All our worldy goods?

Although this was easy to read and was set in an interesting time/place, I, like Valerie, found it disappointing and unsatisfying. Disappointing because Suite Francaise was so good and I was anticipating more of the same; unsatisfying because by covering the lives of so many for so long she seemed to promise a family saga, but with so few pages, was unable to do justice to her themes or characters. One example would be the casual yet intense meeting on the road of Simone and Roland Burgeres, who, when we next see them, are married. Now there’s a whole novel in that gap and in the many similar gaps in the narration. And she could have written it well. I’m reminded of The Forsyte Saga: similar theme of the generational inheritance of misalliances and misdemeanours but Galsworthy takes 9 novels of this sort of length to tell the tale (brilliantly in my view). Well, that’s if it is meant to be a family saga. What else? An historical review of the early 20 century – if so, nowhere near as emotive and compelling as SF.