It’s a good book, well researched, well characterised and always interesting, but somehow it didn’t quite connect with me emotionally. I wondered why as the author is clearly sympathetic to both his characters and the tragedy of their situation, but then I realised it’s his writing style, which has a certain formality and distance about it that keeps Faulks just a bit removed from things. Interestingly, one of the supporting characters is an amateur psychiatrist, keen on Freud and Jung, who were barely known during WW1, and you can’t help but see Faulks as writing from a similar analytical perspective; observing and understanding, but in a slightly detatched way, never quite getting emotionally involved.
Good though, and recommended to anyone who wants to know about the sheer hell of life in the trenches. WW1 is likely to rise significantly in public conciousness as its centenary approaches.
