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Austrian Trilogy #2
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.
Sweeping across Europe as it recovers from one war and hides its face from the coming of another, SNOW COUNTRY is a landmark novel of exquisite yearnings, dreams of youth and the sanctity of hope. In elegant, shimmering prose, Sebastian Faulks has produced a work of timeless resonance.
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.
Sweeping across Europe as it recovers from one war and hides its face from the coming of another, SNOW COUNTRY is a landmark novel of exquisite yearnings, dreams of youth and the sanctity of hope. In elegant, shimmering prose, Sebastian Faulks has produced a work of timeless resonance.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 2, 2021
463 people are currently reading
2426 people want to read
About the author
Sebastian Faulks
63 books2,576 followersSebastian Faulks is a British novelist, journalist, and broadcaster best known for his acclaimed historical novels set in France, including The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray. Alongside these, he has written contemporary fiction, a James Bond continuation novel (Devil May Care), and a Jeeves homage (Jeeves and the Wedding Bells). A former literary editor and journalist, Faulks gained widespread recognition with Birdsong, which solidified his literary reputation. He has also appeared regularly on British media, notably as a team captain on BBC Radio 4's The Write Stuff, and authored the TV tie-in Faulks on Fiction. Honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and appointed CBE for his services to literature, Faulks continues to publish widely, with The Seventh Son released in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 411 reviews
August 2, 2021
Sebastian Faulks latest historical novel spans the years from 1903 to 1933, encompassing 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 examines this period of history, structured into 5 parts, through 3 people, through the lives of the Styrian journalist and author, Anton Heideck, who with his best friend, Friedrich, are students in Vienna, he has no intention of returning home to help run the family blood sausage company. As he struggles to establish himself in his chosen career, he takes on private tutoring which is how he meets the French Delphine Fourmentier, falling for her as the two embark on a passionate love affair that have them setting up home in the Vienna Woods. In 1914 he is reporting on the trial of Henriette Caillaux in Paris, hoping that war does not begin..
However, he is doomed to be disappointed, and upon his return home finds Delphine has gone. His harrowing experience of fighting in the war has him seriously injured. The horrors of what he sees, the huge losses that include friends, leaves him unsurprisingly with PTSD, finding it hard to come to terms with the loss of Delphine, exacerbated by not knowing whether she is alive or dead. Rudolf Plischke is a idealist young lawyer committed to the Rebirth party with its spiritual aspects. The impoverished Carinthian Lena meets Rudolf when she is 15 years old, illiterate, with a mother, Carina, who likes to drink, who has given away all the children she gave birth to, keeping only Lena. At Rudolf's urging, Lena moves to Vienna, only to find it an unforgiving place. She takes a menial post at the Schloss Seeblick, a place Anton has been sent to write an article evaluating the state of psychiatry and whether Austria has lost its pre-eminence to the newer psychotherapies utilised in the U.S.
Both Anton and Lena are to find help with their mental health issues from the strong and independent therapist, Martha Midwinter, the daughter of one of the founders of the Schloss, with Anton aided by learning what happened to Delphine, and Lena finally overcoming her sense of shame over her time in Vienna. Austrian psychiatry had moved on from the early mistakes of the influential Freud, his unhealthy and unhelpful obsession with hysteria, and it is Martha who embodies the forefront of the profession with her more compassionate, less judgemental talking therapies, and the hope it offers for a wide variety of prevailing mental health issues. They provide people with the potential of moving on and being able to live and love in a Europe and Austria that seem determined to be at war, damaging, killing and destroying the lives of countless millions in the run up to WW2.
This is a wonderfully insightful novel that covers key issues from this historical period, the impact of war, and the relationships between 3 people who live through it, and the evolution of psychiatry in its capacity to help, seen through Martha's work, even though she is not a qualified psychiatrist. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
However, he is doomed to be disappointed, and upon his return home finds Delphine has gone. His harrowing experience of fighting in the war has him seriously injured. The horrors of what he sees, the huge losses that include friends, leaves him unsurprisingly with PTSD, finding it hard to come to terms with the loss of Delphine, exacerbated by not knowing whether she is alive or dead. Rudolf Plischke is a idealist young lawyer committed to the Rebirth party with its spiritual aspects. The impoverished Carinthian Lena meets Rudolf when she is 15 years old, illiterate, with a mother, Carina, who likes to drink, who has given away all the children she gave birth to, keeping only Lena. At Rudolf's urging, Lena moves to Vienna, only to find it an unforgiving place. She takes a menial post at the Schloss Seeblick, a place Anton has been sent to write an article evaluating the state of psychiatry and whether Austria has lost its pre-eminence to the newer psychotherapies utilised in the U.S.
Both Anton and Lena are to find help with their mental health issues from the strong and independent therapist, Martha Midwinter, the daughter of one of the founders of the Schloss, with Anton aided by learning what happened to Delphine, and Lena finally overcoming her sense of shame over her time in Vienna. Austrian psychiatry had moved on from the early mistakes of the influential Freud, his unhealthy and unhelpful obsession with hysteria, and it is Martha who embodies the forefront of the profession with her more compassionate, less judgemental talking therapies, and the hope it offers for a wide variety of prevailing mental health issues. They provide people with the potential of moving on and being able to live and love in a Europe and Austria that seem determined to be at war, damaging, killing and destroying the lives of countless millions in the run up to WW2.
This is a wonderfully insightful novel that covers key issues from this historical period, the impact of war, and the relationships between 3 people who live through it, and the evolution of psychiatry in its capacity to help, seen through Martha's work, even though she is not a qualified psychiatrist. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
June 26, 2021
This ambitious character driven novel spans 1906 to 1933 and is set principally in Austria with Vienna and the sanatorium at Schloss Seeblick being central settings. There are three main characters, first of all Anton Heideck who becomes a well known journalist, secondly, Lena who comes from humble origins and who goes to work at the Schloss as a maid. Here, her life and that of Anton intersect when he visits to write an article as there is much interest as this time in psychoanalysis and treatments and he decides to stay as a patient. Finally, there’s Rudolf Plischke, a lawyer and one time lover of Lena. The novel focuses on war, political changes and upheavals and on mental health.
These three characters are interesting and form quite a contrast to each other, especially Lena with these well educated men. Her background is done well and it’s easy to picture her somewhat hand to mouth existence, surviving as best she can. She’s starved of affection which leads to her make mistakes and she views the prospect of a job at the Schloss as a fresh start. Antony’s journalistic career is interesting as we follow him from Vienna to Paris where he reports on the trial of Henriette Caillaux as war looms in the background. He reports on the building of the Panama Canal and these are colourful sections. Anton lives a lot in his head, he’s searching for a lost love in Delphine who he meets before the war and he’s damaged physically and mentally by the action he sees in the horror of World War One. Rudolf is a conflicted soul in many ways, he’s a political idealist at a time of huge change and through him we see that it’s not looking good for democracy in Austria by 1933. In all honesty, I feel as if I never get to know these characters, it’s very hard to connect to them and so you don’t really invest in their lives.
The historical context is done well, we get a real sense of places and their atmosphere and the political changes are conveyed clearly. There are some good fairly brief scenes in the trenches and some quite graphic medical scenes which shows the frantic and difficult conditions of field hospitals. Through the Schloss the focus switches to treatments and views on mental health and this is interesting. A particularly strong element of the writing are the beautifully written descriptions of the area in and around the Schloss and these are so easy to visualise.
However, despite these positives, I don’t think this is the authors best work by any means. Parts of it are a real slog, the pace is very slow and we get a lot of inconsequential detail and conversations which seem to add very little to the bigger picture. There’s little in terms of actual plot as it’s principally a character study and they don’t really come alive on the pages. The love element I find hard to buy into as it seems a literary contrivance, it feels forced and inauthentic. I think part of the problem is that the novel has a huge overarching aim which doesn’t come of and which leaves you unsatisfied.
Overall, a mixed bag with some very good sections and some which I find dull.
With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the arc in return for an honest review
These three characters are interesting and form quite a contrast to each other, especially Lena with these well educated men. Her background is done well and it’s easy to picture her somewhat hand to mouth existence, surviving as best she can. She’s starved of affection which leads to her make mistakes and she views the prospect of a job at the Schloss as a fresh start. Antony’s journalistic career is interesting as we follow him from Vienna to Paris where he reports on the trial of Henriette Caillaux as war looms in the background. He reports on the building of the Panama Canal and these are colourful sections. Anton lives a lot in his head, he’s searching for a lost love in Delphine who he meets before the war and he’s damaged physically and mentally by the action he sees in the horror of World War One. Rudolf is a conflicted soul in many ways, he’s a political idealist at a time of huge change and through him we see that it’s not looking good for democracy in Austria by 1933. In all honesty, I feel as if I never get to know these characters, it’s very hard to connect to them and so you don’t really invest in their lives.
The historical context is done well, we get a real sense of places and their atmosphere and the political changes are conveyed clearly. There are some good fairly brief scenes in the trenches and some quite graphic medical scenes which shows the frantic and difficult conditions of field hospitals. Through the Schloss the focus switches to treatments and views on mental health and this is interesting. A particularly strong element of the writing are the beautifully written descriptions of the area in and around the Schloss and these are so easy to visualise.
However, despite these positives, I don’t think this is the authors best work by any means. Parts of it are a real slog, the pace is very slow and we get a lot of inconsequential detail and conversations which seem to add very little to the bigger picture. There’s little in terms of actual plot as it’s principally a character study and they don’t really come alive on the pages. The love element I find hard to buy into as it seems a literary contrivance, it feels forced and inauthentic. I think part of the problem is that the novel has a huge overarching aim which doesn’t come of and which leaves you unsatisfied.
Overall, a mixed bag with some very good sections and some which I find dull.
With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the arc in return for an honest review
September 23, 2021
I love historical fiction with characters who feel isolated, suffer from losses or misunderstanding and seek to understand themselves. No wonder the latest novel by Mr Faulks was a gem to read. Lena, Anton and Rudolph are not characters I felt attached to but drawn to them, yes, I was. Complicated past exprience, gains and losses make them feel real. The historical background, beginning before the WW1 and spanning over twenty years, allows for their development.
I enjoyed this novel so much that I already purchased Human Traces. Mr Faulks is a new author for me and I am happy to have discovered him.
*A big thank-you to Sebastian Faulks, Random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
I enjoyed this novel so much that I already purchased Human Traces. Mr Faulks is a new author for me and I am happy to have discovered him.
*A big thank-you to Sebastian Faulks, Random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
September 26, 2023
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.
My thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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.
My thanks to Random House UK, Cornerstone and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
August 25, 2021
Sebastain Faulkes new novel follows the fate of three main characters in Austria from 1903 through the course of one war to the rumblings of a second. In 1933 they will all meet at the Schloss Seeblick, a sanatorium known for successfully treating patients with mental imbalances.
Anton Heideck, a successful journalist has spent his life yearning for his first love Delphine Fourmentier, a woman who disappeared during the chaos that was the start of WW1. The trauma her suffered fighting in the war and seeing his best friend die has only sharpened his loss of Delphine and he seems unable to move on with his life. He has come to Schloss Seeblick to write an article for a magazine on the sanatorium and Martha Midwinter, the remarkable woman who runs it.
Lena escaped her impoverished childhood by moving to Vienna where she discovered politics, philosophy and art under the guidance of young lawyer Rudolf Plischke. However, when life in Vienna sours for her there she takes up the offer of a job as a domestic servant at the Schloss Seeblick. Rudolf will later meet Lena again when he visits the Schloss to advise them on some legal matters.
The novel focuses on the effects of war, the political tensions in Austria and the rise of facism as well as the growth of psychoanalysis away from Freud’s theories to more compassionate and gentle treatments. Lena and Anton are both recipients of Martha’s wise counselling, freeing them to move on with their lives. It’s a literary novel with beautiful prose, particularly the description of the Schloss and it’s lake. I found the sections in the Schloss and the discussion of current psychotherapy interesting and very much liked Martha and her ideas. Overall, the novel is fairly slow moving, being mostly driven by the three main characters and their personal insecurities, loves and losses. While I enjoyed reading it, it didn’t affect me in the same way that Birdsong did, but maybe that’s too much to ask for.
With thanks to Random House UK and Netgalley for a copy to read
Anton Heideck, a successful journalist has spent his life yearning for his first love Delphine Fourmentier, a woman who disappeared during the chaos that was the start of WW1. The trauma her suffered fighting in the war and seeing his best friend die has only sharpened his loss of Delphine and he seems unable to move on with his life. He has come to Schloss Seeblick to write an article for a magazine on the sanatorium and Martha Midwinter, the remarkable woman who runs it.
Lena escaped her impoverished childhood by moving to Vienna where she discovered politics, philosophy and art under the guidance of young lawyer Rudolf Plischke. However, when life in Vienna sours for her there she takes up the offer of a job as a domestic servant at the Schloss Seeblick. Rudolf will later meet Lena again when he visits the Schloss to advise them on some legal matters.
The novel focuses on the effects of war, the political tensions in Austria and the rise of facism as well as the growth of psychoanalysis away from Freud’s theories to more compassionate and gentle treatments. Lena and Anton are both recipients of Martha’s wise counselling, freeing them to move on with their lives. It’s a literary novel with beautiful prose, particularly the description of the Schloss and it’s lake. I found the sections in the Schloss and the discussion of current psychotherapy interesting and very much liked Martha and her ideas. Overall, the novel is fairly slow moving, being mostly driven by the three main characters and their personal insecurities, loves and losses. While I enjoyed reading it, it didn’t affect me in the same way that Birdsong did, but maybe that’s too much to ask for.
With thanks to Random House UK and Netgalley for a copy to read
September 11, 2021
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, of which 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 https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
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, of which 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 https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
August 30, 2021
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.
August 5, 2021
I didn't enjoy this book, although I remember liking Human Traces, Faulks' previous book to which this is a sort of sequel, dealing with similar themes. I found the characters uninspiring - indeed, I found Rudolf and Anton, the two main male characters difficult to distinguish between and had to keep checking back to find out which one I was reading about. The writing was sometimes quite lyrical but then became didactic in dealing with the psychiatric background. The plot seemed fragmented and I found the ending unsatisfactorily tidy - I had the sense that Faulks had written more than one ending and couldn't choose between them. I think it's a huge challenge for authors to adequately convey the mental health issues of their characters and in this case I don't think it's been managed well.
August 27, 2021
Although Snow Country is the second book in a planned trilogy – the first of which was Human Traces published in 2005 – it can be read as a standalone.
Opening with a dramatic prologue that some readers may find too graphic for their taste, the book explores some profound psychological and moral issues through events in the lives of its principal characters – Anton Heideck, Lena Fontana and, to a lesser extent, Rudolf Plischke.
The first part of the book featuring Anton Heideck provides a vivid picture of pre-First World War Vienna with its coffee houses, opera houses and concert halls. Unfortunately, most of the delights of the city are out of the reach of young Anton as he tries to scrape a living as a private tutor and journalist. Anton begins an intense relationship with the enigmatic Delphine, a young woman hired as a companion and French tutor to a Viennese family.
As Anton becomes more successful, assignments to Paris and Moscow follow as well as a trip to report on the US-led construction of the Panama Canal. The latter has resonance for citizens of France because of the earlier involvement of Ferdinand de Lesseps, for a time a national hero because of his role in the construction of the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, his attempts to build a sea-level canal across the isthmus of Panama ended in failure with investors in the project losing everything. However, the outbreak of the First World War has momentous consequences for Anton, leaving emotional scars and unanswered questions.
Lena’s story is one of a young girl growing up with few advantages in life, except perhaps that her alcoholic mother has chosen to raise her rather than give her up for adoption like so many of Lena’s half-sisters and brothers, the result of her mother’s brief couplings with various men. Even learning the identity of her father leaves Lena feeling abandoned and her instinctive self-expression and unconventional nature sets her apart from others. Gradually she transforms herself from illiterate school girl to independent young woman although not without moments of desperation and emotional disappointment along the way, including a relationship with idealistic young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke.
Although the book seems to be at least two different stories with little connection between them, chance – or perhaps, fate – sees Anton, Lena and Rudolf arrive at the sanatorium, Schloss Seeblick. Lena is employed there as a servant, and Anton and Rudolf are there for professional reasons. Lena is the connection between the two men, although they are unaware of this. For Lena and Rudolf their meeting is an opportunity to resolve some unfinished business between them.
Initially Anton’s interest in the sanatorium is purely professional, having been commissioned to write an article about it. He learns more about the sanatorium and the philosophy behind its treatments through his conversations with head therapist Martha Midwinter. These include discussions about the theories of Freud and others, a lot of which I’ll freely admit went over my head. Whilst studying the papers in the sanatorium’s archives for his article, Anton comes across a letter whose contents resonate with him: ‘The human mind has evolved in a way that makes it unable to deal with the pain of its own existence. No other creature is like this.’ Anton begins to wonder if Schloss Seeblick might offer him a way to resolve his own mental torment, caused by a combination of the unresolved issues in his personal life and his experiences as a soldier in the First World War. Through his subsequent sessions with Martha, we begin to learn more about Anton’s wartime experiences and understand their lasting impact on him, including what we would today recognize as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The observation that ‘life is full of missed connections, of bad timing’ is an apt description of the book and I enjoyed Snow Country, especially Lena’s story, although I was left with the feeling that I wasn’t quite clever enough to appreciate everything the author was seeking to explore in the book. However, I guess it’s no bad thing for a book to leave you with the sense there’s more to the world, and to other people, than you think you know.
Opening with a dramatic prologue that some readers may find too graphic for their taste, the book explores some profound psychological and moral issues through events in the lives of its principal characters – Anton Heideck, Lena Fontana and, to a lesser extent, Rudolf Plischke.
The first part of the book featuring Anton Heideck provides a vivid picture of pre-First World War Vienna with its coffee houses, opera houses and concert halls. Unfortunately, most of the delights of the city are out of the reach of young Anton as he tries to scrape a living as a private tutor and journalist. Anton begins an intense relationship with the enigmatic Delphine, a young woman hired as a companion and French tutor to a Viennese family.
As Anton becomes more successful, assignments to Paris and Moscow follow as well as a trip to report on the US-led construction of the Panama Canal. The latter has resonance for citizens of France because of the earlier involvement of Ferdinand de Lesseps, for a time a national hero because of his role in the construction of the Suez Canal. Unfortunately, his attempts to build a sea-level canal across the isthmus of Panama ended in failure with investors in the project losing everything. However, the outbreak of the First World War has momentous consequences for Anton, leaving emotional scars and unanswered questions.
Lena’s story is one of a young girl growing up with few advantages in life, except perhaps that her alcoholic mother has chosen to raise her rather than give her up for adoption like so many of Lena’s half-sisters and brothers, the result of her mother’s brief couplings with various men. Even learning the identity of her father leaves Lena feeling abandoned and her instinctive self-expression and unconventional nature sets her apart from others. Gradually she transforms herself from illiterate school girl to independent young woman although not without moments of desperation and emotional disappointment along the way, including a relationship with idealistic young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke.
Although the book seems to be at least two different stories with little connection between them, chance – or perhaps, fate – sees Anton, Lena and Rudolf arrive at the sanatorium, Schloss Seeblick. Lena is employed there as a servant, and Anton and Rudolf are there for professional reasons. Lena is the connection between the two men, although they are unaware of this. For Lena and Rudolf their meeting is an opportunity to resolve some unfinished business between them.
Initially Anton’s interest in the sanatorium is purely professional, having been commissioned to write an article about it. He learns more about the sanatorium and the philosophy behind its treatments through his conversations with head therapist Martha Midwinter. These include discussions about the theories of Freud and others, a lot of which I’ll freely admit went over my head. Whilst studying the papers in the sanatorium’s archives for his article, Anton comes across a letter whose contents resonate with him: ‘The human mind has evolved in a way that makes it unable to deal with the pain of its own existence. No other creature is like this.’ Anton begins to wonder if Schloss Seeblick might offer him a way to resolve his own mental torment, caused by a combination of the unresolved issues in his personal life and his experiences as a soldier in the First World War. Through his subsequent sessions with Martha, we begin to learn more about Anton’s wartime experiences and understand their lasting impact on him, including what we would today recognize as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The observation that ‘life is full of missed connections, of bad timing’ is an apt description of the book and I enjoyed Snow Country, especially Lena’s story, although I was left with the feeling that I wasn’t quite clever enough to appreciate everything the author was seeking to explore in the book. However, I guess it’s no bad thing for a book to leave you with the sense there’s more to the world, and to other people, than you think you know.
September 10, 2021
I love Sebastian Faulks novels he seems to writes excellent exciting literature fiction and nonfiction. Snow country is the second book in a planned trilogy the first being Human Traces 2005.what I like about the author Sebastian Faulks is that each novel can be read as a stand-alone. The author makes a point about one of the characters he says however without reference to the others, Lena is pronounced as Layna, rather than Leena. On my website I have an exciting extract from Snow Country chapter 2 page 20.
Chapter 2 page 20
Anton Heideck had arrived in Vienna at the age of nineteen in the wet autumn of 1906. The fallen leaves stuck to the pavements of the narrow street in Spittelberg in which, after a demoralising search, he’d found a room to rent. He was one of the few students not to press into the cafes after lectures in the hope of catching a glimpse of some literary hero; what he admired were the newspaper dispatches from Viennese correspondents in Paris and Moscow. This could be a life, he dared to think one day, when he was buying a late edition of Die Presse. Writing reports from a foreign country might be a way of engaging with the world not as the protagonist, but as the recorder of the other men’s actions.
The Styrian town in which he had been brought up was known as a centre of Catholicism and the old ways; to Anton as a boy it had seemed simply disconnected from anything that was urgent, or desirable, or worth striving for. His brother Gerhard was seven years older and did everything that was asked of him by their father: he was the victor ludorum at the school athletics and took his first Communion with shining hair and a pious look; he was the subject of admiring reports from his teachers at the end of the year. His parents hardly seemed to notice Anton, who sometimes wondered if his arrival in the world had come as a surprise to them. Gerhard meanwhile treated him with maddening tolerance, even when Anton brought his best friend Friedrich home from school and used his elder brother’s bedroom for a wrestling match.
Chapter 2 page 20
Anton Heideck had arrived in Vienna at the age of nineteen in the wet autumn of 1906. The fallen leaves stuck to the pavements of the narrow street in Spittelberg in which, after a demoralising search, he’d found a room to rent. He was one of the few students not to press into the cafes after lectures in the hope of catching a glimpse of some literary hero; what he admired were the newspaper dispatches from Viennese correspondents in Paris and Moscow. This could be a life, he dared to think one day, when he was buying a late edition of Die Presse. Writing reports from a foreign country might be a way of engaging with the world not as the protagonist, but as the recorder of the other men’s actions.
The Styrian town in which he had been brought up was known as a centre of Catholicism and the old ways; to Anton as a boy it had seemed simply disconnected from anything that was urgent, or desirable, or worth striving for. His brother Gerhard was seven years older and did everything that was asked of him by their father: he was the victor ludorum at the school athletics and took his first Communion with shining hair and a pious look; he was the subject of admiring reports from his teachers at the end of the year. His parents hardly seemed to notice Anton, who sometimes wondered if his arrival in the world had come as a surprise to them. Gerhard meanwhile treated him with maddening tolerance, even when Anton brought his best friend Friedrich home from school and used his elder brother’s bedroom for a wrestling match.
Read
June 7, 2021This book starts with a surgery, a very graphic surgery. There’s one thing I’m not good at (next to many other things, by the way) and that’s watching a surgery on television. I immediately get nauseated. Reading about it obviously leads to the same reaction. After the first page, I threw my e-reader away, shivering, nauseated. I tried again with the same result. I skimmed a few pages, skipped some more and the surgery was still going on. The next day I tried again. Started reading from the second chapter. But after every sentence I read, I remembered the words scalpel and flesh and blade and cutting and more. And I quit reading again. I decided to DNF. My fasted DNF ever. Such a graphic start of a book and me are just not a good combination. I’m sorry author and publisher...
I received an ARC from Random House UK and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC from Random House UK and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 15, 2021
⭐️ 2.5 ⭐️
Snow Country is a well-written, well-researched character-driven novel. Although this is a sequel, it can be easily read as a standalone.
Unfortunately I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and found some of them very similar and one dimensional, I had to keep recapping just to make sure who they were.
The pace is slow and often monotonous, with a lot of unnecessary dialogue.
Not one of my favourite reads by Sebastian Faulks.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
Snow Country is a well-written, well-researched character-driven novel. Although this is a sequel, it can be easily read as a standalone.
Unfortunately I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and found some of them very similar and one dimensional, I had to keep recapping just to make sure who they were.
The pace is slow and often monotonous, with a lot of unnecessary dialogue.
Not one of my favourite reads by Sebastian Faulks.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
December 19, 2021
If I had to sum this book up with a word,it would be:nothing.
I found the writing dry,detached,the characters uninteresting,and it was really hard going.I finished the book and was left with nothing.Complete lack of emotion,it's impossible to engage.
People I respect here love Faulks,so I suppose he's just not for me.
I found the writing dry,detached,the characters uninteresting,and it was really hard going.I finished the book and was left with nothing.Complete lack of emotion,it's impossible to engage.
People I respect here love Faulks,so I suppose he's just not for me.
November 3, 2021
:( I’m so sad! This took so long and was so rubbish. It was just filled with nothing! The characters were bland, the storyline was non-existent. Not sure why I’ve given it 2 stars…. So sad :(
December 3, 2021
Sebastian Faulks has published quite a canon of works over the last thirty years and has often referred to his longest novel Human Traces as an unfinished work. Snow Country has now been published sixteen years later and is billed as a follow up work; part of a trilogy, but also as a novel equally as accessible as a stand-alone. I enjoyed Human Traces very much, but by contrast Snow Country lacks the intellectual heft of its predecessor. Furthermore I found the latter half of Snow Country seemed so determined to establish links (through characters and extended families) that I thought it diminished Snow Country as a stand alone.
Faulks does have some fun with the text. ‘man without qualities’ and storm of steel’ are incorporated into the general text. I wonder how many other contemporary writer novels are integrated into the narrative/
Hits
• I do like Faulks’s leading ladies.
Delphine Fourmentier (a woman in her thirties, but like much of her, her exact age is never certain) is a character that left me hanging, and wanting more… a good thing. The more she revealed, the more questions were raised. On a separate storyline Lena Fontana is hard to define and categorise; she is similarly interesting throughout.
• Twentieth Century historical fiction
Faulks is something of an authority on Twentieth century history and the events surrounding the two World Wars. His incorporation of specific events don’t work for everybody (too much telling), but I enjoy his scholarship. The trail of Henrietta Cailleux in Paris on the even of World war One is nicely introduced. The Schutzbund party and Dollfuss in Austria is little discussed by English history students, but provides a good contextual backdrop to a novel that is set in continental Europe.
Misses
The second half of the book is largely set in Schloss Seeblick under the governorship of Martha, the second generation Midwinter, whose sister Charlotte makes occasional visits, mostly for formal occasions. Throw in a few aged retainers (Daisy, Mary) from Human Traces and the overall effect is to create a condensed, version light, of Human traces. It didn’t work for me, and Faulks’s concentration on the old characters missed on two counts: new readers get a superficial summary of staff members, while readers who recall Human Traces get an unsatisfactory re-hash of the previously encountered characters.
I had the chance to hear Faulks’s Interview with Clare Armistead at Charleston, Sussex on 3 Sept 2021, the day of the book’s launch. Some interesting reflections on Snow Country and wider matters were aired:
• Why did it take so long to write Snow Country? It’s not a sequel; it’s almost better to read Snow Country first and then go back to Human Traces for when the protagonists were children. In some ways it’s like his book A Fools Alphabet
• Snow Country is a love story. Less lectures, theories, hypotheses. Its an easier book.
• Concept started with Lena, and what Faulks had read an account in a nursing book about a mother who was only happy when she was pregnant. What’s it like for a child in this situation (& throw in alcoholism too)
• The times in which Snow Country is set were cataclysmic, though people didn’t know it. The end point , 1934 was the time of the Austrian Civil War.
• Interest in mental health. 1: 100 people hear voices; these are consistent figures regardless of nationality, climate, nutrition. A freak of evolution. Man has discovered consciousness- but at what price? This is unique to humans.
• Freud not mentioned in Human Traces. Too overwhelming a person. He cited a cancer diagnosis as proof of hysteria problems
• 1850 “modern” world of asylums. Included the blind, the ‘difficult’, the illegitimate. Friern Barnet asylum has an inmate population in which no less than 70% were born there.
• Book title Snow Country. Yasunari Kawabata (nobel prize). It isn’t called that in Japanese! One name contemplated was The House on Snow Lake. Mirroring. A homage.
• Style of writing affected by lockdown? Comparison with A Week in December . Faulks started writing about boom, but turned to bust as he wrote it. These are difficult, but not unprecedented times; Isabel in Birdsong died of Spanish flu.
• Birdsong. Little Brown in New York opined that the book was too long. And could it be relocated for recent conflagrations? (Snow Country has no American publisher.)
• Asked about a recent Human Traces discussion on Radio 4. The book is dedicated to son Arthur (8 years old). Faulks had been sked by his son to write about a secret passage- hence the hidden staircase in the book. During a live interview on Front Row Faulks was asked about the Freudian symbolism of the concealed staircase!!!.
• What books influence Faulks: DH Lawrence; Dickens. Of his current reading: Richard Powers Bewilderment and the ‘superb’ Patrick Radden Keefe Say Nothing
Faulks does have some fun with the text. ‘man without qualities’ and storm of steel’ are incorporated into the general text. I wonder how many other contemporary writer novels are integrated into the narrative/
Hits
• I do like Faulks’s leading ladies.
Delphine Fourmentier (a woman in her thirties, but like much of her, her exact age is never certain) is a character that left me hanging, and wanting more… a good thing. The more she revealed, the more questions were raised. On a separate storyline Lena Fontana is hard to define and categorise; she is similarly interesting throughout.
• Twentieth Century historical fiction
Faulks is something of an authority on Twentieth century history and the events surrounding the two World Wars. His incorporation of specific events don’t work for everybody (too much telling), but I enjoy his scholarship. The trail of Henrietta Cailleux in Paris on the even of World war One is nicely introduced. The Schutzbund party and Dollfuss in Austria is little discussed by English history students, but provides a good contextual backdrop to a novel that is set in continental Europe.
Misses
The second half of the book is largely set in Schloss Seeblick under the governorship of Martha, the second generation Midwinter, whose sister Charlotte makes occasional visits, mostly for formal occasions. Throw in a few aged retainers (Daisy, Mary) from Human Traces and the overall effect is to create a condensed, version light, of Human traces. It didn’t work for me, and Faulks’s concentration on the old characters missed on two counts: new readers get a superficial summary of staff members, while readers who recall Human Traces get an unsatisfactory re-hash of the previously encountered characters.
I had the chance to hear Faulks’s Interview with Clare Armistead at Charleston, Sussex on 3 Sept 2021, the day of the book’s launch. Some interesting reflections on Snow Country and wider matters were aired:
• Why did it take so long to write Snow Country? It’s not a sequel; it’s almost better to read Snow Country first and then go back to Human Traces for when the protagonists were children. In some ways it’s like his book A Fools Alphabet
• Snow Country is a love story. Less lectures, theories, hypotheses. Its an easier book.
• Concept started with Lena, and what Faulks had read an account in a nursing book about a mother who was only happy when she was pregnant. What’s it like for a child in this situation (& throw in alcoholism too)
• The times in which Snow Country is set were cataclysmic, though people didn’t know it. The end point , 1934 was the time of the Austrian Civil War.
• Interest in mental health. 1: 100 people hear voices; these are consistent figures regardless of nationality, climate, nutrition. A freak of evolution. Man has discovered consciousness- but at what price? This is unique to humans.
• Freud not mentioned in Human Traces. Too overwhelming a person. He cited a cancer diagnosis as proof of hysteria problems
• 1850 “modern” world of asylums. Included the blind, the ‘difficult’, the illegitimate. Friern Barnet asylum has an inmate population in which no less than 70% were born there.
• Book title Snow Country. Yasunari Kawabata (nobel prize). It isn’t called that in Japanese! One name contemplated was The House on Snow Lake. Mirroring. A homage.
• Style of writing affected by lockdown? Comparison with A Week in December . Faulks started writing about boom, but turned to bust as he wrote it. These are difficult, but not unprecedented times; Isabel in Birdsong died of Spanish flu.
• Birdsong. Little Brown in New York opined that the book was too long. And could it be relocated for recent conflagrations? (Snow Country has no American publisher.)
• Asked about a recent Human Traces discussion on Radio 4. The book is dedicated to son Arthur (8 years old). Faulks had been sked by his son to write about a secret passage- hence the hidden staircase in the book. During a live interview on Front Row Faulks was asked about the Freudian symbolism of the concealed staircase!!!.
• What books influence Faulks: DH Lawrence; Dickens. Of his current reading: Richard Powers Bewilderment and the ‘superb’ Patrick Radden Keefe Say Nothing
August 12, 2021
I will start by confessing I’m a big fan of Sebastian Faulks writing, and this is another great read. He is most definitely a master craftsman and this is another brilliant work of art.
What I love about this book is that the writing just flows beautifully and it reads so easily but when you sit back and reflect on what you have read there is nothing easy about this book. The characters of Lena, and Anton are just so well written, you can’t help but become emotionally attached to them, although all the characters in the story play their part brilliantly, and stay with you throughout the story.
This book beautifully explores many complex issues and emotions in a very real way, without sensationalism or being overly sentimental. When I’d finished this book though, and reflected on the book as a whole, I actually felt quite emotional, about the time I’d spent with the characters and the events that they had been through, and also quite worried for their future, as I have the benefit of foresight and know what period in our history is coming next.
What I love about this book is that the writing just flows beautifully and it reads so easily but when you sit back and reflect on what you have read there is nothing easy about this book. The characters of Lena, and Anton are just so well written, you can’t help but become emotionally attached to them, although all the characters in the story play their part brilliantly, and stay with you throughout the story.
This book beautifully explores many complex issues and emotions in a very real way, without sensationalism or being overly sentimental. When I’d finished this book though, and reflected on the book as a whole, I actually felt quite emotional, about the time I’d spent with the characters and the events that they had been through, and also quite worried for their future, as I have the benefit of foresight and know what period in our history is coming next.
August 12, 2021
Coincidences
I had read two of Sebastian Faulks’ novels before this, Birdsong and Enderby, one of which I liked and one of which I did not. Snow Country, set mainly in Austria before, (briefly) during and after the First World War, falls into the former category. I liked it.
Anton, escaping from the family pork sausage business, aspires to be a journalist of renown. His lover is an older woman, Delphine, French, mysterious. His ambitions take him to Panama to report on the building of the canal, and immediately before the outbreak of war, to Paris, to report on a celebrity murder case. On his return to Austria, Delphine has disappeared without trace.
Lena, uneducated, poor, fatherless, her mother an alcoholic who has given away all her other children, starts life with every disadvantage. But she has aspirations, and improves her lot through determination and life experience. At a low point in her life in Vienna, she entertains men, with one of whom in a single encounter she feels an emotional link, immediately lost as this injured soul disappears from her life.
After the war, in a progressive and radical asylum in the Austrian mountains, Lena and Anton will meet again. Is the link Lena imagined to be reciprocated? Can Anton step beyond the loss of Delphine (and others from his life)? Will he discover what happened to Delphine? Can another fill her place?
Faulks’ novel is impressive in many ways, the emotional pull, the Hardyesque use of coincidence, both positive and negative, the personal drama set in a much wider stage, Austria before, during and after the war, the folly and callowness of youth, the early days of psychological treatment, the challenges, losses and occasional triumphs of the individual. The author balances the individual and the political in an ambitious narrative, achieving a satisfying conclusion.
I had read two of Sebastian Faulks’ novels before this, Birdsong and Enderby, one of which I liked and one of which I did not. Snow Country, set mainly in Austria before, (briefly) during and after the First World War, falls into the former category. I liked it.
Anton, escaping from the family pork sausage business, aspires to be a journalist of renown. His lover is an older woman, Delphine, French, mysterious. His ambitions take him to Panama to report on the building of the canal, and immediately before the outbreak of war, to Paris, to report on a celebrity murder case. On his return to Austria, Delphine has disappeared without trace.
Lena, uneducated, poor, fatherless, her mother an alcoholic who has given away all her other children, starts life with every disadvantage. But she has aspirations, and improves her lot through determination and life experience. At a low point in her life in Vienna, she entertains men, with one of whom in a single encounter she feels an emotional link, immediately lost as this injured soul disappears from her life.
After the war, in a progressive and radical asylum in the Austrian mountains, Lena and Anton will meet again. Is the link Lena imagined to be reciprocated? Can Anton step beyond the loss of Delphine (and others from his life)? Will he discover what happened to Delphine? Can another fill her place?
Faulks’ novel is impressive in many ways, the emotional pull, the Hardyesque use of coincidence, both positive and negative, the personal drama set in a much wider stage, Austria before, during and after the war, the folly and callowness of youth, the early days of psychological treatment, the challenges, losses and occasional triumphs of the individual. The author balances the individual and the political in an ambitious narrative, achieving a satisfying conclusion.
September 2, 2021
Set in Austria in the years 1914 to 1933, this is not just a war novel but a deeply human story too, of relationships, politics, trauma, hatred and redemption. It follows Faulks’s previous book, Human Traces and is the second of a planned trilogy. The main protagonist is a young girl, daughter of an uncaring alcoholic. She grows up in abject poverty but possesses a drive and determination to find a better life, and most importantly to find love, which she has never had during her childhood. The story takes the reader on a journey through relationships, prejudice, turmoil in society, the rumblings of impending war and the goodness of the people she comes into contact with, as well as those with less benign traits.
If all this sounds a bit vague, it’s because this reviewer doesn’t do spoilers and wants you to read this beautifully crafted, superbly characterised and hugely engrossing book for yourself. There is a fair bit of gore here, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but the book is magnificent and nothing less than readers expect from this truly brilliant writer.
If all this sounds a bit vague, it’s because this reviewer doesn’t do spoilers and wants you to read this beautifully crafted, superbly characterised and hugely engrossing book for yourself. There is a fair bit of gore here, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but the book is magnificent and nothing less than readers expect from this truly brilliant writer.
October 4, 2021
The opening chapter describing a brutal field war surgery sucked me in. But that’s as far as it went. I really appreciated his previous works, I struggled with this one.
Through a budding writer, we are Given small windows into the events of the day … art stolen in Paris, a murder in Moscow, the opening of the Panama Canal and inter-country relationships. Like.
With the same slow pace, the author then describes day to day existence of the haves and have nots, the things people do for a living, the rise of social parties, hidden agendas and (at last), new and innovative approaches to mental health. Hopeful.
Bit by bit, he draws together threads across multiple characters, complex wars, the growth of medical methods and political beliefs. Losing faith.
I’m a big fan of this author, but struggled with this book. From the title, to the slow pace and continued banality of the storyline, I gradually lost interest. Call me a heathen, but it just didn’t hit that sweet spot.
Through a budding writer, we are Given small windows into the events of the day … art stolen in Paris, a murder in Moscow, the opening of the Panama Canal and inter-country relationships. Like.
With the same slow pace, the author then describes day to day existence of the haves and have nots, the things people do for a living, the rise of social parties, hidden agendas and (at last), new and innovative approaches to mental health. Hopeful.
Bit by bit, he draws together threads across multiple characters, complex wars, the growth of medical methods and political beliefs. Losing faith.
I’m a big fan of this author, but struggled with this book. From the title, to the slow pace and continued banality of the storyline, I gradually lost interest. Call me a heathen, but it just didn’t hit that sweet spot.
August 29, 2021
Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks is a deeply introspective novel set largely in Austria during the social and political upheaval of the first decades of the 20th century. It focuses on the lives and loves of Anton and Lena, both complex and sensitive characters with elaborately imagined thoughts, emotions, desires and mental health issues which are compassionately explored.
The book opens with a field operation to save the life of a solider injured in World War I – Anton. The physical and psychological scars he has developed are crucial to the unfolding of the story. The narrative then starts in the months leading up to the war with Anton as a journalist visiting and writing about the Panama Canal and the murder trial of Henriette Caulliux in Paris. He is obsessed with Delphine, a Frenchwoman who he believes to be the love of his life; but then their countries declare war on each other. Lena’s story begins in 1927 with flashbacks to her youth as the daughter of an alcoholic, impoverished mother and an absent Italian father. She meets a cheerful young lawyer and goes to live with him in Vienna – but the situation for her unfolds in unexpected ways.
The heart of the novel is in 1933 in Schloss Seeblick, a turn-of-the-century sanitorium near a snow-capped mountains and an ice-covered lake. Anton is sent to the Schloss to write an feature piece delving into Austrian psychiatry; Lena works there as a maid. The natural surroundings are vividly described and closely linked to the characters’ emotions; I was reminded of the Romantic Wordsworth’s Prelude and his vision of the impact nature has on the psyche.
Snow Country builds on the first book in a planned trilogy, Human Traces (2005); I haven’t read this yet and feel that the story would have been even more meaningful for me had I known more about the characters Thomas, Jacques and Sonia, and the evolution of modern psychiatry as portrayed in Human Traces. Nevertheless, the book stands on its own. I absolutely loved the strong, independent therapist Martha, daughter of Thomas, who gets Anton (and Lena) to open up.
At times the plot seems meandering but the detailed images and precisely imagined thoughts lead to a richly textured novel – and Faulks’s clever crafting brings various strands together in the end. It is a unique and poignant read which helps the reader to better understand what it means to be human.
The book opens with a field operation to save the life of a solider injured in World War I – Anton. The physical and psychological scars he has developed are crucial to the unfolding of the story. The narrative then starts in the months leading up to the war with Anton as a journalist visiting and writing about the Panama Canal and the murder trial of Henriette Caulliux in Paris. He is obsessed with Delphine, a Frenchwoman who he believes to be the love of his life; but then their countries declare war on each other. Lena’s story begins in 1927 with flashbacks to her youth as the daughter of an alcoholic, impoverished mother and an absent Italian father. She meets a cheerful young lawyer and goes to live with him in Vienna – but the situation for her unfolds in unexpected ways.
The heart of the novel is in 1933 in Schloss Seeblick, a turn-of-the-century sanitorium near a snow-capped mountains and an ice-covered lake. Anton is sent to the Schloss to write an feature piece delving into Austrian psychiatry; Lena works there as a maid. The natural surroundings are vividly described and closely linked to the characters’ emotions; I was reminded of the Romantic Wordsworth’s Prelude and his vision of the impact nature has on the psyche.
Snow Country builds on the first book in a planned trilogy, Human Traces (2005); I haven’t read this yet and feel that the story would have been even more meaningful for me had I known more about the characters Thomas, Jacques and Sonia, and the evolution of modern psychiatry as portrayed in Human Traces. Nevertheless, the book stands on its own. I absolutely loved the strong, independent therapist Martha, daughter of Thomas, who gets Anton (and Lena) to open up.
At times the plot seems meandering but the detailed images and precisely imagined thoughts lead to a richly textured novel – and Faulks’s clever crafting brings various strands together in the end. It is a unique and poignant read which helps the reader to better understand what it means to be human.
October 12, 2022
Snow Country (2021) by Sebastian Faulks intrigued me because of its setting and premise … and I may also have been hooked by the cover. The story is in two parts and is set just before the First World War and then again in the inter-war years and tells of a number of young people in Austria who have in common that they meet at a sanatorioum in the Alps. Apart from each character’s individual story, there is a whole lot of detail of life at the time and even more discussion of life at large.
And this is one of the main reasons that the book was completely lost on me: there was a lot of generalised navel-gazing that was not even done well stylistically. One of the first things to put me off in the book was the way that the author actually tells us what the characters think and feel. There was no challenge to the reader to empathise or even figure out what the characters were all about. It was even more disappointing because I know that Faulks can write and that he has heard of the old advice “show, don’t tell”.
The next thing that put me off was that the story seemed really fragmented and that the characters seemed rather forced to interact with each other the way they do. I just wanted to forget all about the insta-love element of one twist as soon as I read it.
And of course, it also did not help that the story just felt like a badly done regurgitation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I hated reading The Magic Mountain, but even I have to concede that it was written well. I would never discourage anyone from reading it for themselves. I’m not sure I can do the same with Snow Country.
Actually, no …. Before picking up Snow Country, please consider reading The Magic Mountain instead. There I said it.
At least, when Mann writes about psychology that is heavily based on Freud it is done as a contemporary and does not come across as an authorial choice that borders on cliche.
And this is one of the main reasons that the book was completely lost on me: there was a lot of generalised navel-gazing that was not even done well stylistically. One of the first things to put me off in the book was the way that the author actually tells us what the characters think and feel. There was no challenge to the reader to empathise or even figure out what the characters were all about. It was even more disappointing because I know that Faulks can write and that he has heard of the old advice “show, don’t tell”.
The next thing that put me off was that the story seemed really fragmented and that the characters seemed rather forced to interact with each other the way they do. I just wanted to forget all about the insta-love element of one twist as soon as I read it.
And of course, it also did not help that the story just felt like a badly done regurgitation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I hated reading The Magic Mountain, but even I have to concede that it was written well. I would never discourage anyone from reading it for themselves. I’m not sure I can do the same with Snow Country.
Actually, no …. Before picking up Snow Country, please consider reading The Magic Mountain instead. There I said it.
At least, when Mann writes about psychology that is heavily based on Freud it is done as a contemporary and does not come across as an authorial choice that borders on cliche.
September 2, 2021
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.
August 24, 2021
Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks will be published September 2nd with Hutchinson Heinemann (Cornerstone/Penguin UK) and is a return to Schloss Seeblick, the setting of Sebastian Faulks’ 2011 novel, Human Traces. But ‘although we glimpse one or two characters from the past, this is a new world’ says Sebastian Faulks of Snow Country. When people ask me what my favourite book of all time is I always include Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993). The vivid descriptions of trench warfare have remained with me and it is a book that really had a huge impact. As a result I am always quite reticent when picking up another book by Sebastian Faulks.
Human Traces is >i>‘set during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries….brilliantly captures the drama behind the intellectual and social controversies spurred by Darwin’s theory of evolution and breakthroughs in the study of mental illness.’ Snow Country is more about the humanity of people as they struggle to survive in a world that is tumbling down around them. It is a tale of epic proportions taking the reader on a scintillating journey from the early 1900s to the immediate years prior to the Second World War.
Snow Country is set in Austria where we are introduced to Anton Heideck, a hopeful journalist turning his back on his family’s sausage business, Rudolf Plischke, an idealist (and lawyer) with quite radical views, and Lena, a young girl born on the wrong side of the tracks with ambition and survival instincts. Sebastian Faulks explores significant historical events like the building of the Panama Canal and the famous trial of Parisian socialite Henriette Caillaux, as well as the political and societal changes of the time.
Anton Heideck is frustrated with his life, very unsure of his future, until he meets with Delphine Fourmentier, a tutor who is temporarily based in Vienna. Delphine is everything and more than Anton could ever have hoped for and, over the weeks, a relationship develops, leading the pair to set up home in quite an unorthodox fashion for the time. Delphine has her secrets but Anton is blinded by passion and love never looking for any more information than she offers. While he is in Paris reporting on the Caillaux case, the declaration of war they had all feared is announced. Anton’s return to Vienna is delayed but when he finally makes it back, Delphine has disappeared. Anton gets caught up in the horrors of the war with Sebastian Faulks yet again creating dramatic and very rich descriptions of the trenches, albeit only for a section of the novel. The years of fighting and the injuries suffered left a catastrophic mark, both physically and emotionally on Anton and, with no Delphine waiting for him, he goes through a very disturbed period in his life. Following the war, he embarks on a magazine assignment that takes him to Schloss Seeblick, a sanatorium, where he hopes to write an article studying the possible decline of Austria’s world-leading expertise on matters of the mind and psychiatry. While there he crosses paths with people from many different walks of life and he discovers peace there away from the maddening crowds. Anton Heideck has obviously suffered untreated PTSD and this place becomes a temporary refuge for him.
“He fears being just a consciousness, a whirlpool of impersonal energy. A toy of history with no will of his own” – Martha Midwinter, Schloss Seeblick, conversing with her sister, Charlotte, about Anton Heideck
Rudolf Plischke is a young man with radical beliefs and strong views. Caught up in a spiralling political situation, Rudolf hopes for a better future for Austria. He crosses paths with Lena, a young girl struggling to survive. Lena is the daughter of Carina, an alcoholic and a prostitute who has given birth to numerous children. She handed all her babies over to institutional care except for Lena. For whatever her reasons, she decided to be a more proactive mother and Lena was given a chance at an education. But Lena was not interested in mathematics or reading. She dreamed of a different life and hoped to someday be with her father, a sailor from Trieste who she has a very brief encounter with. Lena is taken under Rudolf’s wing in Vienna but over time the Viennese life does not suit Lena and she takes the opportunity to work at Schloss Seeblick. Rudolf dips in and out of her life over the following years, leaving her confused and often angered.
Snow Country captures the very essence of Anton, Rudolf and Lena as their lives become intertwined over the years. Sebastian Faulks writes with an extremely perceptive hand bringing his cast of characters very much to life for the reader. The novel does contain a element of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy running through its core but it’s not over-bearing, rather enough to be insightful and quite fascinating. There were occasional sections of dialogue throughout the novel that I did find a little jarring, as they lacked a certain flow and didn’t sit with me too well but, in the overall reading experience, I was able to overlook them.
With a heart-breaking and compelling storyline Snow Country encapsulates a period of history that saw forceful changes in history. Everyone at the time suffered in some manner either through war or illness, with the Spanish Flu adding to the death toll. The spirituality and minds of many were tested to the extreme and not everyone could cope, escaping into their heads looking for a better alternative reality.
“Why should my life be different or special? None of us is spared by history. That’s what history is. A leveller. A universal joke whose shape is visible only in retrospect. God laughs when he hears our plans, but history laughs louder”
Snow Country is a haunting novel, a very authentic and profound tale. It is a history lesson, a love story, a very affecting reading experience. A richly visual and perceptive story.
Human Traces is >i>‘set during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries….brilliantly captures the drama behind the intellectual and social controversies spurred by Darwin’s theory of evolution and breakthroughs in the study of mental illness.’ Snow Country is more about the humanity of people as they struggle to survive in a world that is tumbling down around them. It is a tale of epic proportions taking the reader on a scintillating journey from the early 1900s to the immediate years prior to the Second World War.
Snow Country is set in Austria where we are introduced to Anton Heideck, a hopeful journalist turning his back on his family’s sausage business, Rudolf Plischke, an idealist (and lawyer) with quite radical views, and Lena, a young girl born on the wrong side of the tracks with ambition and survival instincts. Sebastian Faulks explores significant historical events like the building of the Panama Canal and the famous trial of Parisian socialite Henriette Caillaux, as well as the political and societal changes of the time.
Anton Heideck is frustrated with his life, very unsure of his future, until he meets with Delphine Fourmentier, a tutor who is temporarily based in Vienna. Delphine is everything and more than Anton could ever have hoped for and, over the weeks, a relationship develops, leading the pair to set up home in quite an unorthodox fashion for the time. Delphine has her secrets but Anton is blinded by passion and love never looking for any more information than she offers. While he is in Paris reporting on the Caillaux case, the declaration of war they had all feared is announced. Anton’s return to Vienna is delayed but when he finally makes it back, Delphine has disappeared. Anton gets caught up in the horrors of the war with Sebastian Faulks yet again creating dramatic and very rich descriptions of the trenches, albeit only for a section of the novel. The years of fighting and the injuries suffered left a catastrophic mark, both physically and emotionally on Anton and, with no Delphine waiting for him, he goes through a very disturbed period in his life. Following the war, he embarks on a magazine assignment that takes him to Schloss Seeblick, a sanatorium, where he hopes to write an article studying the possible decline of Austria’s world-leading expertise on matters of the mind and psychiatry. While there he crosses paths with people from many different walks of life and he discovers peace there away from the maddening crowds. Anton Heideck has obviously suffered untreated PTSD and this place becomes a temporary refuge for him.
“He fears being just a consciousness, a whirlpool of impersonal energy. A toy of history with no will of his own” – Martha Midwinter, Schloss Seeblick, conversing with her sister, Charlotte, about Anton Heideck
Rudolf Plischke is a young man with radical beliefs and strong views. Caught up in a spiralling political situation, Rudolf hopes for a better future for Austria. He crosses paths with Lena, a young girl struggling to survive. Lena is the daughter of Carina, an alcoholic and a prostitute who has given birth to numerous children. She handed all her babies over to institutional care except for Lena. For whatever her reasons, she decided to be a more proactive mother and Lena was given a chance at an education. But Lena was not interested in mathematics or reading. She dreamed of a different life and hoped to someday be with her father, a sailor from Trieste who she has a very brief encounter with. Lena is taken under Rudolf’s wing in Vienna but over time the Viennese life does not suit Lena and she takes the opportunity to work at Schloss Seeblick. Rudolf dips in and out of her life over the following years, leaving her confused and often angered.
Snow Country captures the very essence of Anton, Rudolf and Lena as their lives become intertwined over the years. Sebastian Faulks writes with an extremely perceptive hand bringing his cast of characters very much to life for the reader. The novel does contain a element of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy running through its core but it’s not over-bearing, rather enough to be insightful and quite fascinating. There were occasional sections of dialogue throughout the novel that I did find a little jarring, as they lacked a certain flow and didn’t sit with me too well but, in the overall reading experience, I was able to overlook them.
With a heart-breaking and compelling storyline Snow Country encapsulates a period of history that saw forceful changes in history. Everyone at the time suffered in some manner either through war or illness, with the Spanish Flu adding to the death toll. The spirituality and minds of many were tested to the extreme and not everyone could cope, escaping into their heads looking for a better alternative reality.
“Why should my life be different or special? None of us is spared by history. That’s what history is. A leveller. A universal joke whose shape is visible only in retrospect. God laughs when he hears our plans, but history laughs louder”
Snow Country is a haunting novel, a very authentic and profound tale. It is a history lesson, a love story, a very affecting reading experience. A richly visual and perceptive story.
January 11, 2022
Intended to be part 2 of his Austrian trilogy, Snow Country is Sebastian Faulks’ novel of searching and longing for love and meaning against a backdrop of loss and turmoil. Opening in pre-WW1 Vienna and Paris, the setting then moves to the interwar period with Austria, ravaged by its loss of empire and over one million young men killed in the war, in the grip of growing political chaos.
At the center of the story is Lena , a young village girl whose upbringing has stained her present existence with confusion and a search for meaning in human relationships which seem to evade her grasp. In her orbit as she enters service at the Schloss Seeblick, a pioneering sanatorium deep in the Austrian Alps, are Anton, a forlorn journalist who has never recovered from the loss of the love of his life before the war and who compensates by embarking on the life of a Casanova in Vienna, and Rudolf, a politically idealistic young lawyer. The setting that ties this book to Faulks’ 16 year-earlier prequel, Human Traces, is the Schloss itself and the enigmatic Martha, daughter of the founders and main characters from the original.
Faulks revisits his familiar themes of human mental frailty and illness, and of love, loss and passion achingly undermined by poignant yearning. He explores the meaning of human consciousness and memory in a mirage-like prose against an exquisite setting with forlorn, drifting characters. Snow Country doesn’t become lost in dreamy philosophical and psychiatric rambling as Human Traces did, nor does it rise to the lofty peaks of some of his finest works. The third installment of the trilogy will be eagerly anticipated by his devoted fans.
At the center of the story is Lena , a young village girl whose upbringing has stained her present existence with confusion and a search for meaning in human relationships which seem to evade her grasp. In her orbit as she enters service at the Schloss Seeblick, a pioneering sanatorium deep in the Austrian Alps, are Anton, a forlorn journalist who has never recovered from the loss of the love of his life before the war and who compensates by embarking on the life of a Casanova in Vienna, and Rudolf, a politically idealistic young lawyer. The setting that ties this book to Faulks’ 16 year-earlier prequel, Human Traces, is the Schloss itself and the enigmatic Martha, daughter of the founders and main characters from the original.
Faulks revisits his familiar themes of human mental frailty and illness, and of love, loss and passion achingly undermined by poignant yearning. He explores the meaning of human consciousness and memory in a mirage-like prose against an exquisite setting with forlorn, drifting characters. Snow Country doesn’t become lost in dreamy philosophical and psychiatric rambling as Human Traces did, nor does it rise to the lofty peaks of some of his finest works. The third installment of the trilogy will be eagerly anticipated by his devoted fans.
November 2, 2021
It's hard to place this book to any genre. The book reminds me of a Russian compote where everything is thrown together without really satisfying taste buds. Like in a classical love story there's a man and a woman who go through their feelings and conquer hardship before devoting to each other, there's a glimpse of history and some events described make you wander is it just for a buffer, there's an Austrian castle formed into a mental respite and just a bit of war . However, none of these characters or descriptions grab the interest or even make the characters more likeable than just a cardboard figures. It's hard to understand what this book is for. Maybe a light entertainment you most likely forget next week.
December 8, 2021
what was the point?
A love story extended out by adding more and more characters and meaningless story arcs. A love story needs to have an existential bonding between two souls at its core, but this love affair was based on a one-night stand, with the man unable to even know who his counterpart was, let alone harbour a yearning for her. And the background of between the wars was just wallpaper, nothing insightful. I assume it was a translation too because the dialogue was either clunky or over-earnest.
A love story extended out by adding more and more characters and meaningless story arcs. A love story needs to have an existential bonding between two souls at its core, but this love affair was based on a one-night stand, with the man unable to even know who his counterpart was, let alone harbour a yearning for her. And the background of between the wars was just wallpaper, nothing insightful. I assume it was a translation too because the dialogue was either clunky or over-earnest.
October 25, 2021
I stopped reading about a third of the way through. Found it really slow to get going and gave up.
August 26, 2021
This is billed as the second book in a trilogy but that you don't need to have read the first. I haven't read the first but, from what I hear from those who have, that statement is correct. It's not a trilogy in the traditional sense, rather a triptych of books which are connected in some way. That said, I will go back and read the previous book, tbr permitting! Oh as well as the next when it arrives.
We start back in 1914 and follow a young Anton Heideck as he arrives in Vienna to start his job as a journalist. He complements his work by doing some private tutoring and it is through one of his pupils that he meets Delphine who knocks him off his feet.
Meanwhile, we also meet Lena who has not had a good start in live with an absent father and a drunk mother. She finds a sort of benefactor in a young lawyer Rudolf Plischke who tries to help her but it is on her own merit that she finally gets herself a job.
In 1933 our three characters collide at Schloss Seeblick, a groundbreaking sanitarium. Presided over by the wonderful Martha Midwinter, daughter of one of the founders.
In this book, which is so very character driven, the author manages to weave his fiction around the facts of what is happening in the world in the times in which the book is set. More obviously the war and the state of politics, but also the leaps they are making in the world of psychiatry and mental health. It follows the relationships and interactions between the three characters and how they manage to get on in the world despite all it throws at them. They are all very different but, at the same time, all the same. It's emotional in all the right places and also gave me food for thought as well as the chance to learn more about certain things I discovered along the way.
There are few books that I earmark for a re-read but this, along with Birdsong, will be one of them.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.
We start back in 1914 and follow a young Anton Heideck as he arrives in Vienna to start his job as a journalist. He complements his work by doing some private tutoring and it is through one of his pupils that he meets Delphine who knocks him off his feet.
Meanwhile, we also meet Lena who has not had a good start in live with an absent father and a drunk mother. She finds a sort of benefactor in a young lawyer Rudolf Plischke who tries to help her but it is on her own merit that she finally gets herself a job.
In 1933 our three characters collide at Schloss Seeblick, a groundbreaking sanitarium. Presided over by the wonderful Martha Midwinter, daughter of one of the founders.
In this book, which is so very character driven, the author manages to weave his fiction around the facts of what is happening in the world in the times in which the book is set. More obviously the war and the state of politics, but also the leaps they are making in the world of psychiatry and mental health. It follows the relationships and interactions between the three characters and how they manage to get on in the world despite all it throws at them. They are all very different but, at the same time, all the same. It's emotional in all the right places and also gave me food for thought as well as the chance to learn more about certain things I discovered along the way.
There are few books that I earmark for a re-read but this, along with Birdsong, will be one of them.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.
December 6, 2021
Another beautifully written book by Sebastian Faulks. This is a follow on from Human Traces, but no real need to read that first.
Starting in 1914 Vienna, tells the story of Anton, a journalist. His story is intertwined with Lena and how they eventually meet up in the Schloss Seeblick sanatorium.
Starting in 1914 Vienna, tells the story of Anton, a journalist. His story is intertwined with Lena and how they eventually meet up in the Schloss Seeblick sanatorium.
July 18, 2022
I will re-read this book again, just because I feel like because I had in my head this is the second book in the trilogy (even though can be read as a stand alone) I didn't enjoy it as much, so need to read book 1 then will come back to this. Birdsong by Faulks is one of my favourite books and Snow Country the prose is amazing but because of above I didn't like it as much as I wanted to so one for the re-read. Also why was I not aware he wrote so much books.
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