Fortunes of War

[liadnan]

Started re-reading Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War sequence and struck once more by how appallingly ghastly Guy Pringle is. You have to wonder how your marriage - vaguely open though it was - would prosper once you'd turned your real-life husband into a character like that. (Her friendship with Stevie Smith apparently did not survive Manning putting her into a different novel, followed by Stevie Smith reviewing said novel in venomous terms)

Difficult to see Pringle as the Soviet spy the real-life Reggie Smith allegedly was though. (supposedly recruited by Blunt).

Comments

[liadnan]

Jealous. My classic puffin of the Dark is Rising, still more my Gill illustrated, 1st Puffin imprint of Over Sea Under Stone*, will go with me to my grave, but I could do with reading copies.

[caulkhead]

I have two copies of The Lantern Bearers - my original 80s one which has long since lost the cover, an ex-library first, and I may well buy the Slightly Foxed one just because.