#TheConstantSoldier #WilliamRyan #Review

CONSTANT SOLDIER

by William Ryan

*My thanks to the author from whom I received this book in return for an unbiased and honest review*

The premise for this Second World War novel is perhaps slightly more unusual and written from a perspective or setting that I've not often seen in the historical fiction I've read so I was intrigued by the blurb and keen to see how this story might play out. 

The novel is set in 1944; the main character is Paul Brandt, a soldier in the German army who has returned home due to serious wounds inflicted on the Eastern Front. He finds his village very changed and living under the ominous shadow of an SS rest hut that is now established there. The hut is a luxurious retreat for those men who manage the concentration camps and is run by a small group of female prisoners. Brandt realises that one of the women is someone with whom his fate has been tied ever since their arrest five years previously and he is determined to do all he can to protect her. 

With the threat of a Russian Offensive drawing nearer, this is a tense story full of danger and threat as the women and Brandt try to hold out for survival. 

At one point the author talks about snow "taking away all the colour" as the characters face the bad weather. I thought this idea of the landscape being 'colourless' was very pertinent. Just as the landscape lacks colour in this snow scene, this feels like a good metaphor to describe the book as sometimes it feels like this is a story where there is no place for colour. It is bleak, the setting is sad, brutal, harsh and presented itself to me as a place where no colour could exist. But, though there may be this desolation, there is no doubting the richness of Ryan's prose. His ability to root the reader so firmly in time, place, setting and location is certainly impressive. 

Ryan's writing is descriptive and beautiful, slow, mesmeric and thoughtful but he also uses dialogue to huge affect and I found the repetition of some phrases very poignant. The repetition of "Tell the women to bury them" was particularly chilling. In this novel, Ryan captures the harsh emotional and psychological effect of war and how it affects everyone and everything. 

I have read many reviews praising Ryan for his writing and even when I mentioned I was reading it, people were quick to tell me how much they liked this book. I can see why. I was really struck by the prose. It is so well crafted, so full of imagery, beautiful language, carefully articulated dialogue and memorable characters. 

The story is shocking but not sensationalised. The writing is too thoughtful for this. It is immensely captivating, intriguing and full of depth. There is graphic violence and there are scenes of brutality - I don't think a writer can seriously write a novel about the war without having to include it - but the prose is so great that Ryan's inclusion of such scenes is less to cause quick shocks or cheap thrills but more to raise deeper questions and challenge more complicated emotional responses. 

This is a story that is suspenseful, full of tension and threat and also immersive and compelling. It's not a book I would have perhaps chosen to read myself as I don't read a lot of historical fiction set in the Second World War, but if I hadn't read it, I would have sorely missed out! I join the huge list of bloggers and readers who are all recommending this book! 

The Constant Soldier was published by PanMacMillan in June 2017.