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Fortune
An audacious, entertaining historical epic spanning continents and centuries, for readers of David Mitchell, Column McCann, Kate Atkinson, and Eleanor Catton.
Fortune is a dazzling, endlessly surprising historical novel that opens the day Napoleon leads his victorious Grande Armée into Berlin after having conquered Prussia in battle. As crowds throng the streets to witness the emperor in his glory, a handful of lives that briefly touch are sprung from their orbits and set on courses that will take them across Europe and around the world—their fates and desires sometimes intersecting—to strange lands in the Caribbean and South America, the Australian continent and Van Diemen's Land, and back to a Europe now transformed.
A frustrated general in Napoleon's army, billeted with one of Berlin's finest families. Elisabeth, a passionate young woman living in that house. The young man with whom she locks eyes through a window as he's engaged in a sexual encounter at the moment Napoleon makes his grand entrance. An entrepreneur in New World exotica, whose house is the setting for the tryst. A slave from Suriname, Mr. Hendrik, with his resentful white American companion, who have traveled to Berlin to sell a barrel of electric eels for their master. And a lost soul enamored of philosophy in the coffeehouses where students gather, who decides to join Mr. Hendrik and the American on their return voyage.
Through their stories amid war, cataclysm, colliding cultures, and misadventure, Lenny Bartulin imagines the ways that chance and the grand events of history shape the course of ordinary lives.
Fortune is a dazzling, endlessly surprising historical novel that opens the day Napoleon leads his victorious Grande Armée into Berlin after having conquered Prussia in battle. As crowds throng the streets to witness the emperor in his glory, a handful of lives that briefly touch are sprung from their orbits and set on courses that will take them across Europe and around the world—their fates and desires sometimes intersecting—to strange lands in the Caribbean and South America, the Australian continent and Van Diemen's Land, and back to a Europe now transformed.
A frustrated general in Napoleon's army, billeted with one of Berlin's finest families. Elisabeth, a passionate young woman living in that house. The young man with whom she locks eyes through a window as he's engaged in a sexual encounter at the moment Napoleon makes his grand entrance. An entrepreneur in New World exotica, whose house is the setting for the tryst. A slave from Suriname, Mr. Hendrik, with his resentful white American companion, who have traveled to Berlin to sell a barrel of electric eels for their master. And a lost soul enamored of philosophy in the coffeehouses where students gather, who decides to join Mr. Hendrik and the American on their return voyage.
Through their stories amid war, cataclysm, colliding cultures, and misadventure, Lenny Bartulin imagines the ways that chance and the grand events of history shape the course of ordinary lives.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2019
25 people are currently reading
821 people want to read
About the author
Lenny Bartulin
9 books21 followersLenny Bartulin is the author of Death by the Book aka A Deadly Business (2008). His poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including HEAT, Meanjin, and New Australian Stories. His latest novel is The Black Russian.
Lenny Bartulin was born in Hobart in 1969 and lives in Sydney.
Lenny Bartulin was born in Hobart in 1969 and lives in Sydney.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
November 3, 2023
4.5★
“But Beatrice turned away, went to the front door and stepped outside. Then the door closed and she was gone. And that’s all we’ll ever know about her. She has slipped off our map.”
That is indicative of the strange, meandering nature of this far-reaching, far-fetched novel. You never know which character will turn up again in what far-flung place or disappear forever. Berlin, Suriname, Australia, and all points between. Battlefields, jungle rivers, plantations. Far out, indeed.
Fortune means everything here: riches, luck, success. Who has, or will achieve, what?
I don’t know how many stories there are or how many characters cross paths with each other or dip in and out of each other’s stories over the course of a century and a bit.
Some characters recur from beginning to end (one is 126 years old?) or nearly the end, while some have macabre outcomes. There are petty thieves, whores, smugglers, and slave traders. Animal collectors and dealers. Soldiers and armies.
One of them is also a philosopher.
“‘Life is not unfurling in a line, but rather being spun, constantly, around and around our voluptuous Mother Earth, who is herself simultaneously turning, turning!’”
That seems to me to apply to this book. It begins in 1806, with Napoleon entering Berlin on his big white horse, and ends in France in 1916, in the middle of WWI. But there are flashbacks and memories that spin the stories around each other.
Johannes Meyer is a teenager who is pulled into an empty house by young Beatrice (the girl who disappeared in the opening quotation) for a quick fling (her idea, but he’s happy to comply). The window to the street is open, and the coupling pair are seen by a few people passing by. They coincidentally appear later in the story, sometimes a world away. (Far-fetched?) One of them is another young woman. She’s not so much shocked as jealous.
“Elisabeth was seventeen years old and locked inside the heated tumult of a young body. Her skin was sensitive to even the thought of a touch; her nights were long and sleepless in her transforming. She was overwhelmed by love and longing, could hardly wait to enter the world and be found by this love, a dream of such exquisite possibility that it seemed inevitable. Instead, she found herself in a constant state of anticipation, disappointment and, ultimately, boredom.”
Typical teenager. There are many wry asides, as if the author is giving us a wink and a nod to say this is mostly fiction, but you know, a lot of these things really happened somewhere, and this is your history.
As for the fictional characters, some are terrifying. There is torture and slaughter, not to mention collectors of shrunken heads (including instructions of how to shrink-one-yourself – eww). One man waits at the bottom of a guillotine and attempts to talk to freshly beheaded heads, going so far as to coach the condemned prisoners beforehand to respond to him “after” – (eww again).
Much of this reminded of the darkly funny parts of Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan and Barkskins by Annie Proulx, two books which seemed to cover both the humanity and inhumanity of colonisation, also with dark humour.
There’s nothing funny about transportation. This description of the ‘Guildford’ would put off the strongest seafarer. It is
“bound for New South Wales. LONDON – CANARY ISLANDS – RIO DE JANEIRO – CAPE TOWN – PORT JACKSON
. . .
Down the ladder, into the hold.
They rushed and wrestled for the berths nearer the hatchways. They fought, dominance and subservience re-established. The weakest would trade all sorts of favours down the line.
After some time, the heavy vibration of the anchor chain suddenly rumbled through the hull. Not a man moved, each one stock-still, sentences cut off in the middle, thoughts slashed, dropped dead. They listened.
The timbers boomed and the ship groaned, the bow dipped under the strain; the men stood braced. Above they could hear the sailors running and shouting now, and whistles blew and their bare feet drummed the deck and then, just like that, the ‘Guildford’ came free and began to float. Every man’s stomach lurched.”
I’ve given nothing of he sense of the flow of the story, largely because it doesn’t so much flow as hit you in the face with short chapters, and sometimes it’s up to you to figure out how it fits in with the others (and it will). Some descriptions are lovely and evocative - it's not all grim!
I think this is one that will divide readers, depending on tastes and moods. I may have to read it again – it was complicated (for me), but intriguing enough to want to piece more together.
Thanks to NetGalley and Arcade Publishing for the review copy from which I’ve quoted.
My review of Gould's Book of Fish:A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
My review of Barkskins by Annie Proulx
“But Beatrice turned away, went to the front door and stepped outside. Then the door closed and she was gone. And that’s all we’ll ever know about her. She has slipped off our map.”
That is indicative of the strange, meandering nature of this far-reaching, far-fetched novel. You never know which character will turn up again in what far-flung place or disappear forever. Berlin, Suriname, Australia, and all points between. Battlefields, jungle rivers, plantations. Far out, indeed.
Fortune means everything here: riches, luck, success. Who has, or will achieve, what?
I don’t know how many stories there are or how many characters cross paths with each other or dip in and out of each other’s stories over the course of a century and a bit.
Some characters recur from beginning to end (one is 126 years old?) or nearly the end, while some have macabre outcomes. There are petty thieves, whores, smugglers, and slave traders. Animal collectors and dealers. Soldiers and armies.
One of them is also a philosopher.
“‘Life is not unfurling in a line, but rather being spun, constantly, around and around our voluptuous Mother Earth, who is herself simultaneously turning, turning!’”
That seems to me to apply to this book. It begins in 1806, with Napoleon entering Berlin on his big white horse, and ends in France in 1916, in the middle of WWI. But there are flashbacks and memories that spin the stories around each other.
Johannes Meyer is a teenager who is pulled into an empty house by young Beatrice (the girl who disappeared in the opening quotation) for a quick fling (her idea, but he’s happy to comply). The window to the street is open, and the coupling pair are seen by a few people passing by. They coincidentally appear later in the story, sometimes a world away. (Far-fetched?) One of them is another young woman. She’s not so much shocked as jealous.
“Elisabeth was seventeen years old and locked inside the heated tumult of a young body. Her skin was sensitive to even the thought of a touch; her nights were long and sleepless in her transforming. She was overwhelmed by love and longing, could hardly wait to enter the world and be found by this love, a dream of such exquisite possibility that it seemed inevitable. Instead, she found herself in a constant state of anticipation, disappointment and, ultimately, boredom.”
Typical teenager. There are many wry asides, as if the author is giving us a wink and a nod to say this is mostly fiction, but you know, a lot of these things really happened somewhere, and this is your history.
As for the fictional characters, some are terrifying. There is torture and slaughter, not to mention collectors of shrunken heads (including instructions of how to shrink-one-yourself – eww). One man waits at the bottom of a guillotine and attempts to talk to freshly beheaded heads, going so far as to coach the condemned prisoners beforehand to respond to him “after” – (eww again).
Much of this reminded of the darkly funny parts of Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan and Barkskins by Annie Proulx, two books which seemed to cover both the humanity and inhumanity of colonisation, also with dark humour.
There’s nothing funny about transportation. This description of the ‘Guildford’ would put off the strongest seafarer. It is
“bound for New South Wales. LONDON – CANARY ISLANDS – RIO DE JANEIRO – CAPE TOWN – PORT JACKSON
. . .
Down the ladder, into the hold.
They rushed and wrestled for the berths nearer the hatchways. They fought, dominance and subservience re-established. The weakest would trade all sorts of favours down the line.
After some time, the heavy vibration of the anchor chain suddenly rumbled through the hull. Not a man moved, each one stock-still, sentences cut off in the middle, thoughts slashed, dropped dead. They listened.
The timbers boomed and the ship groaned, the bow dipped under the strain; the men stood braced. Above they could hear the sailors running and shouting now, and whistles blew and their bare feet drummed the deck and then, just like that, the ‘Guildford’ came free and began to float. Every man’s stomach lurched.”
I’ve given nothing of he sense of the flow of the story, largely because it doesn’t so much flow as hit you in the face with short chapters, and sometimes it’s up to you to figure out how it fits in with the others (and it will). Some descriptions are lovely and evocative - it's not all grim!
I think this is one that will divide readers, depending on tastes and moods. I may have to read it again – it was complicated (for me), but intriguing enough to want to piece more together.
Thanks to NetGalley and Arcade Publishing for the review copy from which I’ve quoted.
My review of Gould's Book of Fish:A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan
My review of Barkskins by Annie Proulx
July 29, 2019
This is a strange book!
Not gonna lie, I mostly wanted to read it because I fell in love with that cover. So pretty.
The story is random, and at times hard to follow, but I kind of enjoyed being swept up and along? I really enjoyed the unpredictability of it; that there wasn't really a plot other than kind of watching at the window of these lives as they progressed.
There's several stories and I don't think I could name a favourite, as there were fascinating happenings across the globe. Strange occurrences and intertwining fates and luck and un-luck. What a whirlwind.
It's vague and meaty all the same; it dances back and forth between people and places but endlessly moves forward, dragging these souls with it. There were some really fun adventures, and some gruesome details not for the faint of heart; there was love and tenderness and tragedy.
I don't think it's for everyone but I'm surprised at how much I loved the randomness of it. Worth a shot for people looking to taste something a little more unique.
Not gonna lie, I mostly wanted to read it because I fell in love with that cover. So pretty.
The story is random, and at times hard to follow, but I kind of enjoyed being swept up and along? I really enjoyed the unpredictability of it; that there wasn't really a plot other than kind of watching at the window of these lives as they progressed.
There's several stories and I don't think I could name a favourite, as there were fascinating happenings across the globe. Strange occurrences and intertwining fates and luck and un-luck. What a whirlwind.
It's vague and meaty all the same; it dances back and forth between people and places but endlessly moves forward, dragging these souls with it. There were some really fun adventures, and some gruesome details not for the faint of heart; there was love and tenderness and tragedy.
I don't think it's for everyone but I'm surprised at how much I loved the randomness of it. Worth a shot for people looking to taste something a little more unique.
March 12, 2021
4.5★
Wow, I was not expecting that! I totally missed this book when it was originally published in Australia, but am glad that I've now had the opportunity to catch up because I loved it. Anyone who has followed my reviews for a while will know that I can't resist a story about connections, or the connectedness of people/events, and this one delivers in spades. I was entertained from the first page to the last of this fresh, fast-paced novel.
It all begins in December 1806 when Napoleon Bonaparte triumphantly enters Berlin. Most of the main characters are there on that day - some already known to each other - and are keenly aware of the significance, even if they don't all see the parade. Over the following years, these characters spin away from Berlin, all across the globe, sometimes crossing paths and other times just missing each other. A bit like looking into a kaleidoscope. Their journeys take them across Europe, South America and Oceania. From Johannes Meyer, world's worst deserter, to Krüger, the gentle philosopher, I found them all to be interesting in their own way, and the things that happened to them could only have been conceived by a first-class imagination. In the meantime, Bonaparte's life is moving forward too, and we occasionally check back in on him (I don't know how historically accurate these parts of the story were - it's highlighted a gap in my knowledge that I need to fill).
Never having read Bartulin before, I loved his style. Chapters are short and sharp, allowing us to keep track of what is a rather large cast of characters, while still flowing smoothly forward. There are some truly vivid scenes that will stay with me forever, I'm sure. For example, there's Claus von Rolt running through his apartment, naked but for the shrunken head he's wearing around his neck. Or Krüger being given the raw hand of a howler monkey to eat, causing him to retch over the side of the canoe, as he recognises how it resembles the hand of a child.
I'm glad to have been introduced to this exciting author and have already added his Infamy to my TBR list.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.
Wow, I was not expecting that! I totally missed this book when it was originally published in Australia, but am glad that I've now had the opportunity to catch up because I loved it. Anyone who has followed my reviews for a while will know that I can't resist a story about connections, or the connectedness of people/events, and this one delivers in spades. I was entertained from the first page to the last of this fresh, fast-paced novel.
It all begins in December 1806 when Napoleon Bonaparte triumphantly enters Berlin. Most of the main characters are there on that day - some already known to each other - and are keenly aware of the significance, even if they don't all see the parade. Over the following years, these characters spin away from Berlin, all across the globe, sometimes crossing paths and other times just missing each other. A bit like looking into a kaleidoscope. Their journeys take them across Europe, South America and Oceania. From Johannes Meyer, world's worst deserter, to Krüger, the gentle philosopher, I found them all to be interesting in their own way, and the things that happened to them could only have been conceived by a first-class imagination. In the meantime, Bonaparte's life is moving forward too, and we occasionally check back in on him (I don't know how historically accurate these parts of the story were - it's highlighted a gap in my knowledge that I need to fill).
Never having read Bartulin before, I loved his style. Chapters are short and sharp, allowing us to keep track of what is a rather large cast of characters, while still flowing smoothly forward. There are some truly vivid scenes that will stay with me forever, I'm sure. For example, there's Claus von Rolt running through his apartment, naked but for the shrunken head he's wearing around his neck. Or Krüger being given the raw hand of a howler monkey to eat, causing him to retch over the side of the canoe, as he recognises how it resembles the hand of a child.
I'm glad to have been introduced to this exciting author and have already added his Infamy to my TBR list.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.
March 12, 2021
"That the whole earth was a single entity, that each one of us was a mere hair strand of its memory" (Fortune, Location 1100)While major historical events unfold, "ordinary" people keep going about their lives, experiencing joys, hardships, fateful meetings and making what will become life-changing decisions. That is the basis for Lenny Bartulin's new US release, Fortune. The novel is a sweeping historical epic, comprised of several intertwined narrative threads told from uniquely personal perspectives.
As Napoleon marches into Berlin in October 1806, we see the event through the eyes of several characters.
Johannes Meyer, aged eighteen, abandons the crowd watching the Grande Armée, to enjoy a brief tryst with a coffee house waitress. They're observed in flagrante delicto through a window by two passers-by, Marie-Henri Beyle, years prior to finding his fame as the philosopher / writer Stendhal, and seventeen-year-old Elizabeth von Hoffman. Johannes and Elizabeth briefly lock eyes, the moment passes and they move in separate directions towards their far-flung destinies.
Later that evening, Prussian Heinrich Krüger is heckled as he philosophises on the cyclical nature of time, life, knowledge and love. On the other side of Berlin, specimen collector Claus von Rolt receives an American, Wesley Lewis Jr. and his Surinamese companion, Mr. Hendrik, who are trying to dispose of a barrel of rare but rapidly deteriorating live electric eels on behalf of their employer, plantation owner Captain van der Velde. After an altercation with the three men, Johannes finds himself forcibly conscripted to the Grande Armée as a drummer. Following a chance meeting, Kruger decides to accompany Lewis and Hendrik as they set out on their return journey to Paramaribo, Suriname.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth forms a romantic attachment to Général de Brigade Michel François Fourés of the Grande Armée, who is temporarily billeted at her elderly aunt's residence, and absconds with him, dreaming of a life of adventure.
From Berlin, the characters' paths diverge, occasionally crossing or unwittingly passing by, first through western and northern Europe, then across the Atlantic to South America. One character finds himself in remote Van Dieman's Land (now Tasmania, Australia), before a twist of fate leads him once again to meet a familiar set of eyes.
A brief final episode set in Tasmania and the trenches of World War 1 in Europe brings the story full circle.
Given that the above is only a brief overview of the cast of characters and unfolding storyline of Fortune, readers will appreciate that it takes some concentration to keep track of the various personalities and timelines, as the short chapters jump between the different perspectives. That concentration, however, is justly rewarded by a rich and complex reading experience, featuring well-developed characters, engrossing plots and exotic locations.
Lenny Bartulin's writing is lyrical and evocative, without ever becoming cumbersome or convoluted. I found myself genuinely engaged in the titular fortunes of the two central characters, Johannes and Elizabeth, as they unfold, buffeted by turns of luck, circumstance and apparently random events. The focus moves seamlessly from seemingly mundane details of day-to-day life to occasional glimpses of famous figures and notable historical events. Bartulin's considerable research into the period(s) in which his book is set is evident throughout. I was particularly delighted to find a cross-over with Adam Courtenay's modern Tasmanian classic, The Ship that Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History, of which I am very fond.
It has taken me some time to mull over this book before writing my review, such was the effect it had on me. I recommend it highly to all readers who enjoy historical epic, swashbuckling adventures and quality character-driven sagas.
My thanks to the author, fellow Tasmanian Lenny Bartulin, publisher Skyhorse Publishing (Arcade Publishing) and Netgalley, for the opportunity to read and review this excellent title.
June 4, 2019
Uniquely poetic historical fiction: Fortune starts in 1806 as Napoleon Bonaparte leads his triumphant army into Berlin. As Berlin turns out to see the conqueror the scene is set and the context is lavishly laid out for the reader to discover the characters that will be traced across the years and decades as they leave Berlin and spread out over the world. The different individuals, all with lives that have glanced off each other in passing during the parade, are introduced early on. They are all different, interesting, strange and engrossing but they are rather more like vehicles for the story than characters for the reader to bond closely with.
It is definitely the writing that sets this novel apart from others that I have read recently, poetic, lyrical and enticing it was was an exceptionally lush reading experience. If there was a textural analogy to reading, this book would be like running your hand over rich, expensive velvet. The text is so intensely descriptive, so very wealthy in detail that it is a very rich reading experience.
As well as Berlin, South America, Australia and Europe all feature as the characters spread around the world and the author has a unique way of making the places spring to life. The places, whether South America or the ship that takes us there, have both the good and the bad, the beauty and the barbarism of the experiences described beautifully. The vivid descriptions made me want to read more slowly, to take portions of the text away to mull over in my mind for a while before coming back to read the next bit
Also, I really enjoyed the way this book started with the characters all together, and spread them wider and wider, further and further away from each other. This is the exact opposite of a lot of books I have read recently, where the story lines start separate and slowly come together and I really enjoyed this different reading experience. The end was less of a finish than a slow spinning out of all the lives the story touches on, until there are none left. The ending was another thing that I went away thinking about.
A couple of details; there are not really chapters, there are XI separate 'books' in each of which, especially at the beginning, we skip from one character to another and the timely advances for all of them. I would recommend starting this book when you have a good portion of reading time ahead of you. By the end of the first 'book' I had all the characters firmly in mind but it too that long for me to fix them all.
With thanks to Allen & Unwin for this advance reading copy in return for an honest opinion.
It is definitely the writing that sets this novel apart from others that I have read recently, poetic, lyrical and enticing it was was an exceptionally lush reading experience. If there was a textural analogy to reading, this book would be like running your hand over rich, expensive velvet. The text is so intensely descriptive, so very wealthy in detail that it is a very rich reading experience.
As well as Berlin, South America, Australia and Europe all feature as the characters spread around the world and the author has a unique way of making the places spring to life. The places, whether South America or the ship that takes us there, have both the good and the bad, the beauty and the barbarism of the experiences described beautifully. The vivid descriptions made me want to read more slowly, to take portions of the text away to mull over in my mind for a while before coming back to read the next bit
Also, I really enjoyed the way this book started with the characters all together, and spread them wider and wider, further and further away from each other. This is the exact opposite of a lot of books I have read recently, where the story lines start separate and slowly come together and I really enjoyed this different reading experience. The end was less of a finish than a slow spinning out of all the lives the story touches on, until there are none left. The ending was another thing that I went away thinking about.
A couple of details; there are not really chapters, there are XI separate 'books' in each of which, especially at the beginning, we skip from one character to another and the timely advances for all of them. I would recommend starting this book when you have a good portion of reading time ahead of you. By the end of the first 'book' I had all the characters firmly in mind but it too that long for me to fix them all.
With thanks to Allen & Unwin for this advance reading copy in return for an honest opinion.
August 7, 2019
Many thanks to Allen & Unwin for this fantastic ARC of Fortune by Lenny Bartulin and to submit my review.
This book is loaded with energy with many, very colourful characters. The author has a wild imagination. The reader, may just be a little out of breath when finally reaching the end after all the globe trotting combined with all the characters and their experiences including historical events. The book opens in Napoleonic times with Napoleon at the peak of his invasionary exploits. He has entered the Brandenburg Gate invading Berlin but contrary to most invaders Napoleon is treated like a modern day rock star. The Prussian people cannot get enough of him, they form huge crowds all waiting for a glimpse of this little Frenchman, the conqueror.
Johannes Meyer is at Otto Kessler's Coffee House who becomes very interested in what another man, Krüeger has to say with regards to "déjà vu" experiences, Johannes believes that this phenomenon is possible, that is, experiencing something that has occurred before. Johannes is young and is taken advantage of by the young waitress at the coffee shop seducing him in a nearby house near an open window in view of anybody passing by. However, as many are still holding out for a glimpse of Napoleon this isn't of a concern. One who does pass by is Elisabeth von Hoffman and in this immediate instant Johannes raises his head and they lock eyes. Whilst there is no immediate consequence of this, the "déjà vu" aspect comes into play near the end of the book. This window view encounter does nothing for the well being of Elisabeth, a young woman at the height of her sexual passions, locked into a restricted existence with a spinster aunt.
Johannes seems to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets dragged into so many situations beyond his control and it is with immense luck that he lives to survive all of them finally dying in Van Diemen's Land, however, the author doesn't give up his body even in 1915.
Elisabeth von Hoffman remarkably survives all her own trials after running away from her Aunt's home to elope and whilst on the docks of Valdivia, Chile where she now lives, she encounters a brief view of Johannes (now John) Meyer who is at this time an escaped convict working there. They both recognise each other from their first brief encounter years ago in Berlin but nothing transpires from this déjà vu moment, both perplexed at the sighting of each other again on the other side of the world.
Also introduced early to the reader is an American Wesley Lewis Jnr and Mr Hendrik (a slave in title but more of a companion) who is from Sth America, the jungles of Suriname (French Guiana) who in the first instance along with Wesley Lewis Jnr are trying to flog off electrificated eels from Suriname. Mr Hendrik is given a description that leaves no doubt in the reader's mind as to the physical presence and spiritualism of this man, reinforced by the obia he wears around his neck which through circumstances Krüeger inherits. Wesley Lewis Jnr is a totally unsavoury man who contributes to his own demise.
The characters of Johannes and Elisabeth are the most prominent characters of this read while Mr Hendrik, Wesley and Krüeger are secondary but equally interesting while the many other characters help to bind the book to it's title but really through their own actions change their fortune or lose out completely.
The read ends with a final twist just to add to this extraordinary book.
This book is loaded with energy with many, very colourful characters. The author has a wild imagination. The reader, may just be a little out of breath when finally reaching the end after all the globe trotting combined with all the characters and their experiences including historical events. The book opens in Napoleonic times with Napoleon at the peak of his invasionary exploits. He has entered the Brandenburg Gate invading Berlin but contrary to most invaders Napoleon is treated like a modern day rock star. The Prussian people cannot get enough of him, they form huge crowds all waiting for a glimpse of this little Frenchman, the conqueror.
Johannes Meyer is at Otto Kessler's Coffee House who becomes very interested in what another man, Krüeger has to say with regards to "déjà vu" experiences, Johannes believes that this phenomenon is possible, that is, experiencing something that has occurred before. Johannes is young and is taken advantage of by the young waitress at the coffee shop seducing him in a nearby house near an open window in view of anybody passing by. However, as many are still holding out for a glimpse of Napoleon this isn't of a concern. One who does pass by is Elisabeth von Hoffman and in this immediate instant Johannes raises his head and they lock eyes. Whilst there is no immediate consequence of this, the "déjà vu" aspect comes into play near the end of the book. This window view encounter does nothing for the well being of Elisabeth, a young woman at the height of her sexual passions, locked into a restricted existence with a spinster aunt.
Johannes seems to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets dragged into so many situations beyond his control and it is with immense luck that he lives to survive all of them finally dying in Van Diemen's Land, however, the author doesn't give up his body even in 1915.
Elisabeth von Hoffman remarkably survives all her own trials after running away from her Aunt's home to elope and whilst on the docks of Valdivia, Chile where she now lives, she encounters a brief view of Johannes (now John) Meyer who is at this time an escaped convict working there. They both recognise each other from their first brief encounter years ago in Berlin but nothing transpires from this déjà vu moment, both perplexed at the sighting of each other again on the other side of the world.
Also introduced early to the reader is an American Wesley Lewis Jnr and Mr Hendrik (a slave in title but more of a companion) who is from Sth America, the jungles of Suriname (French Guiana) who in the first instance along with Wesley Lewis Jnr are trying to flog off electrificated eels from Suriname. Mr Hendrik is given a description that leaves no doubt in the reader's mind as to the physical presence and spiritualism of this man, reinforced by the obia he wears around his neck which through circumstances Krüeger inherits. Wesley Lewis Jnr is a totally unsavoury man who contributes to his own demise.
The characters of Johannes and Elisabeth are the most prominent characters of this read while Mr Hendrik, Wesley and Krüeger are secondary but equally interesting while the many other characters help to bind the book to it's title but really through their own actions change their fortune or lose out completely.
The read ends with a final twist just to add to this extraordinary book.
February 12, 2020
Fortune is a strange, but entertaining story that starts in Berlin during 1806 and spans over a century. This historical fiction is brutal and violent at times and has many characters to keep track of as they disperse around the globe. Lenny Bartulin's book won't be for everyone, but in my opinion it was brilliant. Thanks to Allen & Unwin for my ARC.
May 24, 2021
Thanks to Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me. Too many character perspectives plopped in and the constant flipping between them made me unable to get really deep into the narrative.
Publication Date 16/02/21
Goodreads review published 22/05/21
Unfortunately, this one didn't work for me. Too many character perspectives plopped in and the constant flipping between them made me unable to get really deep into the narrative.
Publication Date 16/02/21
Goodreads review published 22/05/21
March 30, 2021
The cover of this one is 5 star worthy, unfortunately, the book wasn't anywhere near a 5 star read for me. This was another book that I kept setting aside to read other things. 🤷 It was ALL over the place. Hard to follow. The writing wasn't great. I'll just leave it at that.
**ARC Via NetGalley**
**ARC Via NetGalley**
February 7, 2021
What a mess.
I finished Fortune bewildered and dazed by the whiplash of the story. And, unfortunately, I don't mean any of that in a good way.
I really wanted this one to work. I was initially drawn in by the vibrantly beautiful cover, and then was pleasantly surprised when the description revealed that the book was largely set in Napoleonic Prussia. The descriptors promised that the book would be "A gripping, globe-spanning historical epic." I couldn't wait to see how the characters would end up going from Napoleon's Europe to South America, to Australia.
The novel opens with Napoleon parading gloriously through the streets of Berlin, as the people of the city strain to catch a glimpse of him. One of those people, caught in the crowd, is 18 year old Johannes. Apparently, according to the author, the event of an emperor strutting through the streets stirs uncontrollable lust in various women, many of who are "unable to resist" their urges.
Hmm... okay.
To prove this point, a girl who works at a coffee-house Johannes frequents happens to catch sight of him in the crowd. Without even greeting each other, she ends up immediately initiating a sexual encounter. She takes his hand in hers and brings him to her employer's house, where they brazenly have sex in front of a window out to the street.
As they are having sex, the famous author Stendhal walks by and watches them for a few minutes, until he is scared off by an approaching young lady. That young lady also stops to watch the two having sex, and Johannes looks up. Their eyes meet and apparently they form some sort of deep connection as he is literally inside another girl.
This all happened within the first few pages, and I was amused and bewildered (still in a mostly good way, so far). I definitely had not been expecting a triumphant Napoleonic parade to end in hookups and peeping Toms and - whatever it was that just happened.
At this point, I got the impression that the book was random and unpredictable, which I like.
There were already a few red flags - some very poor, amateur writing popping up in certain paragraphs, as well as strange titles (?) every few paragraphs or pages.
The author would include what seemed almost like chapter titles in bold, large letters that would preface as little as a couple paragraphs or up to a few pages of writing. This immediately struck me as annoying, but perhaps it was some quirk to the author's style that I would grow to accept as the story progressed (I did not).
These few misgivings aside, I mused that judging by the first dozen or so pages, I was in for a wild ride.
And was I ever right, because Fortune did indeed end up being a wild, unpredictable ride.
I mean that in the worst way.
This book tries to be everything at once, struggling so hard to be "expansive" and "epic" that it comes across as desperate. We are bombarded with hundreds of characters (one reviewer said "thousands," which certainly feels right), and given no time to get to know them. The reader is given no chance or reason to care what happens to any of them, and it would be absolutely impossible to pin down just who the main characters are, or who we are supposed to be rooting for. I had no sense of who anyone was, and did not care.
No doubt looking to add "meticulously detailed" to what he hoped reviewers would describe his book as, Bartulin throws absolutely everything we can (or would never) think of into the story.
Every single character is given a chance to jostle their way into the narrative, from the most inconsequential to the most powerful figures of the age.
The nameless guard making a note of Johannes' entry into the army? We switch to his thoughts and mindset for a few sentences. When another character is purchasing eels, we are given the entire, long story of years of the seller's life. When at one point Johannes picks up a trinket that has nothing to do with the story, we hear about the life of the woman who found it decades ago. We also are given glimpses into the thoughts of Napoleon, Empress Josephine, and various other influential players, although this is completely unnecessary to the story, and they are only lingered on for a few collective paragraphs. Stendhal, given a cameo of sorts at the beginning, does not re-appear until the end of the book - both instances needless. (I was disappointed that Stendhal didn't end up becoming an actual character, since coincidentally I am currently reading his famous novel The Red and the Black.)
The book switches perspectives at a dizzying breakneck speed, making it one long, tedious blur of characters. Absolutely none of them seem integral to the story. Even the two characters who appear most, and whose names perhaps I might draw out of the mire of faceless people as possibly the two protagonists (Johannes and Elisabeth) could have been removed from the book, and it would not have changed it all that much.
All in all, this book was jarring and disjointed, astoundingly convoluted, and bogged down with far, far, far too many characters.
Very disappointing and not recommended.
Thanks nevertheless to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for an ARC copy.
I finished Fortune bewildered and dazed by the whiplash of the story. And, unfortunately, I don't mean any of that in a good way.
I really wanted this one to work. I was initially drawn in by the vibrantly beautiful cover, and then was pleasantly surprised when the description revealed that the book was largely set in Napoleonic Prussia. The descriptors promised that the book would be "A gripping, globe-spanning historical epic." I couldn't wait to see how the characters would end up going from Napoleon's Europe to South America, to Australia.
The novel opens with Napoleon parading gloriously through the streets of Berlin, as the people of the city strain to catch a glimpse of him. One of those people, caught in the crowd, is 18 year old Johannes. Apparently, according to the author, the event of an emperor strutting through the streets stirs uncontrollable lust in various women, many of who are "unable to resist" their urges.
Hmm... okay.
To prove this point, a girl who works at a coffee-house Johannes frequents happens to catch sight of him in the crowd. Without even greeting each other, she ends up immediately initiating a sexual encounter. She takes his hand in hers and brings him to her employer's house, where they brazenly have sex in front of a window out to the street.
As they are having sex, the famous author Stendhal walks by and watches them for a few minutes, until he is scared off by an approaching young lady. That young lady also stops to watch the two having sex, and Johannes looks up. Their eyes meet and apparently they form some sort of deep connection as he is literally inside another girl.
This all happened within the first few pages, and I was amused and bewildered (still in a mostly good way, so far). I definitely had not been expecting a triumphant Napoleonic parade to end in hookups and peeping Toms and - whatever it was that just happened.
At this point, I got the impression that the book was random and unpredictable, which I like.
There were already a few red flags - some very poor, amateur writing popping up in certain paragraphs, as well as strange titles (?) every few paragraphs or pages.
The author would include what seemed almost like chapter titles in bold, large letters that would preface as little as a couple paragraphs or up to a few pages of writing. This immediately struck me as annoying, but perhaps it was some quirk to the author's style that I would grow to accept as the story progressed (I did not).
These few misgivings aside, I mused that judging by the first dozen or so pages, I was in for a wild ride.
And was I ever right, because Fortune did indeed end up being a wild, unpredictable ride.
I mean that in the worst way.
This book tries to be everything at once, struggling so hard to be "expansive" and "epic" that it comes across as desperate. We are bombarded with hundreds of characters (one reviewer said "thousands," which certainly feels right), and given no time to get to know them. The reader is given no chance or reason to care what happens to any of them, and it would be absolutely impossible to pin down just who the main characters are, or who we are supposed to be rooting for. I had no sense of who anyone was, and did not care.
No doubt looking to add "meticulously detailed" to what he hoped reviewers would describe his book as, Bartulin throws absolutely everything we can (or would never) think of into the story.
Every single character is given a chance to jostle their way into the narrative, from the most inconsequential to the most powerful figures of the age.
The nameless guard making a note of Johannes' entry into the army? We switch to his thoughts and mindset for a few sentences. When another character is purchasing eels, we are given the entire, long story of years of the seller's life. When at one point Johannes picks up a trinket that has nothing to do with the story, we hear about the life of the woman who found it decades ago. We also are given glimpses into the thoughts of Napoleon, Empress Josephine, and various other influential players, although this is completely unnecessary to the story, and they are only lingered on for a few collective paragraphs. Stendhal, given a cameo of sorts at the beginning, does not re-appear until the end of the book - both instances needless. (I was disappointed that Stendhal didn't end up becoming an actual character, since coincidentally I am currently reading his famous novel The Red and the Black.)
The book switches perspectives at a dizzying breakneck speed, making it one long, tedious blur of characters. Absolutely none of them seem integral to the story. Even the two characters who appear most, and whose names perhaps I might draw out of the mire of faceless people as possibly the two protagonists (Johannes and Elisabeth) could have been removed from the book, and it would not have changed it all that much.
All in all, this book was jarring and disjointed, astoundingly convoluted, and bogged down with far, far, far too many characters.
Very disappointing and not recommended.
Thanks nevertheless to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for an ARC copy.
June 23, 2019
The main characters in this book are all in Berlin on the day that Napoleon and his army march triumphantly into the city. The book then follows their divergent lives and fortunes. So we have a story with many threads to follow, which becomes rather confusing at times. I kept waiting for events to bring at least two or three characters together at the same place and time but that never happened. The other thing that never happened was getting to know these people more than superficially. The book simply narrates the ongoing story of each.
And what stories! The places, trials and tribulations endured were very imaginative and engrossing and the ends some of them came to were decidedly 'sticky'. As an adventure yarn its a lot of fun.
My thanks to Allen and Unwin for an advance copy.
And what stories! The places, trials and tribulations endured were very imaginative and engrossing and the ends some of them came to were decidedly 'sticky'. As an adventure yarn its a lot of fun.
My thanks to Allen and Unwin for an advance copy.
December 18, 2021
Brain: Don’t say it.
Me: It needs to be said.
Brain: But you’ve said it so many times before. Don’t do it.
Me: Mediocre white men ruin everything. Probably mediocre white women too, but glass houses and all that. This is one of those rare occasions where I’ve done the research, paid the money, spent the time, and just feel utterly duped. From the lustrous little reviews by other mediocre white men to the saucy little back cover blurb to the beautiful but utterly inapt cover art, I was seduced. And like most seductions, I was disappointed. The best I can say about Fortune by Lenny Bartulin is that it is a literary curio cabinet; superficially interesting but ultimately fleeting and shallow.
Me: It needs to be said.
Brain: But you’ve said it so many times before. Don’t do it.
Me: Mediocre white men ruin everything. Probably mediocre white women too, but glass houses and all that. This is one of those rare occasions where I’ve done the research, paid the money, spent the time, and just feel utterly duped. From the lustrous little reviews by other mediocre white men to the saucy little back cover blurb to the beautiful but utterly inapt cover art, I was seduced. And like most seductions, I was disappointed. The best I can say about Fortune by Lenny Bartulin is that it is a literary curio cabinet; superficially interesting but ultimately fleeting and shallow.
September 23, 2019
Fortune is a vast, sweeping tale of lives that briefly connected on one day in 1806, then scattered around the globe. We follow soldiers, slaves, philiosphers, collectors and adventurers, in a plausible series of echoes not dissimilar to Cloud Atlas. Readers should note triggers for decapitation, physical abuse, mutilation of bodies and violence towards people of colour in the context of slavery, including a graphic description of "hamstringing".
Exploring the lives of those who witnessed Napoleon's arrival in Berlin in 1806, Fortune's plot is sprawling and full of danger, adventure and curiosities. The novel spans slave-run plantations in Suriname, Napoleon's relationship with his wife Josephine, the experience of a young Prussian drummer boy soldier, and colonial New South Wales, among other places and voices. It is an historical epic on a grand scale, but the structure breaks this ambition into bite-sized chunks for the reader's digestive ease.
The opening is a wonderful, cinematic sweep of the novel's characters, and I found the snippets, with their direct address ("more of him later") arresting. From there, the characters take their own paths, some ending well, others not faring quite so well. The novel's central conceit is to follow these threads, each as far as they go. While Bartulin has written mostly men, the one woman we do follow grows from one dreaming of romance to one of impressive strength and fortitude, who has some great moments in the narrative.
Each character chooses, or is driven to, movement - all leave the lives we first meet them living. So Bartulin explores migration, being an insider or an outsider, as well as the central preoccupation of fortune - good, ill, arbitrary. Tied in closely is the question of freedom - his characters are from all social classes and include slaves, convicts and aristocrats, all seeking different forms of liberty. Bartulin's point is that all are subject to the mercy of the uncaring gods, who are mentioned haphazardly throughout.
The novel's structure appealed to me - short, propulsive fragments that shifted from perspective to perspective, most no longer than 3 pages. While it won't suit all readers, I very much enjoyed the way this forced Bartulin to advance the story in each fragment, turning the storytelling into the skillful weaving of a grand tapestry.
There is a charming insouciance to the omniscient narration that gives the impression all that occurs is both fated and worthy of some mockery. I took this to be tied in to the theme - how foolish the idea that men can shape their destiny.
Overall I found this a compelling read, rich with historical detail but also laced with violence. The conceit and structure worked for me, and I very much enjoyed being swept away on the tides of history.
I received a copy of Fortune from Allen and Unwin in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Exploring the lives of those who witnessed Napoleon's arrival in Berlin in 1806, Fortune's plot is sprawling and full of danger, adventure and curiosities. The novel spans slave-run plantations in Suriname, Napoleon's relationship with his wife Josephine, the experience of a young Prussian drummer boy soldier, and colonial New South Wales, among other places and voices. It is an historical epic on a grand scale, but the structure breaks this ambition into bite-sized chunks for the reader's digestive ease.
The opening is a wonderful, cinematic sweep of the novel's characters, and I found the snippets, with their direct address ("more of him later") arresting. From there, the characters take their own paths, some ending well, others not faring quite so well. The novel's central conceit is to follow these threads, each as far as they go. While Bartulin has written mostly men, the one woman we do follow grows from one dreaming of romance to one of impressive strength and fortitude, who has some great moments in the narrative.
Each character chooses, or is driven to, movement - all leave the lives we first meet them living. So Bartulin explores migration, being an insider or an outsider, as well as the central preoccupation of fortune - good, ill, arbitrary. Tied in closely is the question of freedom - his characters are from all social classes and include slaves, convicts and aristocrats, all seeking different forms of liberty. Bartulin's point is that all are subject to the mercy of the uncaring gods, who are mentioned haphazardly throughout.
The novel's structure appealed to me - short, propulsive fragments that shifted from perspective to perspective, most no longer than 3 pages. While it won't suit all readers, I very much enjoyed the way this forced Bartulin to advance the story in each fragment, turning the storytelling into the skillful weaving of a grand tapestry.
There is a charming insouciance to the omniscient narration that gives the impression all that occurs is both fated and worthy of some mockery. I took this to be tied in to the theme - how foolish the idea that men can shape their destiny.
Overall I found this a compelling read, rich with historical detail but also laced with violence. The conceit and structure worked for me, and I very much enjoyed being swept away on the tides of history.
I received a copy of Fortune from Allen and Unwin in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
February 1, 2021
Fortune follows a group of characters on their journey throughout the French Revolution. The story doesn't revolve around one set character, but takes place in multiple different settings. Jumping from locations like Prussia, to Guyana, to Britain. The story starts in an engaging way, with the meeting of a soon-to-be soldier in the Prussian army and the charming, charismatic Elisabeth!
Fortune did an amazing job in portraying characters of the time period as they should have been. The way the characters were written also made it easy to sympathize and relate to their mixes of emotions. The way that the time frames and perspectives switched through chapters was written much smoother than I had thought it would be, and though the characters may have been hard to keep up with, their miniscule personality changes made them a bit simpler to identify and visualize. The illustration of the cover is also stunning! The way that the elements of the cover can represent locations, and the status of characters is both intelligent and beautiful.
Though the writing style of the book made the story enjoyable, the amount of characters in the book was a little unnecessary. Had there been a little more utilization of their names, or markers in chapter headings indicating that it was a specific character's point of view, the book could have been easier to breeze through. The pacing was also a bit slow for my taste, the beginning of the story was gripping and gave me a good first impression of where the story was headed, but I started to feel like I was wading through quicksand, while getting through the stor.y. Although, the story was fairly interesting for the topic matter.
Fortune did an amazing job in portraying characters of the time period as they should have been. The way the characters were written also made it easy to sympathize and relate to their mixes of emotions. The way that the time frames and perspectives switched through chapters was written much smoother than I had thought it would be, and though the characters may have been hard to keep up with, their miniscule personality changes made them a bit simpler to identify and visualize. The illustration of the cover is also stunning! The way that the elements of the cover can represent locations, and the status of characters is both intelligent and beautiful.
Though the writing style of the book made the story enjoyable, the amount of characters in the book was a little unnecessary. Had there been a little more utilization of their names, or markers in chapter headings indicating that it was a specific character's point of view, the book could have been easier to breeze through. The pacing was also a bit slow for my taste, the beginning of the story was gripping and gave me a good first impression of where the story was headed, but I started to feel like I was wading through quicksand, while getting through the stor.y. Although, the story was fairly interesting for the topic matter.
August 14, 2023
Was fine, a bit hard to follow narratively but moved quickly
February 15, 2021
What a great writer. Intelligent , witty , and fast paced historical fiction. And so different. I’ll let others explain it but all I can tell you is that this is something special. Have put Bartulin’s previous historical ,infamy, on my must read list. Highly recommended.
July 2, 2019
Fortune presents an interesting concept, and the book certainly caught and held my attention from start to finish. The way the story weaves from character and character and year to year works well. Once or twice I felt I would have liked to have spent a little more time with certain people and gotten to know them better, but overall there was sufficient detail sketched into the characters and situations for the reader to relate to them and follow clearly what was happening, to whom, and why. The prose style was simply yet engaging, and I would certainly been keen to read further works from this author in the future. I recommend Fortune to fans of historical fiction with a literary fiction bent, or historical fiction readers looking for something a little different from the usual fare.
I received this book as a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
May 27, 2021
There’s something off about Fortune.
I picked up Fortune because I’d just finished reading the absolutely fantastic Tyll, and was excited at the thought of another rollicking historical picaresque. Fortune promised that. It follows the lives of several characters who briefly interact on the night of Napoleon’s triumphant march into Berlin, spinning out their lives in the tumult that follows, chasing them across Europe into South America and Australia. A brief moment of contact that spins out into a tangled web of connections – it seemed to offer the kind of shimmering web of fate and chance that the best Tom Stoppard plays produce. But it never quite gets there.
There are two main problems with the book, one I feel completely comfortable talking about and one I less sure on. But it felt weird to read this book without raising questions about the way it talks about race. To get there, I’ll start with the first problem – the plot.
Johannes, Elizabeth and Krueger are all in Berlin on the night of Napoleon’s ascendency. Krueger is a philosopher, desperately trying to get people to listen to his ideas on the repetitive nature on time. Elizabeth is a sheltered young woman, stifled in her aunts home and desperate to have sex. Johannes is a naïve young poet. It’s he who listens to Krueger’s ideas for one evening, and it’s he who seems to form a connection with Elizabeth – as he loses his virginity to another woman, he looks up and sees her peeking in through the window and the two share a moment of transcendent connection. So far, so wonderful. Tangled theories on time, the kind of metaphysically important love that one sees in historical novels – all right up my street.
The problem is that it doesn’t go anywhere.
Krueger, despite being the least interesting character in the book, has by far the most interesting plotline – he ends up bound to South America, to free the sister of an enslaved man he meets by chance, Mr Hendrick (we’ll get to him later). Elizabeth runs away with a French major, and then spends a lot of time just having things happen to her which lightly brush the edge of historical events. Johannes ends up arrested on false charges and conscripted into military after military, misery after misery. Every time the book circles back to his plotline it’s unendingly depressing. Any sparks of interest he has, any moment where it seems he might touch something beyond himself, go nowhere. The characters never meet again, except for one chance meeting of eyes that goes nowhere. Nothing they do has any kind of point, or moral. For most of Elizabeth and Johannes stories, we are reading the biographies of two people who just aren’t that interesting.
It’s irritating, because there are parts of this book that are startlingly well written. Johannes fleeing a battle, his brief moment of connection with Elizabeth – the prose in these passages practically sings. But there has to be heart. Tyll is similar to Fortune in a lot of ways – it’s a connection of loosely connected stories about different characters, many of whom we never see again. The titular Tyll doesn’t even appear in every chapter, or only touches them briefly. And the writing is visceral in it’s description of the abject horrors of the 30 Years War. But the book circles the same set of ideas, the pegs that hold it in place. If Fortune has a thematic heart, it’s the idea of colonialism, and that’s where we get to the problem that I feel less assured talking about, because Fortune has a hole in that heart.
By far the most interesting character in this book is Mr Hendrick, an enslaved man from Suriname who’s come to Europe in the hopes of raising enough funds to buy the freedom of himself and his sister, Josephine. Mr Hendrick is to Fortune as Ezra Jennings is to The Moonstone – a character who is shockingly alive and three-dimensional to all the others. Unfortunately, he disappears from the narrative early on and, apart from a brief dip into Josephine’s mind and another into his mother’s, he’s the only character of colour in this book.
And I don’t just mean point of view character – I mean any character. Oh, there are a lot of black bodies in this book, and I really do mean bodies. Raped bodies, mutilated bodies, guillotined bodies. Shrunken heads clasped in white hands. Every violence you can imagine is heaped on largely nameless people of colour throughout this story. At one point Krueger is rowed past a strung-up display of severed black hands. It feels like an apt metaphor for the book; the suffering of people of colour served up as stage dressing to the discomfort of white characters. The closest we get to any person of colour having a conclusion to their stories is the young indigenous girl procured as a concubine for a French general. She disappears into the sunset with him to bear his children for the rest of her life, performing her own rites over her baby as a last act of defiance. This is served up as a happy ending. It feels empty.
This is a book about colonialism without any words from the colonised. The people of colour in this book are treated like animals, both within the plot and by the overarching thematic links of the story itself. The book opens with a Prussian collector looking to buy a crate of electric eels, to fuel European mania for exotic animals. This greedy need to understand the (heavy quotation marks) ‘exotic’ is then mirrored in the same collector’s desire to own a shrunken head from New Zealand, and again in a scientist’s endless experiments in decapitating enslaved people so he can see how long the brain survives afterwards. But without the voice of the people who are the victims of this racialised scientific violence, it feels like a question without an answer. At it’s worst, it feels like white-gaze misery porn.
The book ends in World War 1, with a new character failing to connect with anyone and then dying a miserable, pointless death. I think it’s possible that this book was aiming at discussing the dangers of a world without empathy. It just comes off as unempathetic.
I picked up Fortune because I’d just finished reading the absolutely fantastic Tyll, and was excited at the thought of another rollicking historical picaresque. Fortune promised that. It follows the lives of several characters who briefly interact on the night of Napoleon’s triumphant march into Berlin, spinning out their lives in the tumult that follows, chasing them across Europe into South America and Australia. A brief moment of contact that spins out into a tangled web of connections – it seemed to offer the kind of shimmering web of fate and chance that the best Tom Stoppard plays produce. But it never quite gets there.
There are two main problems with the book, one I feel completely comfortable talking about and one I less sure on. But it felt weird to read this book without raising questions about the way it talks about race. To get there, I’ll start with the first problem – the plot.
Johannes, Elizabeth and Krueger are all in Berlin on the night of Napoleon’s ascendency. Krueger is a philosopher, desperately trying to get people to listen to his ideas on the repetitive nature on time. Elizabeth is a sheltered young woman, stifled in her aunts home and desperate to have sex. Johannes is a naïve young poet. It’s he who listens to Krueger’s ideas for one evening, and it’s he who seems to form a connection with Elizabeth – as he loses his virginity to another woman, he looks up and sees her peeking in through the window and the two share a moment of transcendent connection. So far, so wonderful. Tangled theories on time, the kind of metaphysically important love that one sees in historical novels – all right up my street.
The problem is that it doesn’t go anywhere.
Krueger, despite being the least interesting character in the book, has by far the most interesting plotline – he ends up bound to South America, to free the sister of an enslaved man he meets by chance, Mr Hendrick (we’ll get to him later). Elizabeth runs away with a French major, and then spends a lot of time just having things happen to her which lightly brush the edge of historical events. Johannes ends up arrested on false charges and conscripted into military after military, misery after misery. Every time the book circles back to his plotline it’s unendingly depressing. Any sparks of interest he has, any moment where it seems he might touch something beyond himself, go nowhere. The characters never meet again, except for one chance meeting of eyes that goes nowhere. Nothing they do has any kind of point, or moral. For most of Elizabeth and Johannes stories, we are reading the biographies of two people who just aren’t that interesting.
It’s irritating, because there are parts of this book that are startlingly well written. Johannes fleeing a battle, his brief moment of connection with Elizabeth – the prose in these passages practically sings. But there has to be heart. Tyll is similar to Fortune in a lot of ways – it’s a connection of loosely connected stories about different characters, many of whom we never see again. The titular Tyll doesn’t even appear in every chapter, or only touches them briefly. And the writing is visceral in it’s description of the abject horrors of the 30 Years War. But the book circles the same set of ideas, the pegs that hold it in place. If Fortune has a thematic heart, it’s the idea of colonialism, and that’s where we get to the problem that I feel less assured talking about, because Fortune has a hole in that heart.
By far the most interesting character in this book is Mr Hendrick, an enslaved man from Suriname who’s come to Europe in the hopes of raising enough funds to buy the freedom of himself and his sister, Josephine. Mr Hendrick is to Fortune as Ezra Jennings is to The Moonstone – a character who is shockingly alive and three-dimensional to all the others. Unfortunately, he disappears from the narrative early on and, apart from a brief dip into Josephine’s mind and another into his mother’s, he’s the only character of colour in this book.
And I don’t just mean point of view character – I mean any character. Oh, there are a lot of black bodies in this book, and I really do mean bodies. Raped bodies, mutilated bodies, guillotined bodies. Shrunken heads clasped in white hands. Every violence you can imagine is heaped on largely nameless people of colour throughout this story. At one point Krueger is rowed past a strung-up display of severed black hands. It feels like an apt metaphor for the book; the suffering of people of colour served up as stage dressing to the discomfort of white characters. The closest we get to any person of colour having a conclusion to their stories is the young indigenous girl procured as a concubine for a French general. She disappears into the sunset with him to bear his children for the rest of her life, performing her own rites over her baby as a last act of defiance. This is served up as a happy ending. It feels empty.
This is a book about colonialism without any words from the colonised. The people of colour in this book are treated like animals, both within the plot and by the overarching thematic links of the story itself. The book opens with a Prussian collector looking to buy a crate of electric eels, to fuel European mania for exotic animals. This greedy need to understand the (heavy quotation marks) ‘exotic’ is then mirrored in the same collector’s desire to own a shrunken head from New Zealand, and again in a scientist’s endless experiments in decapitating enslaved people so he can see how long the brain survives afterwards. But without the voice of the people who are the victims of this racialised scientific violence, it feels like a question without an answer. At it’s worst, it feels like white-gaze misery porn.
The book ends in World War 1, with a new character failing to connect with anyone and then dying a miserable, pointless death. I think it’s possible that this book was aiming at discussing the dangers of a world without empathy. It just comes off as unempathetic.
December 26, 2021
Lenny Bartulin's Fortune was a flat-out fun read. The novel opens on the day Napoleon rode into Berlin after defeating the Prussians. Bartulin introduces an assortment of characters, none of who actually saw the conquering general,and then unspools their subsequent lives for readers. This is a relatively short book, so readers don't get epic tales or slowly simmering character profiles. What readers do get is the pleasure of following the lives of a variety of characters, each with their own motivations, whose lives span most of the globe—South America, Australia—by the book's end. This is a wonderful book to read when you want entertainment, pure and simple. Fortune will provide exactly what you're looking for.
I received an electronic review copy of this title via the publisher; the opinions are my own.
I received an electronic review copy of this title via the publisher; the opinions are my own.
October 6, 2022
Does fortune favor the brave? Do the even gods care? Fortune by Lenny Bartulin is a serious romp of a novel that tracks the fate of over a dozen characters as they make their way all over the map, not so much as fortune seeking, but seeking their fortune. These character sometimes interact, providing the catalyst to their own story, often in surprising and unexpecting ways. It opens with Napoleon Bonaparte marching into Berlin in 1806 to huge crowds. From this crowd emerges Johannes Meyer, an 18-year-old layabout. During the moment he loses his virginity, he locks eyes with Elisabeth von Hoffman, a young woman ready for her life to begin, through a window. This awakens something in both of them that neither can explain. We spend the rest of the book wondering if they'll ever actually meet, and what it all might mean, though Bartulin has too much fun playing that game, but also, it seems to be the point. Instead, Bartulin sets up a series of dominoes and knocks them down, sees where it goes, and with whom it goes. This allows him that worldwide romp. It takes us out of Germany and into France, London, Suriname, Chile, Australia, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), the South Seas. It involves exotic beetles, shrunken heads, earthquakes, stabbings, guillotines, talismans, piracy, military battles, and jailbreaks. It involves, Frenchman, Portuguese, slaves, curio hunters, and military men. While largely a comedic romp, or comedically tinged, it utilizes heavy events to tell its story without dwelling in the misery that could be inherent in it. Each character, being one of the many dominoes, could have their own book. So many stories, so many fortunes. But it's all in service of Bartulin's ultimate theme, that we are all players in these stories, our own, sometimes each other's, always in service of something greater.
September 29, 2019
4.25 Stars. I have been a fan of Lenny Bartulin’s writing for some time. His narrative style is one of artistry and poetic precision delivered with disarming irreverence. I highly recommend his enthralling ‘historical Australian western’ novel Infamy and the snappy prose in his Jack Susko Mystery Series.
For context, it is also worth pointing out that I cannot get enough of novels that feature interwoven stories, e.g. David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas ranks as one of my all-time favourites.
Fortune reads like a global adventure puzzle, with alternating narratives and complex character sets. Lenny Bartulin provides readers only bite-size windows into moments of different characters lives, and alternates between each at pace. Some life paths intersect or are influenced by others, and some characters appear only briefly. In this way, Bartulin depicts the often fickle nature of things and the great extent to which circumstances lasting mere seconds (those sliding doors moments) can have irrevocable and long term impact on history.
This philosophical, sliding door concept has always appealed to me, and so I found this satirisation of history amusing. In many respects, it is how I see the world, but not necessarily how others do. Those who prescribe to the omnibenevolent deity theory may not be quite so enamoured. Continue reading review>> https://bookloverbookreviews.com/2019...
For context, it is also worth pointing out that I cannot get enough of novels that feature interwoven stories, e.g. David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas ranks as one of my all-time favourites.
Fortune reads like a global adventure puzzle, with alternating narratives and complex character sets. Lenny Bartulin provides readers only bite-size windows into moments of different characters lives, and alternates between each at pace. Some life paths intersect or are influenced by others, and some characters appear only briefly. In this way, Bartulin depicts the often fickle nature of things and the great extent to which circumstances lasting mere seconds (those sliding doors moments) can have irrevocable and long term impact on history.
This philosophical, sliding door concept has always appealed to me, and so I found this satirisation of history amusing. In many respects, it is how I see the world, but not necessarily how others do. Those who prescribe to the omnibenevolent deity theory may not be quite so enamoured. Continue reading review>> https://bookloverbookreviews.com/2019...
October 31, 2021
Fortune seems to be a random series of event strung together, but multiple characters intertwine in and out of the storyline in various places around the world and pull the reader through a historical fiction that reaches epic proportions.
Fortune begins in October 1806 with Napoleon marching into Berlin, an event viewed through the points of view of several characters. Johannes Meyer, aged eighteen, abandons the parade to enjoy a fling with a waitress. A passerby, a young woman, Elizabeth von Hoffman, and the future author Stendhal, watch them through an open window. Later Hoffman is forcibly drafted into the French Army. On the other side of Berlin, Claus von Rolt, a collector of zoological specimens, meets with American Wesley Lewis Jr. and his Surinamese companion, Mr. Hendrik. They are trying to unload live electric eels they’ve brought half way around the world in a wooden barrel.
From Berlin, these characters' paths diverge then cross paths, first through Europe, then across the Atlantic to South America.
The above is the barest outline of the interwoven fates of Bartulin’s ensemble cast as they move in and out of his story. Their lives are determined by twists of luck, circumstance, and random events. The settings are exotic: Surinam, South America, Europe. Bartulin seamlessly blends fictional with real characters and historical events. Parts of the book are quite lyrical, even poetic as Bartulin describes the good and evil, the beauty and the brutality, the consequences of colonialism on both the colonizers and the colonized. It is a book that takes a fair amount of concentration to read but worth the effort.
Fortune begins in October 1806 with Napoleon marching into Berlin, an event viewed through the points of view of several characters. Johannes Meyer, aged eighteen, abandons the parade to enjoy a fling with a waitress. A passerby, a young woman, Elizabeth von Hoffman, and the future author Stendhal, watch them through an open window. Later Hoffman is forcibly drafted into the French Army. On the other side of Berlin, Claus von Rolt, a collector of zoological specimens, meets with American Wesley Lewis Jr. and his Surinamese companion, Mr. Hendrik. They are trying to unload live electric eels they’ve brought half way around the world in a wooden barrel.
From Berlin, these characters' paths diverge then cross paths, first through Europe, then across the Atlantic to South America.
The above is the barest outline of the interwoven fates of Bartulin’s ensemble cast as they move in and out of his story. Their lives are determined by twists of luck, circumstance, and random events. The settings are exotic: Surinam, South America, Europe. Bartulin seamlessly blends fictional with real characters and historical events. Parts of the book are quite lyrical, even poetic as Bartulin describes the good and evil, the beauty and the brutality, the consequences of colonialism on both the colonizers and the colonized. It is a book that takes a fair amount of concentration to read but worth the effort.
July 1, 2019
According to the press release that came with this book, Lenny Bartulin wanted to show with this novel Fortune that
I thought immediately of Louis de Bernieres when I read these ambitions. He is one of many authors to write about little people caught up in and buffeted by earth-shattering historical events. He’s not always wholly successful as you can see in Birds without Wings and in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, but he does succeed in making his readers care about the individuals caught up in the maelstrom.
Unfortunately, the reader barely gets to know the characters in Fortune, much less care about their fates. Indeed, because so many characters just slip off the map the hapless reader struggles a bit to identify who the central characters are, and how (if ever) their trajectories intersect.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/07/01/f...
The historical impact of war, money and technology is seismic, yet the ramifications on the individual are uniquely personal and can have myriad influences on our relationships.
And in broad terms, that is what Fortune is concerned with: the broad tsunami of history vs. the individual, the unpredictable chain of moments that come together to map a life, and with the forces and energies that meet and clash with that competition.
I thought immediately of Louis de Bernieres when I read these ambitions. He is one of many authors to write about little people caught up in and buffeted by earth-shattering historical events. He’s not always wholly successful as you can see in Birds without Wings and in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, but he does succeed in making his readers care about the individuals caught up in the maelstrom.
Unfortunately, the reader barely gets to know the characters in Fortune, much less care about their fates. Indeed, because so many characters just slip off the map the hapless reader struggles a bit to identify who the central characters are, and how (if ever) their trajectories intersect.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/07/01/f...
February 7, 2021
tw: archaic language surrounding race, physical abuse, master/slave dynamics, medical experimentation, rape of a slave
To be quite honest, I bounced off of this book quite hard; it's written in a manner that's probably quite historically accurate to the time but as such is very archaic. It's references, specifically to people of color, were particularly of the time -- the book includes references to (and in some cases, descriptions of) things like hamstringing, sexual contact between enslaved people and their captors -- which is rape, physical abuse of enslaved people, etc. It's done so in a manner that I found to be a jarring in its tone and cavalier fashion.
There are a lot of characters and I'm not sure that they're well handled here. The ending is, for me, probably the best part because you finally get to see all of those threads actually come together -- because they do. But they're difficult as a reader to juggle before that point. For me, the ending in general brought the whole book up in my estimation.
Full credit to the cover artist here; I would not have picked up this book if I had not seen the cover art. It is absolutely lovely.
This book was provided as an ARC through Skyhorse Publishing; I completed it as a part of #24in48
To be quite honest, I bounced off of this book quite hard; it's written in a manner that's probably quite historically accurate to the time but as such is very archaic. It's references, specifically to people of color, were particularly of the time -- the book includes references to (and in some cases, descriptions of) things like hamstringing, sexual contact between enslaved people and their captors -- which is rape, physical abuse of enslaved people, etc. It's done so in a manner that I found to be a jarring in its tone and cavalier fashion.
There are a lot of characters and I'm not sure that they're well handled here. The ending is, for me, probably the best part because you finally get to see all of those threads actually come together -- because they do. But they're difficult as a reader to juggle before that point. For me, the ending in general brought the whole book up in my estimation.
Full credit to the cover artist here; I would not have picked up this book if I had not seen the cover art. It is absolutely lovely.
This book was provided as an ARC through Skyhorse Publishing; I completed it as a part of #24in48
July 5, 2019
I received my copy from Allen & Unwin.
3.5 would be a better rating.
There are a lot of stories and interesting characters in Fortune. It all begins in 1806 as Napoleon marches into Berlin. In the crowd are various characters, witnessing the events unfolding. As the book unfolds, these characters go their separate ways.
You learn more about these characters as they travel to different parts of the world, experiencing hardship, joy and for some their lives are a misery or almost intolerable. Others battle the odds and build wonderful lives for themselves. Everyone's fortune is different.
I found Fortune a very slow book to read. There are many characters at the beginning and in each chapter (called Books) you will read about what is happening in their life story. Each individual history is engaging and always surprising to read. Many characters have lives that are over much too quick. At first I had a little trouble distinguishing between the characters, but it didn't take long to work it out (and my reading got faster).
3.5 would be a better rating.
There are a lot of stories and interesting characters in Fortune. It all begins in 1806 as Napoleon marches into Berlin. In the crowd are various characters, witnessing the events unfolding. As the book unfolds, these characters go their separate ways.
You learn more about these characters as they travel to different parts of the world, experiencing hardship, joy and for some their lives are a misery or almost intolerable. Others battle the odds and build wonderful lives for themselves. Everyone's fortune is different.
I found Fortune a very slow book to read. There are many characters at the beginning and in each chapter (called Books) you will read about what is happening in their life story. Each individual history is engaging and always surprising to read. Many characters have lives that are over much too quick. At first I had a little trouble distinguishing between the characters, but it didn't take long to work it out (and my reading got faster).
September 28, 2019
This is not a straight-forward narrative, but instead bounces from one character to another, leaving some behind without warning, bringing someone in for little reason before bundling them out again. It is almost like a film in the way that it cuts abruptly from one scene and storyline to another. ...The settings are well-known to us through books popular image and film - Napoleon on his horse, a bit of Robert Hughes' Fatal Shore or For the Term of His Natural Life, the colonial excesses of Joseph Conrad. ...I read this book in one sitting, on a cold Saturday afternoon which I think would be the perfect way to enjoy it. I don't think that I could have kept all the characters in mind had I read it in my usual 15-minutes-before-bed mode.... I enjoyed it for the romp and its vitality. It requires concentrated reading, and it rewards it.
For my complete review see
https://residentjudge.com/2019/09/28/...
For my complete review see
https://residentjudge.com/2019/09/28/...
July 12, 2019
Possibly the most depressing book I have ever read! A book with more tragic ends than any one book should ever have to endure. I'm not sure what Bartulin was trying to achieve but this was a complete mist-mash of stories, with interconnected links, but tenuously told, commencing with Napoleon's victory march through Paris in 1806 and ending on the battle fields of the Western Front in 1916.
The story of Johannes Meyer, one of the central characters, would have made a fine story on its own with his life of constant escape and recapture, but in the end the tale is nonsensical to the point of being unbelievable. Elizabeth van Hoffman's story could also have made an excellent tale, but by detailing this cast of thousands none was given enough depth to make the story live. There is some quality writing, but its impact is lost in the convoluted storyline.
A huge disappointment.
The story of Johannes Meyer, one of the central characters, would have made a fine story on its own with his life of constant escape and recapture, but in the end the tale is nonsensical to the point of being unbelievable. Elizabeth van Hoffman's story could also have made an excellent tale, but by detailing this cast of thousands none was given enough depth to make the story live. There is some quality writing, but its impact is lost in the convoluted storyline.
A huge disappointment.
December 15, 2020
*special thanks to Allen & Unwin publishing and NetGalley for the ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!
4 stars
This book is all over the place!
But that’s what made it a lot of fun.
The book calls itself an “epic” in the synopsis, and I can’t disagree.
I liked how scattered it felt.
We follow so many people, in so many places, through 100 years. It felt like we were apart of everything.
Time certainly not linear in this line. “Time is imposed”.
There are some characters I wish we would have seen more from. Sometimes it moves too quickly from place to place.
Thankfully, my two favorite characters (Johannes and Elizabeth) were shown a lot.
This is a tragic tale for some, so it’s not for every reader, but I enjoyed my read.
4 stars
This book is all over the place!
But that’s what made it a lot of fun.
The book calls itself an “epic” in the synopsis, and I can’t disagree.
I liked how scattered it felt.
We follow so many people, in so many places, through 100 years. It felt like we were apart of everything.
Time certainly not linear in this line. “Time is imposed”.
There are some characters I wish we would have seen more from. Sometimes it moves too quickly from place to place.
Thankfully, my two favorite characters (Johannes and Elizabeth) were shown a lot.
This is a tragic tale for some, so it’s not for every reader, but I enjoyed my read.
December 28, 2020
What a strange and unusual book! Fortune begins on the day that Napolean Bonaparte marches into Prussia as the conquering emperor in 1806 and ends, nearly a century later, with two Australian cowboys fighting in the battle of the Somme in WWI. The book weaves together the lives of many characters, most of whom don’t intersect with one another and follows their fates and fortunes. The story is propelled forward by the plot and we don’t get a lot of character development. In fact, it almost felt like a bunch of short stories linked together. The writing was interesting with a Wes Anderson-movie vibe to it. This is not going to appeal to everyone, but it you’re looking for quirky and offbeat historical fiction, this fits the bill.
August 15, 2020
A brilliantly interwoven tale that spans a hundred years and most of the globe. At its centre is Napoleon's arrival in Germany and from this springs the story of other individuals as they are dispersed among the countries of the known world. This is an exploration of the impact (or not) of war on the individual and speaks of its time. Men and women are at the mercy of the world's political power movements and as characters arrive within our story and pass through, we are left to consider the impact of the sole person on the environment in which we are born. A great new Historical adventure/drama from a talented Australian author.
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