The Dust That Falls from Dreams: A Novel (Vintage International)

Not as delicious as 'Corelli's Mandolin.' Nor as driven narratively. The author's shining moments are nearly all spent during the First World War in the air as an early RAF pilot. Over France, Germany, the Channel. To such a degree that an imbalance is allowed to develop: the man is also supposed to be in love. And he is, with his airplanes. As for the lovely target of his physical attentions, she hardly counts. Loved once by one of the hero's friends,she cannot get over what she anticipated would have been a thrilling marriage. And she quite consciously makes our hero pay for her life of memory. Although this is wrapped in Episcopalian (C of E) attitudes makes no difference. She is selfish and, for too long a while, stupid.This is a "straight" line narrative. This by itself is refreshing, as we increasingly meet stories and lives truncated, collaged, battered and bongo-ed to rhythm's with which we are not familiar. The author offers us characterizations of secondary players, many of which are wonderfully perceptive and sympathetic,others of which are stock. If one is looking for Julian Fellowes,keep on walking.To have flown and fought as our hero has is brilliantly presented. The rest is not. The book is weak Masterpiece Theatre, although truth be told you won't stop reading it. It is,and one hates to write this,good enough of its kind,and if you like the "kind," this may be for you.John Neufeld,author ofLisa,Bright and Dark (Kindle) and Edgar Allan (also Kindle-d)

The story is sweet and captures the innocence of that bygone era around WWI but it sometimes seems almost simplistic in its characters' depiction of a very brutal and devastating period in history when life changed irrevocably.I would have liked more development of the characters themselves; the potential is there: Rosie, the main character who grapples with the loss of the love of her life and her religious beliefs; a sister who is obviously involved in a lesbian relationship; the fiancé who goes to war; the flying ace, the mother who cannot come to terms with the times changing, etc...so much potential for great characters but somehow they seem superficial and I did not feel depth in this novel. I would describe it as sweet and entertaining but a lightweight,

Since Corelli's Mandolin (read twice) is one of my favorite books ever (I loaned out a copy which was never returned, so I bought another just to have it in my library), I was so looking forward to this novel by De Bernieres. If you are a man interested in flying aces during World War 1 and do not mind whole chapters of descriptions of the acrobats performed by these airmen and the details of each type of plane, its capabilities, etc., you will like this book. I am pushing myself to finish it, as I want to give it a chance, but it frankly bores me to death. I've skipped whole chapters. The British phraseology and words and expressions used in the book by Brits of that era are totally Greek to me, and half the time I didn't know what they were talking about. If you are looking for another Corelli's Mandolin, you will be very disappointed. De Bernieres is a wonderful writer, but don't expect this book to give you the same high.

I'll begin by saying this book would have been much better had it been shorter, with less jargon, and a glossary for the many, many British words/phrases that are sometimes over used. That said, I thought the story was enjoyable; and some of the characters were expressed in enough detail that I could basically picture them. (Mrs. McCosh in particular). I am interested in WWI in many ways, and this book, with it's almost completely non-American viewpoint, made the book more interesting. However, there is much too much philosophizing. For instance, the chat with Bertrand Russell had, for me, no value except to remind me of his views on the war. The ending just seems to be tacked on when the author realized the book was getting to heavy to hold in ones hands comfortably.

If I did not have expectations created by my love for de Bernieres' Corelli's Mandolin; I may have liked this book much more. It is certainly entertaining and readable. But unfortunately my expectations were firmly in place.I loved the subject matter and I felt the story was so promising at first--- but then the characters in this book continued to read like caricatures and I never warmed up to any of them. I found Rosie to be the most poorly developed character--if I didn't know better I would think de Bernieres doesn't know how to write from a female point of view. Every time I read a passage with her in it I felt as if I was reading about the life and views of a child and not a woman. I could barely tolerate the way Sophie was written. It was so contrived and unbelievable that an adult woman would speak that way. Gaskell would make a perfect cartoon character--which was a shame---she could have been a very rich and vibrant presence in the novel. And asking us to believe that this very class and image conscious; old fashioned family would accept their daughter in a lesbian relationship without blinking an eye is ridiculous. It impacted the integrity of the novel. Why would de Bernieres not address what it must of felt like to be a lesbian in early 1900 England? If he was going to ignore it--why introduce it at all? Ottilie was a non-entity in the book but it was nice of de Bernieres to fill us in on who she was and how we should all feel about her in one of the final chapters. I felt the rest of the characters suffered the same fate as the sisters--they were all caricatures and not well-developed. Daniel may be the exception. But his mother? A caricature of an older French female.A good story may have hid these flaws; however this story was meandering and lacked focus. I kept waiting for something to happen that would weave together the characters into the beautiful rich tapestry of humanity found Corelli's Mandolin--but it didn't. Disappointing.

I really loved this book which is beautifully written and sensitive and moved me to tears frequently. It contains fascinating factual historic detail and deals with the horror of the First World War trenches, the terrible injuries and loss of life and the comradeship of the men, but continues in the ensuing peace and is full of intelligent observation, deep discussion of important themes, humour and love, and the author shows a rare ability to speak for all of his characters, male or female, in the first person. It is a damned good story which involves you and draws you along, and I had to force myself to put the book down at 1a.m. or I would be reading all night. An exceptional writer, the author of that fine epic Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I only wish I could be more articulate in my praise.

On and on and on and on. Eighteen hours as an audio book, I honestly thought he was being paid by the word. It wouldn't have felt so long if this was even a small page turner, but it isn't. There are great swathes of this that are a complete wasteland, utterly nothing happens. Characters talk about religion, poetry, philosophy, history, golf and other nonsense. Even poems and letters are printed out in full. Why?I came here after Captain Corelli, which I think is genius and so much better than this. I was promised a world war one novel , but got a family saga instead, and a mills and boon romance.There are flashes of what this could have been but to fleeting to justify the heavy going. I quite liked the family, but they were just to nice, there is no friction here, all middle class, wealth, privilege, and servants. And ultimately they get on a boat and leave, nobody's story is finished, you are left having to buy the follow up to know what happens to everyone.And what was with the Irish governess, the only character with even a hint of a life and he abandons her? Maybe in the follow up?You can't get away from the fact of the mans ability to write, but maybe in this case less is more...A lot less.

Anybody studying World War I and its after effects would find this book an immense help to understanding not only the horror of war but the changes the war made to British society. It should be compulsory reading for History students.The story itself revolves round a childhood love story and the struggle to let go and move on to hopefully find new happiness, when one's love has died. We get irritated with the heroine Rosie for being so sanctimonious yet we forgive her and we find ourselves desperately wanting her to snap out of her grieving mindset and have a life. We find ourselves drawn into the McCosh family. Some we will like more and more as we appreciate there is more to them than meets the eye. Others like in all families will fit the familiar saying that " you can't chose your family"Is it better than Captain Corelli's Mandolin? It is different. You are not comparing like with like. de Bernieres clearly has a great interest in this period of time, he has done his research well, the minutiae is superb and there is a realism of the messiness of most people's lives that adds to the story.In Corelli we have the textbook, boy loves girl. Here we have a far more intricate set of relationships.Do not approach the book hoping for a repeat of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. It is not. Read it with an open mind. The Dust that Falls from Dreams is well worth reading.

I’m critical but not dismissive of The Dust that Falls from Dreams. Everyone seems to want to compare this book with his Captain Corelli’s Mandolin as if it came up well short of that; but in terms of the vision and inspiration of the writer I feel it only falls short compared with his Birds Without Wings, which was written with a sparseness of style, with often incredibly brief chapters outlining the latest developments of a variety of characters; which kept your imagination working overtime to flesh out what you think was happening and link the events together. It was subtle, teasing and evocative of those times; it also dealt with many big issues about the collapse of an empire and the repercussions of the multi-ethnicity of the inhabitants of one village. By contrast, this ‘family saga’ book was somewhat overblown; the leading characters especially occasionally risked being pastiches of people from that time. The stuff on spiritualism and Madame Valentine was slightly dis-believable; and it did drag on in places, especially on Rosie’s religious fanaticism. It also got a bit bogged down in the end-chapters on the trip to and arrival at Ceylon, which are clearly trying to set the scene for entry into the second book in the trilogy.In terms of the quality and depth of research, the author does quite accurately set the events in their times, both on the home front and in the battlefields. These generally ring true and he brings in less-commonly noticed or often forgotten angles of what life was like or what people did. Christabel’s joining the home front’s Snapshot League was one of these. However he doesn’t always wear his research lightly; having decided to bring in the terrible Folkestone Gotha raid of May 1917, he rather drops into the story just about everything you can mug up on Wikipedia about it! This focus on the detail can be good in many ways, helping to authenticate his account and showing due respect to the significance of those tragic events; so it is confusing to me when his researches seem to come up short of the accuracy or clarity expected. For instance, on page 99 Reverend Fairhead mentioned in his letter of 1st March 1915 that his younger sister had been killed in a Zeppelin raid. Now on page 89 he had already written that his family came from Sidcup, but there were no Zeppelin raids on anywhere in the London area until May 1915. So, unless his sister had been visiting Kings Lynn or Yarmouth in January 1915, which he did not actually say, then she couldn’t have been in a Zeppelin raid in February 1915. Then on page 486 he writes that Captain Franklin had served on HMS Hood during the war. This battleship was only laid down in 1916, launched in 1918 and commissioned in 1920, so it did not see any service at all in the First World War. This ship was the third of that name but the second of the name was sunk as a blockship in Portland harbour in 1914, so it would have effectively seen no First World War service either.However, for all my complaints, the book did take you through a coherent story of the changing life chances of a fairly well-off upper middle class family in the first 25 years of the century. It had shades of Downton Abbey or Delderfield’s Horseman Riding By, so it had enough in it to make you stick with it to see how the stories panned out.

This has to be one of my very favourite novels of all time, along with "Notwithstanding", "Corelli" and "Birds without Wings".One of those books which one hates to see ending. And ripe for a sequel, in my opinion. Louis de Bernieres has such a distinct and quirky way of writing-one never knows what is to come next in the story! This is a magnificent saga about the McCosh, Pitt and Pendennis families, whose lives are so much affected by WW1. And what an amount of research has gone into making everything so realistic. My wife thoroughly agrees with these sentiments, and we both intend to re-read it and savour every word.