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Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (Twentieth-Century Classics)
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Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia (Twentieth-Century Classics)by Rebecca West
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41 of 45 people found the following review helpful: Wonderful, October 26, 2001 Reviewer:Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - Love it or hate it, anyone with an interest in the Balkans will eventually have to deal with this book. Rebecca West is one of the giants of 20th century literature. Never heard of her? I hadn't either until I read this sprawling opus. Don't be put off by the size of the book, however (West herself writes that most people probably won't read this book because of the massive length). Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a travelogue detailing West's travels through 1930's Yugoslavia. The book goes far beyond travelogue as West intersperses massive doses of Slavic history and philosophy with her travel accounts. Not only do we see the things she sees, we understand the mentality of the people. These people she meets and places she visits become almost mystical under her magical pen. I read this book over a six week period at the end of the summer. Like West on her travels, I meandered through the book, reading it religiously at times and then setting it down for a bit to read other things. This might be the best way to read the book. It allows the reader to absorb what West is trying to say without being overwhelmed by the immense amounts of information. I have to say that I was most fascinated by her discourses on Yugoslav history. Balkan history can be a challenge because most of us in the West really don't understand the people or places involved. A section on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand runs on forever and never becomes boring. In fact, I became so enraptured of this event that I started reading other works concerning the assassination. Even though there are some problems with West's interpretation of history, her accounts are so well written that it makes the reader want to go out and read more about these events. Many have criticized Rebecca West for her bias and her tendency to simplify history. This is a valid concern. Her most serious transgression is her rabid hatred of anything German. It literally infects parts of the book with a somber, unpleasant tone. Right from the beginning of the book we see West criticizing a group of German tourists who are on a train with her as she travels into the Balkans. The bias finds greatest expression when West writes about her relationship with her Yugoslav guide Constantine and his wife Gerda. Constantine is a Jew and a Slav, but Gerda is a German whom West seems to believe is a Nazi. West's slanders on Gerda are endless, so much so that Constantine himself eventually turns against West. What is important to remember is that West is English and World War II was only a few years away. West actually wrote this book a few years after her trip, in 1941, so war was already raging between the two countries. If I were a German, I would be offended by West's comments. Please read this book. I guarantee you'll enjoy it, at least to some extent. Even if you don't like history, the descriptions of the Yugoslav people and places are enchanting. I wanted to hop on a plane and go to Yugoslavia after reading this book, although it's important to remember that this account was written during World War II and before the Communist occupation that followed the war. I imagine things have changed quite a bit in this part of the world since the 1930's. What prose! What endless beauty! Images that flow like honey! Read this and dream!!
Product Review
Part travelogue, part history, part love letter on a thousand-page scale, Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a genre-bending masterwork written in elegant prose. But what makes it so unlikely to be confused with any other book of history, politics, or culture--with, in fact, any other book--is its unashamed depth of feeling: think The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire crossed with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. West visited Yugoslavia for the first time in 1936. What she saw there affected her so much that she had to return--partly, she writes, because it most resembled "the country I have always seen between sleeping and waking," and partly because "it was like picking up a strand of wool that would lead me out of a labyrinth in which, to my surprise, I had found myself immured." Black Lamb is the chronicle of her travels, but above all it is West following that strand of wool: through countless historical digressions; through winding narratives of battles, slavery, and assassinations; through Shakespeare and Augustine and into the very heart of human frailty.
West wrote on the brink of World War II, when she was "already convinced of the inevitability of the second Anglo-German war." The resulting book is colored by that impending conflict, and by West's search for universals amid the complex particulars of Balkan history. In the end, she saw the region's doom--and our own--in a double infatuation with sacrifice, the "black lamb and grey falcon" of her title. It's the story of Abraham and Isaac without the last-minute reprieve: those who hate are all too ready to martyr the innocent in order to procure their own advantage, and the innocent themselves are all too eager to be martyred. To West, in 1941, "the whole world is a vast Kossovo, an abominable blood-logged plain." Unfortunately, little has happened since then to prove her wrong. --Mary Park
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