Pat Barker is so effortless with history, with people in it. Well, educated, mostly liberal minded English people, but still. This summer's strongest literary experience was re-reading her second trilogy. So sharply, so memorably etched characters, moments. Those generations of the world wars: youth, love, death, betrayal by history and life. I think this contrast was probably at its starkest with educated, liberal minded people - young, educated, liberal minded English people, one does think. Others would have had less a sense of betrayal and loss, being more attuned to the ways of this world.
But it's not just history but the people: life sketched, the moments, the language and the skill. How light is the touch for the most part, how sharp the commentary, how deep the grief rarely ever directly addressed. Though maybe that's a certain failing too, too liberal to effectively rage. I don't know. Only these books do linger in mind. In any case in these increasingly alarming times one does tend to uneasily return to that crimson era. History didn't end after all: wars and betrayals did not end. In this absurdly privileged part of the world there was for a brief moment a foolish luxury to believe that.
