Guernica
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Review
'love, loss, action, romance, drama and tradition in the face of adversity...you won't be able to put it down.'
--Woman's Own
'Where Picasso's painting so vividly captured the hellfire of the town's destruction, this book fills in the humanity. The characters, the culture and the landscape are all lovingly described.'
--New Statesman
--Woman's Own
'Where Picasso's painting so vividly captured the hellfire of the town's destruction, this book fills in the humanity. The characters, the culture and the landscape are all lovingly described.'
--New Statesman
Product Description
Selected as a Richard & Judy Summer Read for 2009.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good - but not great,
By
This review is from: Guernica (Paperback)
Everyone has heard of Guernica, the Basque town that was savagely bombed by the Luftwaffe on 26 April 1937, and most are aware of the famous painting by Picasso which, since the fall of fascism, has been on display in Madrid. Conveying the horror of that incident is not easy and this novel does it through the lives of two families related by marriage: the Ansotegui family - headed by the hard-working farmer Justo, married to Mariangeles, and father to the dancer Miren - and the Navarro family - centred on brothers Dodo, a fisherman, and Miguel, a carpenter. Miren and Miguel marry and have a beautiful daughter Catalina and befriend a blind soapmaker Alaia. In this story, some will live, some will die and some will be maimed both physically and psychologically. There are 'guest' appearances by some actual historic personages.
In many respects, this is an impressive work. For American journalist Dave Bowling, this is a formidable first novel - wonderfully researched, carefully structured, and immensely readable. His narrative of 370 pages starts in 1893 and ends in 1940 with the actual bombing - a very moving account - occuring almost exactly half way through. However, the publishers promote the novel as comparable to "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and, while both deal with love and war, "Guernica" is simply not in the same class as Louis de Bernières' work. Here all the leading characters are one-dimensional (noble and/or heroic), the dialogue is stilted and undifferentiated between the characters, and the portrayal of the Basque cause is overly simplistic (in a Author's Note at the end, Boling states: "I tried not to tax the reader with elaborations on the complex and volatile politics at work at the time" - something that Bernières was willing to do).
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gurnica , best book ever written of it's genre.,
By
This review is from: Guernica (Paperback)
Guernica, what can I say.
Most of us have an image of Spain during the civil war .I live in Spain in the Campo & see all around me the legacy left behind by the Franco regime. This book is so well written,thoughful, provocative & tender. I felt almost part of the whole story & part of the families that are within it's pages. Although having seen the painting that Picasso did of Guernica until reading this book I truly hadn't considered the reality. I for one couldn't put it down , I cried with happiness, frustration & grief .First book written about Spain that I have truly connected with. Buy it enjoy the journey.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow start,
This review is from: Guernica (Paperback)
Having some background knowledge of the Spanish Civil War and also having enjoyed "Captain Correlli's Mandolin" I thought this book would make a good holiday read. Well it was "ok" but certainly not a patch on Captain Correlli. Very slow first half as the characters are introduced. The writing style is pretty ordinary and I must admit being tempted just to give up. The pace does pick up with the attack which I thought was well explained and gets across some of the harrowing events which occurred. The end of the story is contrived.
This would probably work better as a film than a book
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