Len Deighton's Best Novel
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Based on the trials and tribulations of the Winter family, this novel covers the years 1900 through 1945. It also serves as a loose back drop to the Bernard Sampson series. Anyone who enjoys Deighton's sparse, clean prose, his adherence to historical details, and international intrigue will find this an enjoyable book.
The novel chronicles the lives of two Berlin brothers -Pauli and Peter Winter. The book also details the city of Berlin, and how it changed from the Biedermier Era through the decadent twenties, and eventually its destruction in 1945. Peter and Paul Winter, thier family and friends represent the conflicting social strands of Germany, which produced both Bach and Himmler. To add to the plotline, the Winter brothers mother hails from a wealthy American family, whose democratic-capitalistic ideals clash with the fin-de-siecle Berlin. This clash, while mild early on, becomes central as the plot thickens. Deighton throws in all the usual dramatic devices to keep the story moving. The reader is confronted with adultery, murder, chauvanism, racism, greed, and decadance, as well as loyalty, chilvary, and love.
Deighton, has an obvious love for Berlin and European history; he stays true to the social, political, and cultural battles which doomed Berlin to half century of conflcit. This conflict is well told through the Winter family. For those who've read the Sampson novels, they will also see cameo appearances of many minor characters who crop up during the life of Bernard Sampson. This novel will not disappoint.
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Brilliant!
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One of the best books I have read. Prior to this I read his Bernard Sampson spy trilogies, this book references characters that are present in those books and fills in some interesting details. Overall a great book I found hard to put down!
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From the dustcover of the book...
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In his biggest and most ambitious book so far, Len Deighton draws a vivid picture of life in Nazi Germany and uses an upper middle-class family to provide a remarkable inside view of the Hitler regime, and of the muddle and madness that led up to it.
As church bells triumphantly ring in the new century, Veronica Winter -- an American by birth, upbringing, and instinct -- bears her German husband a second son. This boy Paul and his brother Peter are the central characters in a complex and tragic family drama, which begins with an enchanted childhood and ends in the courtrooms of Nuremberg.
Veronica Winter watches her sons suffer all the horrors of the First World War, and the bitter and bizarre street fighting between old comrades in `peacetime Berlin', but she holds her German family together through Berlin's Golden Twenties, when its brittle, talented, permissive society shocked the world, and inflation made German money worthless. Communists and Nazis battled in the dangerous dark streets, and more and more men turned to Hitler as the only hope for a nation plagued by unendurable violence and depravity.
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Winter
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This is one of the best books that I have ever read. It traces the history of a German family in Berlin from the turn of the century (1900) to the very early post war years. It takes in both WW1 and WW2. In my opinion what makes this book so good is the way that it helps to illustrate what it was that made so many German people support the two wars. If you have an interest in the history and causes of WW2 then this book would be an excellent addition to your collection. It is well researched and also very well written, which is why I give it 5 stars.
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In the top 3 books I have ever read
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'Winter' is the work of a genious. I have little to add to the other reader reviews already here, other than to say that many of the images from this book, like the Zeppelin raid, will always stay with me. I cannot recommend this book more highly.
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