be abruptly interrupted by the First World War, that I worried for Anton's well-being. The book then turns to the fortunes of Lena: a naive, poorly-educated girl who has had no real chances in life and I was quite confused as to where the narrative was going to go to next! As the story develops it is clear that Lena's simplistic view of life and what she demands of it is contrasted starkly against Anton's worldly experience.

The settings in this book are glorious: Vienna, Paris, and Schloss Seeblick. I felt well-travelled by the end of my read. Wonderful writing which fully absorbed me throughout!

Sebastian Faulks is one of my favourite authors and once again has written a truly wonderful book. Set in Austria during the political turbulence of the early 20th century, it gives a fascinating insight into the time. It's written beautifully (as always by Faulks) and I would strongly recommend it.

Whilst there may be some benefit in having read the first in the trilogy, Snow Country stands alone as a rather beautiful novel. Focusing primarily on two main characters- Lena and Anton- and the interconnected lives they lead, Faulks explores psychoanalysis, the impact of the First World War, the worsening political situation in Austria in the 30s, and lost loves.

To be critical, the novel wouldn’t be hurt by being a little shorter - there is some repetitive exposition that could be edited - but there’s emotional impact here, albeit at times through a distancing veil.

I’ll be going back to Human Traces, a book I missed at the time.

I’ve not read many of Sebastian Faulks’ books, despite having loved Birdsong and enjoyed an excellent audio performance of A Possible Life. Snow Country is the second in a planned trilogy but as the author says, each can be read on its own; I certainly didn’t feel as though I was missing out by not having read Human Traces (although I might now read it). It has a vivid start, giving an unflinching view of field surgery in a grotty tent.
I quickly became interested in the characters’ lives, set against a backdrop of impending war; the dramatic irony of the reader knowing what’s to come is heartbreaking. It was a wrench, then, to leave them behind and start afresh with Part 2. In Lena, however, Sebastian Faulks has created one of the most interesting characters I’ve come across. The humbleness and narrow horizons of her early life make her a sponge for new ideas and experiences.
On one level Snow Country is a story about the lives and loves of a handful of characters. But it’s much more than that too, a grand sweep touching on society scandal, the grand project of the Panama Canal, psychoanalysis, loss and loneliness; Anton’s description of dealing with his wartime experiences is particularly poignant. It manages to be at once literary – there is some beautiful writing – and gripping: I read on eager to find out how Anton would deal with his past and what path Lena would take. I think I only get properly frustrated by the inaction or poor decision-making of really well-drawn characters and at times I felt like slapping Anton, so job done!

Snow Country tells the story of two people - Lena and Anton - in the interwar years in Austria and their encounters in Vienna and in a treatment centre for mental health, Schloss Seeblick. The novel explores the development of modern psychology alongside the first world war, the decline of empires and the rise of fascism in Europe.

For me the first third of the book was the most enjoyable. The love story of Anton and Delphine and Lena's encounter with her father were very vivid and movingly descriptive. But as the novel proceeded I wanted to enjoy it more than I actually did. The chapters in the Schloss Seeblick felt a bit directionless and the narrative voice felt offhand, almost distracted, as if the author wasn't really bothered about his own characters. I kept wondering if this was a deliberate device - a sort of therapy notes style mirroring the novel itself - but I wasn't clever enough to really understand it.

I do think the final chapters were again, very vivid and engaging but I got lost for a long time in the middle.

I’ve never been a Sebastian Faulks fan, and yet hope springs eternal, so I embarked open-mindedly on this, his latest novel, only to be disappointed yet again. I find his writing just so mundane, so banal, and his characterisation weak. I didn’t relate to any of the characters in this novel, didn’t care about their plight, and found the dialogue – and the novel is dialogue heavy – frankly embarrassing at times, it’s so stilted. Potentially the subject matter is interesting – 3 people find their lives intertwined in the first decades of the 20th century against a backdrop of increasingly tense political tension and societal change. Much of the action takes place in a psychiatric sanatorium where we suffer a lot of cod psychology and psychiatric exposition. In 1914 we meet Anton Heideck, a journalist in Vienna where he meets the French Delphine and falls in love, only to be separated when WWI breaks out. In part two we meet Lena, who manages to leave her poverty-stricken life behind when she manages also to get to Vienna, where she meets a young troubled lawyer Rudolf. Part three takes us back to Anton and the Eastern Front. The centre of the book – I hesitate to say its heart –where our characters all interact is always, however, the asylum Schloss Seeblick, an institution Faulks first visited in Human Traces. It’s a pleasant enough read, I guess, and certainly many reviewers have found it so, but it left me cold and totally unengaged. It’s certainly not as profound and meaningful as it thinks it is. Just not one for me, unfortunately.

Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks latest historical novel covers the years from 1903 to 1933. It incorporates much of the political turbulence of the time; the war torn years of WW1 and the pre-war rise of Nazism and the right wing in Austria and Vienna. It focuses on this period through he lives of three people: the journalist and author, Anton Heideck, Lena, with a drunken mother, who comes from humble origins and Rudolf Plischke, a lawyer and one time lover of Lena.
Anton and his best Friedrich, are students in Vienna and as Anton struggles to establish himself as a journalist he takes on private tutoring which is how he meets, and falls in love with, Delphine Fourmentier. They set up home in the Vienna Woods but in 1914 he is in Paris reporting on the trial of Henriette Caillaux in Paris and when he returns home finds Delphine gone.
Rudolf Plischke is an idealistic young lawyer who meets impoverished Lena when she is only 15 years old. Urged by Rudolf, Lena moves to Vienna, only to find it an challenging place to live. She takes a menial role at the Schloss Seeblick, a psychiatric hospital,, where Anton has been sent to write an article evaluating the state of psychiatry in Austria.
This is a perceptive novel that covers key issues from this historical period, the impact of war, and the relationships between 3 people who live through it. It also deals with the evolution of psychiatry. I found it a very interesting book and will be recommending it to others. Many thanks to the author, the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to read it in return for a copy in return for an honest review.