The Danger Tree

Levant Trilogy #1

by Olivia Manning

A distinguished English novelist portrays Egypt and, in particular, life in Cairo during the Second World War when Rommel's offensive was at its height

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Africa, Egypt, British Literature, War

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Olivia Manning CBE was a British novelist, poet, writer and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in England, Ireland, Europe and the Middle East. She often wrote from her personal experience, though her books also demonstrate strengths in imaginative writing. Her books are widely admired for her artistic eye and vivid descriptions of place.
In August 1939 she married R.D. Smith ("Reggie"), a British Council lecturer posted in Bucharest, Romania, and subsequently in Greece, Egypt and Palestine as the Nazis over-ran Eastern Europe. Her experiences formed the basis for her best known work, the six novels making up "The Balkan Trilogy" and "The Levant Trilogy," known collectively as Fortunes of War. As she had feared, real fame only came after her death in 1980, when an adaptation of "Fortunes of War" was televised in 1987.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first volume in Olivia Manning’s “Levant Trilogy” which follows her “Balkan Trilogy.” In the Balkan novels, we followed newlyweds, Guy and Harriet Pringle, as they embarked on married life in Budapest – later moving to Greece. “The Danger Tree” sees many of these characters reappear, such as Pinkrose, Dubebat, Lush and Dobson. There are also new characters, such as the young officer, Simon Boulderstone, who has been separated from his unit, and the beautiful Edwina.

“The Danger Tree,” sees the Pringles now in Egypt; having fled Greece at the end of the “Balkan Trilogy,” As before, the move has not seen them any more settled – there are constant rumours of the planned evacuation of Cairo and the city seems to have become the, “clearing house of Eastern Europe.” Guy, so trusting and naïve, is hurt when Gracey appears to have no use for him in the organisation and finds himself shunted off to Alexandria, where Harriet worries he will be cut off by the approaching Germans. Unwilling to accept he is not wanted by Gracey, and always giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, Guy attempts to bury himself in work.

As always, Harriet is in the unenviable position of seeing Guy always admired, and used, by his many friends; while he gives his attentions to his students, his friends and his acquaintances, but never to her. She feels ill-used, neglected and at a loss of how to help, making excuses for her husband, while the war continues to cause chaos around her. Simon Boulderstone is a good new character, whose attempts to find his unit, his struggles with the life of the army, and the sheer confusion of war, open up a new vista to these books, in showing us the men who are fighting, as well as the civilians who are coping with the encroaching war. The next in this trilogy is “The Battle Lost and Won,” followed by, “The Sum of Things.”

[نورهان | El-Badawy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual we have a new collage-novel to talk about this episode It's Olivia Manning's The Danger Tree .
Before talking about Olivia's Figurative Language , I let our characters introduce themselves :

The Heroin :-



Hi, I'm Harriet Pringle , an English citizen . Now I'm in England but I suffer from DISPLACEMENT for a lot of time of my life because of the WAR . My story starts with a TREE , I was living in a room in a quiet house in Garden City and my room overlooked a huge-old tree whose leaves decorate my room's window . I liked that tree and I felt like it protected me and made me feel safety and comfortable . But I didn't know that that tree was my life and its fruits were the reason behind my suffering. You'll see .

Because of the War, I had to move from England to Greece then to Egypt with my husband Guy . We were homeless, money-less, future-less, friendless and without job. Then after sometime my husband found a job in Alex so he let me alone in Cairo working in the American Embassy. After he left, I suffered from LONELINESS as I was alone and physical and emotional SEPARATION . I always felt fear and lost in a strange country, It was awful.

After sometime, my husband came back to Cairo and had a new high job in the British Organization . Therefore, he was supposed to be busy working most of time and the rest of time he cared about his friends . He didn't care about me , about what I need or about our life and love . I just cared and there was no worth-reply . One day, I found him with my friend Edwina in cafe , he tried to cheer her up as she was crying . I thought he was cheating me and what proved that was his suggestion to me to leave Egypt for the sake of my health and temper . I thought he tried to get rid of me so I agreed with him . I think that was a usual result of the emotional gap between us, we didn't feel like a wife and husband who care about each other especially in strange country and that dire time of tension. I can say that I was a victim of his carelessness as his friend Aiden Pratt.
Look, that's my life, that's what I suffered and as well that was Olivia suffered as I represented her personal experience during the war in Egypt.


___ ___ ___ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___

The Hero :-
I'm Guy Pringle . I moved from England to Egypt with my wife as you previously knew. I will not talk about our circumstances, you already knew it but I think I can clarify my picture regarding my relationship with Edwina. I wasn't cheating Harriet, I did loved her. I was just cheering up Edwina as she was crying and nothing else but Harriet thought that I cheated her. I thought as a solution of her madness, she could leave Egypt to have some health rest, but she thought that I was trying to get rid of her.
Harriet was that kind of women who wanted care 24 hours a day but I wasn't that type who did so. I had very dire times, I had to search for a job to live and I was very sad that I didn't join the army.
On the other hand, my wife was fond of the tree, I didn't like it and I thought I was a nuisance and would cut off the sunlight.
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
On the other hand, Olivia represented the life of soldiers in the desert as we see in the life of Simon :-
I'm Simon Boulderstone, I'm 20-aged English soldier. I come to Egypt from England to join the army and search for my brother Hugo. As soon as I reach Egypt, I'm separated from my friends and before I was separated from my family and wife. the atmosphere in the desert was basically awful. The heat of the Sun burns us and steal of cold freezes us as well. We face shortage of artillery and safety.I think you should read to know more about the front line and about me.



Egypt in the eyes of Olivia Manning:-
She describes Egypt from her personal experience but I think It's just a prediction of the conditions of Egypt nowadays. However, in the Forties of the previous century Egypt was a beautiful and quiet place without too much population. Her description was so mean and there wasn't any truth in.
This was Egypt in forties ^.^



and this was Alex:



*** *** ***
Her writing style:-
Style was so easy and full of description of every place and character. For instance, "In this country one ate sickness." , here she described Egypt with some sense of humor.
" Greece was a flower with spring but in Egypt there was neither spring nor autumn." She compared between Egypt and Greece.

*** *** ***
Olivia, in her novel, admitted the policy of England in Egypt. " They don't think we are protecting them. They think we're making a use of them. And we are so. We are just protecting the Suez Canal."

*** *** ***
Finally, I don't like this novel because :
1) It talks about the topic I really hate. War , imperialism and suffering weren't my fav. topic to read in. I was forced to read it for the sake of my collage but without that I'd never read such one.
2) It was so boring and when you read the chapters of the front line, you'll hate yourself because of boredom. I didn't find any sense of humor as my prof. saw.
3) I hate the character of Guy. He was reckless, irresponsible and careless friend and husband. He tried to enjoy himself with Edwina and some friends without paying any attention to his wife .
4) I felt that Harriet was so over in everything, she feared a lot and got mad a lot. On the other hand, she tried to search for a safety shelter far away from her husband so I saw that she didn't have any mind to have affairs with men.
5) Regarding to Simon, I didn't know how he could long to Edwina and he was married and how he could think of his brother's girlfriend.

*** *** ***
To be honest there were some words that I liked:
"The sense of belonging together was deeper than love."
"Enjoy yourself while you've still got the chance."
"Hate could make you reckless but recklessness didn't make you safe."
"You only catch what you fear to catch."


That's enough for this episode, I hate myself while reviewing the novel. You don't have any idea how much I feel nervous of the whole novel.
See you in another different world ^.^

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I'm finally getting to this series. I put it off for too long.

[Calzean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first book in the Levant Trilogy. The Pringles are now in Egypt. At first they struggle to find work then Guy gets appointed to head the "Organisation" in Cairo and off he goes in a new endeavour. Harriet still flits around nervously being loyal to Guy and occasionally joining one of the wild nights on the town that many of the other expats seem to live for. The Germans may be threatening to over run them by the expats and soldiers are all having a grand time.
As with the Balkan Trilogy this book is based on the author's own experiences. But Manning invents Simon, a young officer, and tells of his story in the desert to give a stark contrast to the free living life back in Cairo. Simon's story is of flies, sand, boredom, waiting, loneliness, pining for female company and wanting to visit his brother who he serving nearby attached to a NZ detachment.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good! Olivia Manning is my favorite form of escape from the world. I can read her non-stop and she's great for that "so you think your world is bad?" sense that is so important to get sometimes! I mean, Nazi's are crawling all over Europe forcing these people to relocate continually to stranger places and they still have cocktails and look for employment and only have nervous breakdowns every now and then.

[Keith Currie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first of Manning's Levant Trilogy does not disappoint. This is a novel of those displaced and upset in times of war and focuses on the young academic couple, Guy and Harriet Pringle as they try to establish themselves in wartime Cairo. There is a large ensemble cast of characters, many from the earlier trilogy set in Roumania and Greece, most of them egocentric and selfish wastrels - all treated with a tart malice by the author. The comedy becomes tragedy, however, with the introduction of the inexperienced young soldier, Simon Boulderstone, his first experiences in the desert war, and his search for his older brother on the front line near El-Alamein.

[زينب الشاهد · Rating 3 out of 5]

مشكلتى انى لو لقيت حاجة رخمة تفصلنى من الرواية بقرأها مخصوص علشان انتقد مش استمتع .. وبصراحة الهانم أوليفيا اللى فاكرة نفسها من دولة هى سيدة العالم بتتنبأ كويس , صورت حال مصر دلوقتى فى روايتها من كام سنة كده , وماكانش عاجبها حاجة خالص فى مصر , مع العلم انهم هما اللى قرفونا ولسه قرفينة لحد دلوقتى ..
وكمية الاستهزاء بالعادات المصرية كوم , واستهزاءها بالآذان كوم تانى , ست رخمة ..
ومش هتكلم عن الأسلوب لانى مركزتش ولا أى حاجى بلاغية لانى بردوا مركزتش بس ركزت فى رخامتها ورخامة البطلة بتاعتها , وحلال اللى جوزها عمله فيها , بس ..

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first novel of the Levant Trilogy, the second trilogy of Olivia Manning’s semi-autobiographical 6-book series about the World War II experiences of the British civilian couple Guy and Harriet Pringle. The first trilogy, the Balkan Trilogy, followed the Pringles in Romania, then Greece and ends with them leaving Greece for Egypt.

This book details their experiences soon after their arrival in Egypt. There, Guy seeks employment at the British Council school and Harriet seeks employment and ways to keep busy. The Pringles run into many of the same characters that were in Romania, including the deviously competitive Dubebat and Lush, the always wary Pinkrose, and the diplomatic Dobson. There are events and scenes similar to those in Romania, with several set at local bar/restaurants or parties.

As with the first trilogy, some chapters come from the point of view of a third character. In the Balkan trilogy, it came from the odd and parasitic Russian Irishman Yakimov. In this book, that role is played by a new character, the young British officer Simon Boulderstone. We first encounter Simon in Cairo where, separated from his Unit, he joins Harriet in a social group that witnesses one of the novel’s more impactful events. Later, Simon joins his unit where Manning gets the opportunity to portray young officer interaction, the military bureaucracy, and even actual combat.

Simon is a likeable character easy to identify with. His point of view is a welcome one. The Simon storyline provided a welcome and fresh interlude from the routine of the Pringles’ story. Manning even ends the novel with a climactic event in the Simon storyline rather than with anything climactic in the Pringles’ storyline.

This was a good reading experience, but one not quite as satisfying as the Balkan trilogy experience for several reasons. First, I found 1940 Romania a more unique and intriguing setting than WWII Egypt. Second, the Pringles’ storyline, with the socializing, Council school politics and Guy’s annoying deference to the wishes of everyone except his wife, felt slightly stale in this novel. Although I do love the bar/restaurant scenes, they did feel similar to the Bucharest experience. Finally, I did not have the same "level of tension and suspense" from the encroaching threat of the German forces that I had in the first trilogy.

However, Manning's writing is good enough and the story interesting enough to still warrant a 4-star rating. I very much enjoy Manning's general writing style and storytelling method; how she develops her characters and presents her scenes. I find myself falling easily into the world of her novels. I look forward to the rest of this trilogy and plan to go on and read more of her.

[Yasser Shawqi]

I think that this is one of the entirely-biased and prejudiced novel composed by an English novelist against Egypt. In fact, the novel is full of negative implications against aspects of weather, people, major cities in Egypt, monuments, Islamic rites etc.. According to the author, Egypt is a place of death, disease, backwardness.

[Eddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 4 of the Fortunes of war Trilogy. As good as the first three books in The Balkan Trilogy. I just feel a part of the experience in Cairo waiting for the Germans to attack. Very consistent writing.

[Fiona Squires · Rating 4 out of 5]

The war time chronicles of Harriet and Guy Pringle are still enjoyable and benefit from the addition of new characters and a new viewpoint.

[Hager Sayed · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love this novel ..

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivia Manning’s best known work, The Balkan Trilogy, juxtaposes world-changing events with the domestic concerns of the newly-married Guy and Harriet Pringle. She revisits that narrative device in The Danger Tree, the first novel in her Levant Trilogy, following the fortunes of the Pringles together with a hotch-potch of refugees from a Europe under the control of Hitler’s forces.

In their new home in Cairo they are no more secure than they were in Europe. The German forces are advancing through Egypt, creating tension among the ex-pat community. Some choose to make their escape before the rumoured planned evacuation of Cairo. Others who cannot leave become increasingly worried. The Egyptians barely tolerate them and the Americans are more concerned with saving themselves than anyone else.

Nevertheless nothing, not even the threat of capture will deter this odd assortment of characters (many of whom are egocentric idlers) from their cocktails and parties or the occasional trip into the desert where they clamber into the burial chambers of the Pyramids. Anything to relieve the monotony and the daily battle with stultifying heat.

Into this melting pot comes a fresh-faced British officer, Simon Boulderstone. He’s clearly an innocent abroad, a young man who is a loner desperate to make friends. Those he made on the ship bringing in reinforcements seem to have disappeared, leaving Simon feeling adrift on his arrival in Cairo.

Waiting for a taxi, he breathed in the spicy, flaccid atmosphere of the city and felt the strangeness of things around him. The street lamps were painted blue. Figures in white robes, like night-shirts, flickered through the blue gloom, slippers flapping from heels. The women, bundled in black, were scarcely visible. The district looked seedy and was probably dirty but the barracks, he thought, would be familiar territory. He hoped Major Perry would be there to welcome him.

It’s through the eyes of this naive young officer that we see the disarray of the Allied war effort. Put in charge of part of a convoy to take vital supplies to the battle lines, he has no real idea how to conduct himself or the men under his command. Everything that was familiar has already disappeared and as the trucks drive mile after mile through a landscape rendered featureless by sandstorms, his feeling of unreality continues. Even when, after long stretches of inactivity, he is suddenly confronted with the brutal realities of war, he acts as if he is in a trance. Manning skillfully deals with this in a matter of fact style, the very lack of sentimentality only serving to reinforce the grim nature of the experience.

Back in Cairo, Harriet is similarly dislocated. Guy takes himself off to Alexandria ostensibly for his work with some nebulous educational entity called the Organisation. While he’s occupying his time dreaming up lectures and cultural activities, she is left alone, feeling under-used in her own job and neglected by Guy.

What an obnoxious figure of a man Manning has created in Guy. He’s very much an absent husband who “loves everyone,” not just his wife. He’s never happier than when surrounded by friends and cooking up schemes for a play or some musical event. While Harriet has to endure the discomfort of a room in a pension, and her job in the American embassy where she is left in no doubt about her outsider status — he’s swanning about in Alexandria. Harriet begs him to leave Alexandria when the situation gets more fraught, but Guy decides that a course he’s running for just two students (who might not turn up anyway) is more important. Understandably Harriet feels isolated, confused and fearful for her marriage, especially when she begins to suspect his affections lie elsewhere. Guy of course is oblivious to the reasons for her distress.

He found it difficult to accept that his own behaviour could be at fault. And if it were, he did not see how it could be changed. It was as it always had been, rational, so if she were troubled, then some agency beyond them – sickness the summer heat the distance from England – must be affecting her. …. That she was unhappy concerned him yet would could hero about it. he had more than enough to do as it was…..

Harriet has far more patience with this self-centred insensitive man than I would have but whether they go their separate ways we never get to discover because the book ends without a resolution. It’s an unsatisfying end because young Simon’s future is also left uncertain. If it wasn’t for the fact I knew there were two more books to follow I would have got to the end of The Danger Tree feeling very short changed.

[Polly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frances Wolf

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Danger Tree is the first novel in Olivia Manning’s Levant Trilogy – which follows directly on from her Balkan Trilogy – that I re-read with such relish last year. The Danger Tree is every bit as compelling as those first three novels. Enormously intelligent, it is, at times, a no holds barred account of the war in the desert.

“Cairo had become the clearing house of Eastern Europe. Kings and princes, heads of state, their followers and hangers-on, free governments with all their officials, everyone who saw himself committed to the allied cause, had come to live here off the charity of the British government. Hotels, restaurants and cafés were loud with the squabbles, rivalries, scandals, exhibitions of importance and hurt feelings that occupied the refugees while they waited for the war to end and the old order to return.”

Having been forced to flee Greece – where they ended up having fled the German occupation in Romania – Guy and Harriet Pringle find themselves in Egypt. Again, they are surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of war – thrown together with strangers and old friends – and enemies – with German forces still far too close for comfort.

The novel opens with Simon Boulderstone, just twenty years old, who has just arrived with the draft. A young officer, he had formed close alliances aboard ship – but is now separated from his mates – and finds himself alone, in the midst of chaos. Tobruk has just fallen. After reporting to his new barracks Simon is given two days leave and in search of a friendly face, goes to Cairo to look up his brother’s girlfriend; Edwina Little. Simon knows that somewhere out there in the desert is his brother Hugh and he hopes to get a chance to see him.

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...

[CQM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this only slightly less than the three books of the Balkan trilogy, perhaps in part because of the setting. I've always had an interest in the Balkan region while Egypt and the sands of deserts have never particularly interested me.
The book however is excellent, characters from the original trilogy return and are joined by new additions. It is for the sections following Harriet more of the same, no bad thing, but the character Simon Boulderstone adds something completely new, we finally see the fighting men of the war rather than just the civilians.
Much as I enjoyed it it feels like part of a novel, many trilogies are three books which can be read in isolation but these books by Olivia Manning are not that in my opinion.
These tales of wartime and immense world drama seen from the point of real, ordinary people caught right in the middle and experiencing their own private, smaller scale dramas.
Top hole!

[Thomasin Propson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book's basics:

WWII. Waiting. In the heat. In Egypt. Stressed about an enemy that may or may not come. Being blase about said enemy. Then worried again. No news--it that good or bad? Still hot. Regretable war, regretable deaths. Feeling alone in the crowd. More waiting.

This was essentially the perfect read while pregnant in the summer. I don't know if I would have enjoyed ('appreciated' may be a better word than 'enjoyed') the book as much in the winter or I weren't in the midst of my own intense period of waiting.

This was my first read of Manning (hadn't realized this was part of a series on war. Didn't interfere with my understanding of the book itself) and I'm sure to look into her other novels.

[Dan Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went right from reading and loving Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy to reading this, the first volume of her follow-up trilogy The Levant Trilogy. Much of the brilliance of the first trilogy – the amazing descriptions of place, of light and smells and of people, the cold eye cast on human beings and their human ways – is still here, marred only by some “Homer-noddings” that I like to think the younger Manning (she produced this novel in her late sixties, an age when most novelists are long past her prime) would have caught herself without the help of a better copy-editor and/or a better all-purpose editor….

[Gemma W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've returned to Olivia Manning after a year break since I read the Balkan Trilogy. I was delighted to find the set of characters back, sadly missing Yakimov.
Guy Pringle gets even more frustrating, I am waiting for Harriet to snap.

This book was much faster paced than the equivalent first book in the previous trilogy whilst keeping the beautiful descriptions and scene setting, this time of wartime Cairo.

I really enjoyed the introduction of Simon and his frontline experience which again makes a break from the previous books. Beyond being an interesting story line, it really highlighted how much closer the Pringles are now to the war.

Looking forward to the next two.

[إسراء Diab · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a read for an academic purpose, and we all know how does this feels like.

Olivia Manning and The Danger Tree.

This is a story about number of civilians and soldiers who lived in Egypt during The World War. Fun, I know.

Olivia, by reflecting on her own life, created the heroin “Harriet” as a representative of her and “Guy” a representative of her husband.
The couple demonstrated the effect of wars on civilians at that time. They are homeless, desperate and bankrupt. They are in a dire need to find a suitable house and jobs for both of them after arriving at Egypt.
Through their stay in Egypt, we can see how war ruined their lives, or rather, showed them the truth of their lives. Harriet and Guy aren’t only suffering from individual problems, like boredom from being alone and unemployed, but they have so many problems as a couple.
Their relationship slowly falls apart; Guy is always busy while Harriet needs some attention and care. Complications escalate between them until the final scene, where it is completely ruined for good.
***

On the other hand, we have “Simon”, the soldier who came to Egypt to serve in the army and search for his brother. Through Simon, we see the situation in the front lines, we see how innocent people are killed and forced to kill for the sake of war. We see the loneliness, fear, nostalgia, panic, craziness and more.
Simon by all means is a miserable person, and the way things end for him is tragic.
***

Stylistically, Olivia uses a lot of description. It is so vivid; she can make you see and hear everything as it happens. She obviously used her own experience during her stay in Egypt to describe and give a full image about it.
***

Personally, War is one of my favorite themes, and the idea of the story is really good but Olivia somehow made it boring. There were a lot of boring parts. All the chapters about Simon are quite the same. She also focused too much on the description to an extant makes you feel like there is no events in this novel. It could have been way better if we come across more events. I felt like reading a plain piece of description with few scratches of plot.

Another thing that bothered me is how Olivia described Egypt. I doubt that Egypt in the 40th was that bad. It felt so biased to me. Typical British attitude to justify their doings, although she did admit that England was only using Egypt. But yeah.
***

This wasn’t so bad, but I won’t recommend this to anyone to be honest.
3 stars.

Quotation:
"Ignorance breeds fear. Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads."
"They don't think we're protecting them. They think we are making a use of them. And so, we are."
"Cheer up, the war can't go on forever."
"Having come up at top speed, there is nothing to do but go down again."
"Don't be silly; you only catch what you fear to catch. And fearing nothing, he saw himself immune."
"Sleep devoured boredom. Sleep devoured time."
"People here are living in a fool's paradise. They think if the desert situation is all right, they are all alright."
"We are young at the wrong time."
“The war, with all its demands, took precedence over their youth and when it was over, they would be young no longer."
"He is too sure of you and some men don't want to be sure."

[Magda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Danger Tree continues the story of the Pringles, caught in the tumult of WWII. They are now in Cairo, and they are already thinking about their new destination. The prevailing feeling is one of confusion and uncertainty which gives a sense of the war closing in. One of the characters says they live in a ‘disrupted world’ - one in which everything that is familiar changes or completely disappears; civilians and soldiers are moved from one place to another, forced to start their life anew in yet another place and get used to new surrounding, new circumstances. It is the fate of people caught in a war to be displaced both spatially and mentally from their former life, habits, expectations of what the future might bring, to be at the mercy of someone else, ‘deprived of their free will’. Olivia Manning does a great job of conveying this feeling by focusing on the blinding heat and light, the insistence on white, the descriptions in which our eyes are directed towards the distant horizon, on the lack of well defined spaces, the unclear images of things seen from a great distance.

This fourth book in the series brings a new main character - Simon Boulderstone, whose role is to allow us a closer look at the war, the battle field, the soldiers fighting and living in war time conditions, something that we haven't had access to so far with the previous three books. The focus alternates between Simon and Harriet, taking us from his platoon advancing in the desert to her life in Cairo. Harriet's relationship with Guy seems to follow the same pattern, but towards the end of the novel it does change - for the first time we see a serious quarrel between the two and Harriet has doubts about Guy's true intentions where she is concerned, as she supposes his insistence that she go back to England alone is linked to his desire to pursue a romantic relationship with Edwina Little, one of their flat-mates (they now live in a house that belongs to the Embassy, together with Dobson, their old friend from Bucharest).

There are a few memorable scenes in the book - the death of a little boy killed by a grenade he picked up in the desert while out with his mother; the boy is brought back home by his mother and the parents do not seem to understand or accept that the boy is dead and force feed him; a male character (another of the flatmates) pounding on Edwina's door naked and sexually aroused, enraged by the fact that she has another man in her room; etc.

The title refers to a mango tree outside the Pringles' window, whose fruit may supposedly be poisonous. I took it to symbolise everything that is sweet and desirable but can hurt you eventually, such as love, friendship, forming attachments. Simon is in the final chapter expressing an unwillingness to get to know and talk to new arrivals, afraid of other losses, afraid of being hurt any more. Moreover, the last pages in the book bring another tragic loss - Simon's brother Hugo, whom Simon has been looking for ever since he arrived in Cairo, dies and Simon misses him, his last hours, even his funeral.

[astried]

i promise myself i won't rush through this the way i did balkan. so i'm giving pause after each book.

so far it feels less colourful and somehow emptier. eventhough i'm used to change of perspective and even like it, in this case i don't care much about it. maybe i just don't care about simon, really. anyway connection between simon n harriet is very tenuous, i wonder if it wouldn't be better for manning to choose either one or devote a book to each. i understand why simon has came to be, but i don't think it works very well. on the other hand, harriet's story line seems to stagnant too.

perhaps it's just because balkan was too good that levant suffers in comparison. let's see how it goes.

[Carole Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book of The Levant Trilogy, which follows on the wartime experiences of Harriet and Guy Pringle in The Balkan Trilogy. The pair are now in Cairo, having moved from Athens just as the Germans arrived. The other characters, Pinkrose, Dubetat and Lush all make an appearance, along with 'Dobby' Dobson. A major new character makes an appearance, Simon Boulderstone, we follow his experiences at war in the desert; I really am enjoying this very long autobiographical tale and starting the next book.

[Annette Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first volume of The Levant Trilogy and is a direct continuation of The Balkan Trilogy. Harriet and Guy's marriage is still strained as they la de dah their way around Cairo with their rich friends. In this volume we also see some WW2 action which, sadly, livens things up a little in alternate chapters. Olivia Manning's writing is lovely but there doesn't seem to be much of interest to say.

[Andy Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good book in the series. The story is bookended by the arrival of Simon Boulderstone in Egypt, his first army posting and wanting to meet up with his older brother Hugo, and Simon’s tracking down of Hugo. As well as Simon’s experiences there is the continuing story of Guy and Harriet Pringle, now in Egypt following their evacuation from Greece.

[Gareth Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manning is as stylish as ever. Her tales of those affected by the war but not directly participating (although in this novel Boulderstone is an active combatant) are quite rare in the literature of WWII. As ever, not a lot of significance happens, yet her books have a strange compulsive power.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the author's writing style. She captures the sense of place and various characters very well. I am currently obsessed with narratives of Europeans' experiences during WWII. While this is written as a novel, it draws on her own experience as an evacuee many times over.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cant recall when a book has made me feel more I am living in its world than these do. Olivia Manning should be remembered at the very top rank of 20th century authors.. But Harriet could've done better

[Louise Fincham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anthony Burgess wrote of The Levant Trilogy that it is the finest fictional record of the war written by a British writer and I cannot disagree. This is the first novel in the trilogy and it is wonderful.

[Poland]

4 Stars