The Balkan Trilogy
| Author | Olivia Manning |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Balkan Trilogy (The Great Fortune, The Spoilt City and Friends And Heroes) Levant Trilogy (The Danger Tree, The Battle Lost And Won and The Sum Of Things) |
| Publisher | Arrow Books |
|
Publication date
|
1960 |
Fortunes of War is the collective name given to six novels by Olivia Manning, consisting of The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy. The Balkan Trilogy comprises the books The Great Fortune (1960), The Spoilt City (1962) and Friends And Heroes (1965). The Levant Trilogy comprises the books The Danger Tree (1977), The Battle Lost And Won (1978) and The Sum Of Things(1980).
The novels describe the experiences of a young married couple, Harriet and Guy Pringle, early in World War II. A lecturer and passionate Communist, Guy is attached to a British Council educational establishment in Bucharest (Romania) when war breaks out, and the couple are forced to leave the country, passing through Athens and Palestine and ending up in Cairo, Egypt. Harriet is persuaded to return home by ship, but changes her mind at the last minute and goes to Damascus with friends. Guy, hearing that the ship has been torpedoed, believes her to be dead, but they are reunited in the end.
The cycle also chronicles the pre-war and wartime experiences of the surrounding group of English expatriates who also find themselves on the move and the changes in Romanian society as the corrupt regime of King Carol II fails to keep Romania out of the war.
The leading characters, Harriet and Guy Pringle (the latter a lecturer and a passionate communist), are based on Manning herself and her husband R. D. Smith. Harriet loves Guy but has to share him with numerous hangers-on, as Guy loves everybody he meets. His character is outgoing and generous, while hers is wistful and intospective.
Other major characters in the novels include:
Anthony Burgess described Fortunes of War, based on Manning's personal experiences during the war, as ‘the finest fictional record of the war produced by a British writer’.
The novels were adapted for television by the BBC and available in the US on Masterpiece Theatre in 1987, starring Kenneth Branagh as Guy and Emma Thompson as Harriet. Other stars included Ronald Pickup, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett and Rupert Graves.
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