But the book is seriously let down by its dialogue. The mechanics of this exercise are minutely but not boringly described - a worthy addition to one’s education! There are several other instructive historical insertions of this nature. For example, I’d always known about the Maginot Line and how the Germans ‘just walked round it’, but had never understood exactly how. This is very cleverly done and in among the vaingloriousness are some real historical nuggets. And I liked the ‘interruptions’ of commentary: extracts from the post war essays of a fictional but realistically portrayed German general who has survived the gallows and is now falling over himself to justify his nation’s crimes. Equally, the flim-flam, cynicism and hypocrisy of Hitler’s Berlin are deftly depicted in all their raging lunacy, against a background of sheer dullness and poverty as experienced by any sane person, i.e. The author is very good at action scenes, for example when Americans are trapped in Nazi-invaded Warsaw: this chilled me to the bone. It is undoubtedly a work of great significance and ambition, with its great historical and geographical sweep and searing commentary on many of the real characters involved. It seems almost curmudgeonly to give this novel only 3 stars overall.
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