Mail’s Washington correspondent. He has covered many significant world events, including the collapse of the Belgian Congo, East Africa’s post-independence upheavals, Middle East revolutions, the Vietnam War, Watergate and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since 1990 he has worked as a freelance writer for The Times, Daily Telegraph and Saga Magazine.In 2010 he discussed five top books on spies, lies and foreign correspondents with Alex Forsyth for The Browser, including:
The Balkan TrilogyRead about another book Beeston tagged at The Browser.
by Olivia Manning
Your fourth choice is a trilogy of books by Olivia Manning.
I think she was one of the very best novelists of the 20th century. These books, The Balkan Trilogy – and The Levant Trilogy – were her best pieces. What I found fascinating was all the drama of the Second World War in rather peripheral places. But the drama and the feeling of the war was written against a background of a young couple who had just gotmarried and who were very different in their outlook on life, and the problems of their marriage.
It’s been described as a tragicomedy.
Yes, she manages somehow to create what the wartime situation was. The British Council are portrayed as awful self-interested characters, hardly interested in the war itself. The couple are always picking up these helpless characters too, these stray cats of people and helping them along.
How is the business of war reportage portrayed here?
She gets various jobs, putting out British information. There are a lot of reporters that pass through, rather like the reporters in Scoop. She takes a rather critical view of most people though; she’s not very kind, very objective. From time to time she’s emotionally involved with people, whereas Guy Pringle, the husband, is a hopeless bundle of love and left-wing sympathies.
Also see William Stevenson's five best list of books about secret agents.
--Marshal Zeringue
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