The Winter Soldier
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- 5,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
From the bestselling author of The Piano Tuner, comes Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier, a story of love and medicine through the devastation of the First World War.
'Part mystery, part war story, part romance, The Winter Soldier is a dream of a novel' - Anthony Doerr, author of All The Light We Cannot See.
Vienna, 1914: Lucius is a young, idealistic medical student, whose life takes an unexpected turn with the outbreak of the Great War. Volunteering in the name of heroic battlefield tales, he finds himself in a catastrophic field-hospital, besieged by typhus, and thrust into a grueling learning process from the only remaining nurse.
The real test of his resolve comes with the arrival of an enigmatic soldier, his uniform filled with mysterious drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the course of his life.
The Winter Soldier carries you from the grand ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the icy trenches of the Eastern Front, in a gripping story of the tragedies of war, the struggles for redemption, and a poignant exploration of love born amidst despair.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mason's moving historical novel (after The Piano Tuner), Lucius Krzelewski is a 22-year-old, upper-class medical student in 1914 Vienna who, after Austria enters World War I, volunteers for duty. Despite his lack of practical experience, he is sent to a field hospital in the Carpathian Mountains, where he is expected to perform emergency surgeries. Fortunately, he is guided by Sister Margarete, a nurse with a mysterious background who teaches him the surgical skills he lacks. They go on to become lovers. One day, they are given a new patient, a shell-shocked soldier who can only communicate by drawing pictures. Lucius becomes obsessed with finding a cure for this patient, who is dubbed the winter soldier. Then, Margarete disappears and Lucius gets lost looking for her. He is transferred to another medical unit, then is returned home to Vienna. But despite an arranged marriage, Lucius can't go on with his life until he finds out what happened to Margarete and the winter soldier. Mason's old-fashioned novel delivers a sweeping yet intimate account of WWI, and in Lucius, the author has created an outstanding protagonist. Reminiscent of Thomas Keneally's Season in Purgatory, this novel is a fine addition to fictional testaments of doctors and nurses during wartime.
