terezgraphicdesign

** spoiler alert ** Finally, finally I finished this book, all 19 CDs of it. The good things about it were that it painted a thoughtful and seemingly accurate picture of Spain after the Civil War. (I found it particularly interesting because as a child I lived in Spain for a number of months when Franco was still in power and I can attest that even then people were scared and resentful of him.) Samson is a decent writer who put together a fairly interesting plot with a more than exciting climax, though the aftermath of that was a let down, even if fairly realistic. Now the things I didn't like: Although a decent writer, Sansom is far from great and he's never met an adjective he didn't like. Had I been reading this novel rather than listening to it, I probably wouldn't have been able to prevent myself from jotting down the many times he used two synonymous adjectives or even adverbs to modify one noun or verb. In America (I realize this is probably an America versus British nitpick) writers are told to avoid adjectives/adverbs if at all possible, and while I don't hold with that, Sansom's really excessive use of them drove me crazy and made the prose feel turgid. I picked up the actual book after I was done to find some specific examples but I'm afraid that after 10 pages I couldn't bring myself to keep reading, so you'll have to take my word for it or find out for yourself. And then there's the matter of the characters. It is not a good thing when the most interesting individual in a book is the villain. The protagonists in "Winter in Madrid" are Harry Brett, a demobbed soldier who is sent to the English embassy in Madrid during World War II as a translator/spy; Barbara Clare, a British nurse who, after losing her English communist boyfriend during the civil war, ends up staying in Madrid and entering into a relationship with a public school fellow of the boyfriend; and Sandy Forsyth, the bad guy boyfriend, who is trying to set up some business ventures with the Franco regime. There is also Sofia, the young Spanish woman Harry falls in love with. The problem is that Harry, Barbara and Sofia are so noble and proper that I found them incredibly boring. Harry in particular was such an honorable wuss that I longed for him to swear or get drunk or do something selfish, just to prove he was human. Barbara strengthened as she went along but she too was pretty one-dimensional. And Sofia was the clichéd romantic interest, brave and loyal and keeping her starving family together by dint of (you guessed it) noble effort. Oh, and I forgot Bernie Piper, the communist boyfriend who turns out not to be dead but in a prison camp. He had a bit more fizz than the honorable crew trying to rescue him, but that's a low standard. Sandy, a boy who hated his hidebound, judgemental clergyman of the father, is a guy who's completely out for himself, yet the author gives him a few redeeming characteristics and he certainly is the most three-dimensional and vital. So basically the book, dwelling on these people as it does, drags. The action turns on the dual stories of Harry trying to find out whether Sandy is developing a gold mine which will enrich the falangists and facilitate the Spanish entry into the war, and Barbara trying to get Bernie out of his camp. Neither plot line seemed highly compelling to me. I knew Franco didn't get into the war, and I didn't really care whether Bernie was rescued. I was curious, and I did find the ending much more exciting than the rest, but when you don't have an investment in the characters it's hard to care about the book. One last thing: there was a great deal of breastbeating (on Harry's part) about the fact that he was a spy and thus lying to Sandy and particularly Barbara for much of the book. There was also much blame dished out from Barbara when she found out. Okay, I understand the feelings; I understand that spying can be a dirty business; we've all read John le Carre, etc. etc. However, I was surprised that honorable Harry never made the point that it WAS kind of important to keep Franco out of the war, and that perhaps breaking some eggs in the service of this goal might not be the very worse sin anybody had ever committed. In sum, I found the history of the period interesting, and certainly Sansom's storytelling and writing and even character skills are far above, say, Danielle Steel's, but he really could've used a better editor.

2022-10-16 15:16