Mark Helprin is a tremendously gifted prose stylist, but his plotting is a bit loose. In A Soldier of the Great War, he presents the meandering life story of Alessandro Giuliani, an Italian man whose tenure in World War I is full of outlandish adventures and remarkable coincidences.

On a paragraph or page level, there is much to be admired here, but as a whole, there wasn't enough arc to the character to be satisfying. Most of the episodes make terrific vignettes, but the composite whole didn't resonate with me.