Winston's War

I thought I was going to enjoy this but found it disappointing. Although I like history and political novels, I felt this fell between two stools - it was neither proper history, in that it was hard to work out where reality ended, nor proper fiction, because the story seemed to be inhibited by real events. Part of the reason for this, I feel, is that the politicians are too central to this book, whereas, Robert Harris, for example, tends to keep them on the periphery, so that the fictional characters have space to breathe. Frankly if I wanted to read about Appeasement politics I'd rather read about the real thing in a history book. For those reasons and others I couldn't finish this novel.

A gripping Book of the Legacy of Winston (1/2 people found this helpful)

This book is one that you just cant put down. It is compelling and a fantastic review of the historics of world war II.

Good but not great (4/4 people found this helpful)

Unfortunately I read this novel in parallel with "Eminent Churchillians" by Andrew Roberts, and I was left with the strong suspicion at times that Roberts' chapter on the Tory Party was almost being cut-and-pasted into the Dobbs book.

The anachronistic dialogue irritates (did high civil servants in the 1930's really use the f-word continuously?), but the explanation of the Churchill succession to the Premiership is certainly ingenious. The minor characters seem rather to lose their way, and to be tidied up at the end almost as after-thoughts. Dobbs might have skipped some of them and given us a bit more insight into the minds of Joe Kennedy and Beaverbrook, who are presnted as one-dimensional ogres. Cleverly, JFK appears in a non-speaking part.

Guy Burgess emerges as more interesting than I had expected, but Dobbs has actually attributed some of the stories surrounding Tom Driburg (also a cameo appearance) to Burgess himself - a bit lazy, really.

It's a bit like "Jesus of Nazareth" in a way, because we all know how the story ends before we finish the first page. So full marks to Dobbs for keeping us engaged to the end.

But please don't imagine that reading this book gives you any special insight into Appeasement, Norway and the Fall of Chamberlain - it's good fiction for the beach, quite well researched, but modern history it ain't.

What a pleasant surprise (6/6 people found this helpful)

I approached this book with some trepidition but was pleasantly surprised. The characters stand out as very real, it's as if Mr Dodds was a bystander on all the important conversations and goings on leading to the outbreak of WW2.
I would recommend to anyone who has a passing interest in the subject matter

An absorbing tale of political infighting (7/8 people found this helpful)

Based on historical fact, WINSTON'S WAR is a solid and absorbing fictional rendition of the leadership struggle between Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill between October 1, 1938 and May 10, 1940.

As the book opens, Chamberlain has returned to 10 Downing Street a public hero after the signing of the Munich Agreement between himself and Adolf Hitler which gave the latter the Sudetenland in return for "peace in our time". Meanwhile, relegated to the periphery of British politics and virtually an outcast, Churchill obstinately lashes out against appeasement and loudly proclaims the necessity for total war to save democracy from the depredations of the Nazis. What subsequently follows is history: the German subjugation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and the invasion of Poland, the German-Soviet non-aggression pact, the Phony War, the Soviet invasion of Finland, the British military's Norwegian fiasco, and the crisis in His Majasty's government in May 1940 that ultimately elevated Winston to the premiership.

The cast of characters in this sweeping story by Michael Dobbs of political maneuvering, skullduggery, and backstabbing is an historical Who's Who of the times: the ailing, haughty, and pacifist Chamberlain, who personifies England's bitter memories of the Great War and the popular concept of "never again"; the ambitious and self-absorbed Churchill, whose pugnacity sometimes clouds prudence; the defeatist, philandering, and anti-Semitic U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Joseph P. Kennedy; the alcoholic, disillusioned and psychologically tortured idealist, Guy Burgess (of Burgess, Philby, and Maclean of Cold War infamy); the stuttering King George VI, who whines that the German invasion of Poland interrupted his grouse hunting; and the Machiavellian newspaper mogul, William "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook.

It's in the minor details with which Dobbs fleshes out the story of Chamberlain's fall and the rise of his nemesis, Churchill, to an epic 685 paper-backed pages (UK HarperCollins edition). And it's the length of WINSTON'S WAR that is, perhaps, a minor flaw. Some of the subplots seemed unnecessary, and should have been severely cropped by a ruthless editor: the love affair between the crippled WWI survivor "Mac" McFadden, barber to the politically great and one of Guy's information sources, and Carol, a housemaid and part-time prostitute; and between Bournemouth postmistress Sue Graham and Army Sergeant Jerry White - though the experiences of the latter did usefully tie the Norway debacle into the storyline on a personal level. Slightly more relevant, but still mildly tedious, was the dysfunctional relationship between Brendan Bracken, Churchill's closest confidant, and Kennedy's niece, Anna Fitzgerald. Perhaps Dobbs perceived a need to include Carol, Sue and Anna to make it less of a Guy Read.

Chamberlain was toppled not because he sought to appease Hitler and avert a cataclysm, but because he didn't have the mettle to wage all-out war when the necessity for it was thrust upon him. That was to prove to be Winston's genius. The author's genius is in portraying the labyrinthine venality of Whitehall and Fleet Street powerbroking at a time when solidarity against a rapacious common enemy was desperately necessary.

WINSTON'S WAR is the first in a series of novels about Churchill's wartime leadership. According to the back cover, the next book is apparently NEVER SURRENDER. I shall seek out and buy it immediately.

Michael Dobbs

Reader Reviews:

Winston's War - or was it? (2/3 people found this helpful)

A gripping Book of the Legacy of Winston (1/2 people found this helpful)

Good but not great (4/4 people found this helpful)

What a pleasant surprise (6/6 people found this helpful)

An absorbing tale of political infighting (7/8 people found this helpful)

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