Louis de Bernieres has been one of my favourite authors ever since I stumbled across The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts in 1990. As soon as I see that he has a book coming out, I avidly wait until I can buy it, trying to get as much information about the subject matter as I can (yes, I'm a fan-girl). This novel has not disappointed me.
So Much Life Left Over takes us back in to the lives of Rosie and Daniel Pitt after the First World War has come to an end. We go as far as Ceylon, back to London and to Germany in the 1930's. We catch up with all of the characters that we first encountered in The Dust That Falls From Dreams (and if you haven't read that yet, you're seriously missing out), and learn about what happens to Rosie's sisters, parents and those that they have met along the way.
I love the dialogue in this book: it's punchy, quick-witted and emotional. The first of Oily Wragge's chapters (each chapter, when about a different person, is written from their perspective, sometimes in first person, sometimes in third person - but I like this. It seems so personal) haunting, terribly sad and filled with the violence and horror of war and being a prisoner of war.
Daniel and Wragge go to work in Germany, and set up a business with the two fighter pilots that Daniel captured in the war. Here we get a look at the Germany of the early 1930's: the poverty, deprivation, and Hitlers rise to power. Daniel correctly predicts another war.
However, the truly heart wrenching events happen in the last thirty pages or so. I strongly suggest you get your handkerchief ready. The emotion in these last pages is what really makes this a truly stand out book for me (if the rest of the book hadn't already been enough to do that!). The sensitivity in the way that the subject matter is handled, and the emotions that this invokes in the reader is so well done.
I would thoroughly recommend this novel, I so enjoyed it, and I will be looking forward to the last part of this story.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

'Sweeping' is definitely the right word for this book, which is beautifully written as is usually the case with Louis de Bernieres. It's a historical saga, apparently the second one in a series (which I hadn't known when I began reading), about two families, set in the time between the two world wars. I didn't warm to the characters, however, apart from Archie, who had suffered terribly in WW1. I would have liked to read more about him rather than his brother Daniel, the main character. Most of the characters I found a bit shallow and not fully sketched out, which was a bit disappointing, and I don't think I would read another in this series which is I believe going to be a trilogy. If you want to read the best book by this author, then try 'Birds without Wings'.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

Beautifully written and touching, although this is actually a sequel, which I didn't realise before I started. Need to go back and read the first novel. Has a complex plot structure which I found absorbing. Most of all the character of Daniel was someone I wanted to spend more time with!

"If you have been embroiled in a war in which you confidently expected to die, what were you supposed to do with so much life unexpectedly left over?"

That is the question Louis de Bernières seeks to answer in SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER, his second novel about the McCosh and Pitt families and their extended circle of friends, neighbors, servants, comrades, and others. The prior novel -- THE DUST THAT FALLS FROM DREAMS -- followed his large and varied cast of characters during the First World War and the immediate postwar years. SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER picks up the story and covers most of interwar period and the early years of the Second World War.

I like the broad arc of his story, and his prose is always witty and readable. The narrative bounces around from character to character and also mixes in letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, etc. This is well-constructed, clever fiction that is often very funny and often deeply moving. It's very hard to put these books down once you've started.

Although his large cast of characters and big historical canvas could be a recipe for trouble, I find that he juggles it all nicely. The characters all emerge from the page as authentic, and de Bernières finds a way to humanize them all with great warmth. He clearly has a great fondness for his characters (some of whom are based on his own ancestors), and we can't help but share that. But it's that very warmth and fondness that I think is at the root of what's least successful about the McCosh/Pitt novels.

For all their charm, it sometimes feels as if a certain depth is lacking in the two novels. There's a prevailing comic tone that doesn't always fit: sort of like Pat Barker's First World War novels crossed with P. G. Wodehouse. Despite the hell of war and its aftermath, almost everyone is quirky, well-intentioned, and relentlessly decent. There's very little true villainy, cruelty, or cowardice on display. Everyone has a stiff upper lip and, by Jove, these demonstrably good people just get on with it. Their eccentricities, excesses, and mistakes (like Hamilton McCosh's string of mistresses, or Mrs. McCosh's prejudices and boorish behavior) are generally forgiven in a spirit of jolly good humor. There's a certain falseness in this fictional world of endlessly good motives, where nearly everyone obeys the law, is stalwart and brave, and tries so hard to do the right thing. This depiction of the world diminishes some of the emotional intensity his story might otherwise have.

For lack of a better way of putting it, the McCosh/Pitt novels can be a sort of "Downton Abbey" experience. Both share a similar setting in terms of time and place, and both show us a Britain that is dealing with the devastation of war and struggling with the massive social and economic changes of the postwar years. With both, there's a warmth and familiarity, and we can't help caring about the fate of these characters through all their triumphs and tragedies, loves and heartbreaks. In the end, both are just so damn likeable and comfortable. But both also can ultimately feel a bit slight and leave us wishing for more.

Of course, truly terrible things do happen to the characters in these novels. There is darkness and despair, and we're shown the evil and ugliness that exists in the world. There are harrowing depictions of combat and its aftermath. People suffer and die. And that's where I think SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER may be more successful than its predecessor. The story get progressively darker, and by the end, de Bernières doesn't allow the comic relief to overwhelm the sadness. He's willing to let us feel it and linger in it. Rosie, a character who is very sympathetic to us, engages in some terrible behavior. We see her pain and suffering, and understand why she acts as she does, but her cruelty isn't minimized or excused.

This exchange, involving a couple in an unlikely adulterous relationship is also illustrative:

D: "When I was younger I had absolutely no idea that it's utterly impossible to live without so much subterfuge, so many compromises, and secrets and lies."
C: "You can perfectly well live a dull life without them, but who wants a dull life? When I'm on my deathbed, I don't want to be lying there thinking about all the things I never did."

Their relationship is more complicated and interesting than those we generally saw in the first novel. There's an understanding of the profound hurt and damage that can result from even "good" choices made with the best intentions. SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER has a moral ambiguity and complexity that the first novel sometimes lacked.

I'll be back for any future installments, that's for sure. (I assume/hope that at least a third novel is planned, based on how this one ended.) As I said, these books are charming and just so damn likeable.

(Thank you to Pantheon Books for a complimentary advance copy in exchange for an unbiased review.)

A wonderful book! It's a really plesant reading and there're parts that moves you and other that make you laugh.
I loved the style of writing and how the plot engage you and makes you feel different emotions.
The plot is well developed and you're hooked since the beginning.
It's was a great reading experience and this book is highly recommended!
Many thanks to Random House UK and Netgalley for this ARC

I really loved this book, and was totally swept along with its narrative. It follows the lives of Rosie and Daniel between the world wars. It is told in a multi-voice narration, and some of the other stories are equally engrossing. The book contains real humour, historical information as well as some extremely moving and beautiful passages. I was emotionally engaged throughout, and felt a deep connection with several characters, especially Daniel. I would recommend this book to everyone and thank Penguin Random House for the copy on Net Galley. A fabulous read.

‘So Much Life Left Over’ is the second in a trilogy but the reader does not need to have read the first novel in order to become immersed in the narrative. Dickensian in its range of characters and place, de Bernières takes us from Ceylon to England to Nazi Germany and back again in the twenty or so years between the wars. There is no doubt that de Bernières can tell a good yarn. It’s fun for readers of ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ to meet the young Dr Iannis and it’s a shame that we don’t linger longer with Samadara and her family in Ceylon. An exploration of those simultaneously abused, patronised by, and in thrall to the British in this ‘paradise’ could have been fascinating. The author conjures up all manner of place well too, even though it feels as if some of the historical detail is imparted purely because the author knows about these events – the Oily Wragge first person Germany commentary is a case in point. Sadly, in this novel, it is also some of the people who are associated with the ancestral pile, the country house, the gardener’s labyrinth, the German brothel, the Ceylonese churchyard or the RAF base, for example, who don’t ring true.
Many of the characters suffer from being written in a larger-than-life, curiously old-fashioned, ‘Mary Wesley’ style. The reader is given rather predictable 1920s/30s eccentrics: the bohemian lesbians; the war-damaged but resilient gardener; the cheerful vicar’s wife and the ‘batty’ fervent royalist who accepts her late husband’s clutch of mistresses as an inevitable slice of life. Through his main characters de Bernières explores serious issues – identity, parenthood and loss being three of the central themes. WW1 flying ace Daniel Pitt suffers terribly as he is given less and less access to his children. We feel for him yet, at times, his thoughts and conversations are presented in a rather too didactic fashion for any reader who prefers not to be led by the nose.
Whilst de Bernières’ latest novel spans continents, takes place over twenty years of historical events of enormous importance, and includes a cast of hundreds – or so it seems, the latter lacks the subtleties of portrayal one always hopes for that allow characters to live on in the reader’s imagination when the final page has been read. Having said that, carefully scripted, it could become entertaining Sunday evening TV drama of the highest order!
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I have been a huge fan of Louis De B ever since he was named as one Granta's Best of Young British Novelists back in 1993. It has been a delight to see how his career has progressed and I have loved everything he has written. ‘So Much Life Left Over’ has not disappointed. It is a captivating and absorbing book both humorous and tragic. What I particularly loved were the small cameos of characters from De B’s other novels, ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ and ‘Notwithstanding’; delightful.

The novel is set between the first and second world wars. It feature Daniel Pitt WW1 flying ace, who, now it is peacetime, feels he has so much life left over. He has a troubled marriage to Rose with whom he has two children. Amongst the other characters are Daniel’s brother Archie and Rose’s three sisters and we follow their lives up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

As with all De B’s novels the writing is beautiful and the characterisation is tremendous. I really engaged with the story and was sad when the book ended. I’m guessing there is going to be a third novel in the series and I can’t wait.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

After retiring to Ceylon after his successful career as an air pilot in WWI, Daniel and wife Rosie find their marriage falling apart. They find it difficult to put the war-time trauma out of their lives. There are some very well-developed characters in this book. I did not realize it was a second part of the lives of the Pitts, so will be searching for the first book.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. It is written in an unusual way, with several narrators and sometimes in the form of letters. It mainly tells the story of members of one family between the two world wars. The first part of the book is set in Ceylon, and gives a very good feel of life there. It is ultimately very moving, and is the sort of book that lingers after you have finished it.

I'm not sure what I was expecting of this book, but in the end I really enjoyed it. Set mainly between the 2 world wars, it is the story of Daniel Pitt and his family. It starts in Ceylon, where Daniel and his wife, Rosie, and young daughter, have started a new life after the war. Back in England, their families are also looking for ways to move forward after the losses of the conflict. The best thing about this book is the abundance of wonderful, well observed characters. How can you not love a man called Oily Wragge? Or old Mrs McCosh with her air rifle and obsession with the royal family. This is a funny and moving novel, which I thoroughly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.
Copied to Goodreads.

Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their young daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, and to rekindle a marriage that grows increasingly colder. However, even in their new life, it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage. Back in England, Rosie’s three sisters are dealing with different challenged in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Germany he witnesses events taking a dark and forbidding turn.

Wow, what a read! I have not stopped recommending this to people since finishing it, I absolutely adore everything about this book and it is definitely my favourite read of 2018 so far! Confession time, I have not read the first book to this, ‘The Dust That Falls From Dreams’ but I definitely will be after reading this! I have to say, not having read the first book did not detract anything from this book, it does work as a standalone, everything is explained sufficiently to understand what is happening and what has previously happened and this is testament to how good a writer de Bernières is.

As I have said, I adored everything in this and I really did. The plot is wonderful, full of dramatic events, heart-warming moments as well as sad moments, the characters are fantastic, more on this later and the writing style is almost out of this world. This is written in a way that really transports you to another place, I completely lost myself in the book and the goings on and this is just the perfect book to lose yourself in for a while.

The characters are so well crafted, very realistic, people that have aspects that you like, love, hate and everything in between, it was a joy to get to know them, experience their lives, live the world through their eyes and see how everything resolves itself in the end.

‘So Much Life Left Over’ is a very special read, one that is absorbing, humorous, happy and sad, this has a special place in my heart and I will continue recommending this to everyone I talk to for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for an advance copy.

Louis de Bernieres writes a beautiful, emotionally heart tugging, often humorous, epic look at the lives that survived the horrors and losses of WW1, focusing on the inter war years and the human costs incurred at the beginning of WW2. In what is a relatively short novel, a large cast of characters, their lives, decisions and behaviour are portrayed as times change. Half French Captain Daniel Pitt, well known ace fighter pilot, had never expected to survive the war, and has to resolve the quandry of what do with so much life left over. The author presents the lives of the families of Daniel, who had lost two brothers, and his wife, Rosie, who lost her love, Ash, in the war, as they marry, and those with connections to them through these historically turbulent times, whilst pondering over the myriad of roads not taken. Daniel and Rosie move to Ceylon, under British colonial rule, running a tea plantation.

Initially the couple are happy, they have a daughter, Esther, but things begin to disintegrate when Rosie gives birth to a dead son, despite going on to have another son, Bertie. Using religion as an excuse, Rosie withdraws from sexual relations with Daniel and refuses to let him have contact with Bertie. A frustrated and unhappy Daniel finds himself in a relationship with 'native' girl, Samadara whom he grows to love, only to have his life shattered by Rosie insisting they return to Britain. Full of rage and anger, understanding that women are now expected to keep their children in this age, he feels he has no choice but to acquiesce to Rosie's demands. Through the years, Rosie does all that she can to keep the children from Daniel, lying and deceiving to ensure this whilst refusing him a divorce that would allow him to marry another woman. She has sufficient self awareness of her abhorrent actions, but is unable to change course. She has three sisters, Ottilia, who had wasted her life loving Daniel's self destructive brother, Archie, a lost and haunted man brimming with self hatred, finally reaches the point where she is finally able to move on. Sophie marries a clergyman but they are a childless couple. The bohemian Cristabel settles into a relationship with Gaskell, making remarkably unconventional decisions. Daniel finds himself loving women but unable to marry given Rosie's intransigence, he moves to Germany to see up close the rise of Nazism with Oily Wragge, a man tortured and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire in WW1. The onset of WW2 has the characters doing their part in the war effort and inevitably faced with the tragedies that ensue.

I loved reading this historical novel, I was deeply engaged with the narrative and the characters de Bernieres creates and develops. However, there are flaws, for instance in the poor characterisation of Samadara, the young woman Daniel loves in Ceylon, and in the working class Edward. The author is transparently more comfortable with writing about white, upper and middle class people and it is their lives that are the ones that undeniably matter in the story. Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading this historical novel with its humour, such as the reading of the will of Mr McCosh, and the joy to be found in his batty and bonkers royalty obsessed wife. Of course, there is much tragedy and loss, emotionally affecting, particularly in the last part of the book. After the cliffhanger ending, I look forward to reading the final part of this trilogy. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.