Heart of War

by John Masters

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070407827
• ISBN13: 9780070407824
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 617 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Almost as good as the first novel in the trilogy

This is the second novel in John Masters' WWI trilogy, "Loss of Eden", the first book being titled: "Now God Be Thanked". HEART OF WAR takes place in 1916-17 England and centers around two families, the Rowlands and the Strattons. There are some absolutely priceless scenes in this novel. The teatime encounter between the Earl of Swanwick & Bill Hoggin's family is brilliant (the names alone should tell you how that scene goes), and overall, the novel is very nearly as moving to me as "Now God Be Thanked". Yet, I have to qualify my praise of this excellent novel, because of a certain oddity... HEART OF WAR has more sex in it than "Now God Be Thanked", which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, except that, in several instances, the description of sex between certain characters sounds false and hollow, and adds nothing to the book. For instance, there's a sexual encounter between a virgin soldier, Jessop, and a French widow, that's arranged by his comrades in arms. This situation could easily have been written as 'corny' or contrived, but it rang absolutely true. The same truth is in the incidents of love between a character, Tom Rowland, and his partner. But, when Masters describes a sexual encounter between Guy Rowland and his jumped-up-from-nothing-into-aristocrat girlfriend, Florinda, the encounter rang false. This was also true of encounters between certain other characters. "Everybody's doing it" as the old song goes, but instead of adding richness to the novel it cheapened it a bit... unless perhaps Masters meant to convey the cheapening of WWI English society? It's still a brilliant novel, and my provisos are basically personal. I do highly recommend these books.