John Biggs

My review wasn't meant to be harsh but that is what I felt while reading. What my review vs mist others says of course that we have quite different tastes. As a genre, I don't like high Gothic, with ghosts and tragedy by the pagefull. (BTW I don't see my original review up -- has it been removed?)

Shakespeare takes a very long time in explaining the six minutes in which Churchill became PM and even then it is not clear quite how that happened. Shakespeare is nephew of Geoffrey Shakespeare, Liberal British politician, and continually refers to “Uncle Geoffrey” as if it gives him inside knowledge of the political shenanigans in the early days of the war. After Munich, PM Neville Chamberlain was not well liked. Churchill was proven correct about Hitler’s intentions and was well like in public, but fellow politicians thought he was impetuous, inconsistent and lacked judgement. He showed all those characteristics in the Norway campaign, changing his mind about attacking and taking Narvik, shipping iron ore to Germany, and Trondheim, strategically better. As Lord pf the Admiralty he deployed ships to the wrong places, but worse the backup for British troops was appalling, one group have no arms, no proper winter clothing, a thorough balls up for which Chamberlain received the blame. After a famous debate in which one of Chamberlain’s own members said quoting Cromwell “in the name of god go.” There was a debate for an adjournment which became in effect a vote of no confidence in the Govt, which won by 81 votes, down from a majority of 221, many Tories voting against Chamberlain. Who was to be PM now? Everyone from the King down, including both parties, wanted Lord Halifax, except Lord Halifax who flatly refused to be PM. Many Tories and a couple of Labor shuffled for position. Chamberlain wanted a wartime coalition govt but Labour wouldn’t serve under him, anyone but Chamberlain. In the end it came down to Churchill who guilefully stood behind Chamberlain, and Halifax who still refused. So Churchill it was, to his own immense satisfaction. Even the King changed his mind and gracefully invited him to be PM, to the distress of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare tries to tell the story from the POV of all major players, which makes the story too long and complicated, although it does reveal interesting gossip like Halifax and Baba Metcalfe, who spent lots of time together but did they have sex? Shakespeare gives conflicting diary or remembered accounts of meetings and then gives his “most likely” version, often supported with his second hand inside story. This is useful for the specialist historian but confuses the general reader. However we do get a very likely painting of Churchill, not quite the romanticised hero we tend to remember but a man who was inconsistent, over-rode established lines of command, interfered outside his remit (before being PM) and who was drunk most of the time, starting with champagne and white wine for breakfast. CJ Sansom in Dominion tells us what might have happened if Halifax had become PM, with Churchill as minister for war. It didn’t work: Halifax for balance appointed people from across the parties whom Churchill loathed. Halifax surrendered in 1940 when France fell, and Churchill led an underground movement in a now fascist Britain led by German sympathiser Lord Beaverbrook.

A saga about a paramedic Victor Dalmau who become a famous heart surgeon and his family. Victor is in many ways the opposite of his brother, Guillem, a soldier. When their parents take in one of their father’s best piano students, Roser, it’s Guillem who she falls in love with. When the war is over, Roser is heavily pregnant and alone, and it will be a different love that the novel ultimately celebrates. Starts with the Spanish Civil War so bad, especially in Catalonia, tens of thousands escape under horrific conditions to France, where they are not wanted. The poet Neruda is in Paris however and he selects those he thinks will help Chile become more educated and artistic. Roser can’t go with her child unless she is married: so Victor marries her with the promise of not taking advantage of her. They sail in the Winnipeg for Chile, where they are welcomed, Roser becoming a famous pianist and teacher, Victor a doctor. Cerdas was President then the socialists too over, and then Allende who tries to nationalize the country to the fury of traditional Chileans. The CiIA install Pinochet and the horror begins. Victor is dobbed in by a spiteful neighbour and nearly dies. Roser is in Venezuela setting up an orchestra. Throughout I was wondering if this was in any sense autobiographical: it frequently reads like a history, the events in the book are so close to reality But she assures us the central characters are fictional. Essentially the book is about the nature of love but you learn an awful lot about Chile how Catholic traditional and right wing it essentially was, and ultra snobbish, until Allende changed that but caused economic chaos. Pinochet was finally defeated in a referendum because he had created ultra rich ad dirt poor; thereafter a moderate change from ruthless free market came by the 1990s. The novel is populated by memorable characters with some very fine, cynical and funny writing even when the events described are so tragic.