DNF. This turns out not to say much about the Balkans at all, but is mostly the authors musings and judgments on other people. The writing is too arch, too self-aware. If the author doesn't fascinate you, and she does not fascinate me, then the book itself is dreary.

The author and her husband travel through Yugoslavia in the 1930s, describing the places they visited and the people that they met, and giving a lot of the history of the places too. They visit the field of Kosovo Polje, where Prince Lazar died after being brought a message by an angel in the guise of a grey falcon.

What drew me first to Rebecca West ? The title my friend. The title of this, her master-work. And now, I’m in awe... left sitting so, my maw hanging.

Thrilled to have discovered a copy of the 2 Volume Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (October 1941 Vail-Ballou Press edition, 1180 pages) within our small Upstate library system, this reader’s 1st experience of Dame Rebecca West’s writing. And I have just checked out “The Fountain Overflows” via Libby to my Kindle

Las más de 1.100 páginas intimidan, pero es un libro excepcional y sin duda esencial para entender toda la historia de los Balcanes.

Set on the eve of WWII, this woman journals her travels to Yugoslavia. I found it fascinating (especially with hindsight as a guide) to see her impressions of how Germany was affecting other countries in 1937.
I will admit to confusion regarding Croats and Serbs and Balkans and their conflicts, even though she describes them all.

Dense, opinionated, muscular writing. Mrs. West chronicles her journeys with her husband through the Balkans, post WW I, pre WWII. It is a medley of journalism and travel writing, but at times it reads like an adventure novel, with extraordinary setting and eccentric characters who come and go. Her insights into empire are prescient, considering what is happening today. Each chapter rewards and sometimes requires repeated viewing.

Even if this a huge book, one never gets tired of the splendid narrative built by Rebecca West all along this marvelous book.

3* The Return of the Soldier
5* The Fountain Overflows
3* This Real Night
3* Cousin Rosamund
5* Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
TR The Birds Fall Down
TR The Thinking Reed
TR Harriet Hume
TR Sunflower

Rebecca West and her husband visited Yugoslavia following WWI. Weary and cynical of human nature and the political powers of Austria and Germany, West and her husband toured the breadth of Yugoslavia. While noticing the fissures between the Croats, Serbians, Bulgarians, Turks, and Montenegrins that would eventually lead to the next genocide, West did a creditable, if somewhat romanticized, story of the history of these citizens of an ever-shifting frontier.

West did comment that she saw nothing wrong with the nationalism expressed by the Serbs which seemed naive, especially considering the recent end of WWI. It would have been interesting to see how that view might have changed following WWII.

West made some comments regarding the relationship between master and servant in different cultures which can, at best, be viewed as naive, and at worst out and out racist. Also, there were a few comments regarding gay men that smacked of not just discomfort but an actual fear which was rather disturbing.