Lord Flashheart, the randy fighter ace played by Rik Mayall in Blackadder Goes Forth, once jokingly complained of the First World War, “This damn war. The blood, the noise, the endless poetry”.  He could just as easily have said “the endless novels”, given how much inspiration that war has provided to novelists in recent years.

Louis de Bernières’ latest story is a sprawling 500 page family saga set mostly during and after “the war to end all wars”, as H.G. Wells described it.  It centers on the McCosh family, an affluent and somewhat eccentric clan living in Eltham, and more especially on the fates of its four daughters.

This is a soothing, comforting novel, a type of fiction that’s gone out of fashion, perhaps deservedly.  In the hands of a less gifted writer it might have turned out sentimental and silly, but de Bernières knows how to tell a story.  Reading it, I was reminded of watching Downton Abbey and that feeling of being drawn into an enchanting, seductive, and not entirely believable world.  There’s some vivid and occasionally very funny writing, and overall it’s never a strain to read, but the effort to portray the significance of the war often seems labored.  This is ground covered more subtly and effectively by the likes of Pat Barker and Sarah Waters.

Incidentally, the dust jacket of the U.S. hardback edition is one of the most attractive I’ve seen recently.