Tag Archives: Literature and War Readalong

Literature and War Readalong May 27 2011: The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo

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Shusaku Endo’s The Sea and Poison is the first WWII novel of the Literature and War Readalong. The first time I read about this book was on Parrish’s blog (here is his review). Its topic is very unpleasant. Endo focuses on the theme of morality, exploring it through the central story of the vivisection of an American prisoner of war by three Japanese surgeons.
I just discovered that there is a movie based on the book that can be watched on YouTube. I did attach the first part as a teaser.

Although it might be an unpleasant topic I’m looking forward to read my first Endo. Since it is a very short book, only 160 pages, I hope some of you will be in the mood to read along but I would understand if the topic isn’t to everybody’s liking.

Should someone want to watch the movie instead and review it, that would be great as well and I would link the review.

Literature and War Readalong April Wrap up: The Winter of the World

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As usual this is the time to thank those who read along and/or showed an interest in this monthly activity.

From the comments I can deduce that we all thought pretty much the same about this book. It was a mixed bag or, to quote litlove, “a curate’s egg”. True. There was much to like in this novel but also many things that didn’t work. The descriptions of the battle scenes were graphic but well-rendered, the close look at facial wounds and the reconstruction that followed were detailed. We get a feeling for how harrowing these were but also a lot of admiration for those who tried to help, the nurses and doctors alike.

Equally well done was everything that was tied to the grave/burial of the unknown warrior or soldier. (I don’t know if anyone was thinking of this book when watching the Royal Wedding that took place in Westminster Abbey were the soldier is buried).

What we all had our problems with was the story itself. At the center of this novel is a passionate love story that leaves behind considerations of friendship and decency. If you were among the readers who have difficulties to imagine such a strong passionate love at first sight story, the novel was pretty much doomed. But also if you could accept this as a premise, like I could, you had to be able to “feel” this passion. While I got a feeling for Alex, Clare left me completely unfazed. She is a great nurse and, in this function, an admirable character but the abuse story and her feelings for Alex weren’t well rendered. At one moment I was suspecting Carol Ann Lee to want to tell us that Clare acted the way she did, because she had been abused, that ultimately she was devoid of real feelings. That’s a type of explanation I do not like at all.

I also think, as did the others, that some episodes and narrative devices should have been left out.

I still have a few novels of WWI on my TBR pile but I’m glad that we move on anyway.

Looking back, the novel of the four I liked the most was Jennifer Johnston’s How Many Miles to Babylon. However if I had to recommend one to someone who has no idea about WWI, I think I would recommend Strange Meeting.

Which was your favourite? Which one would you recommend?

Carol Ann Lee: The Winter of the World (2007) Literature and War Readalong April

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Journalist Alex Dyer made his name covering the bloody horrors of the European trenches. Yet even after the Great War is over, he cannot shake the guilt he feels for not serving on the front lines like his dearest childhood friend, Ted Eden. Worse still, Alex cannot put to rest the emotions that gnaw at him from the inside: his feelings for Clare, Ted’s wife—a woman they both have loved more than life itself. 

Carol Ann Lee’s The Winter of the World is the last novel on WWI in this read along. For the next one we will be moving on to WWII.

This wasn’t the easiest review to write as I am in two minds about this novel. There are parts in it that are so haunting and powerful but then again there were others were I was just rolling my eyes thinking “get on with it”.  Still it would be unfair to write a totally negative review because the good parts are among the best on WWI I’ve ever read.

Alex and Ted are childhood friends. They are close and attached to each other until the day Ted introduces Alex to his soon-to-be wife Clare. Very unfortunately this is a love at first sight moment for Alex and Clare. They try to fight it but, as we will see soon enough, the more the story advances, the less likely it is that they will succeed.

The marriage takes place just when the war breaks out. Ted will enlist, Alex will participate as a war correspondent and Clare will be one of the nurses in France.

The novel moves back and forth between Alex’s and Clare’s point of view. Alex sees a lot of atrocities and the descriptions are very graphic and extremely impressive without falling into the trap of being too clichéd. But since Alex isn’t fighting, it stays an outsider’s perspective. Clare’s point of view was captivating for totally different reasons. As a war nurse she has to deal with indescribable wounds and suffering. The abundance of facial wounds seems to be a trait of WWI and these parts reminded me of one of the best WWI movies I have ever seen, La chambre des officiers aka The officer’s chamber based on the eponymous novel by Marc Dugain. We seem to get an insider’s view of this truly harrowing aspect of the “Great war”. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to have been the victim of this kind of facial mutilation and to be rejected by those you loved and who once loved you. The reactions of the relatives and fiancées were often brutal. Through Clare’s eyes we also get an equally close look at what mustard gas did to those who became its victims and how they suffocated or drowned slowly.

The only men more popular than I was were the ones in wheelchairs, or those with empty sleeves pinned against their chest. Everyone wanted to talk to them, to do something for them. Children presented them with flags and in the railway stations they got free tea or coffee. It was different for the ones whose faces had been destroyed. People averted their eyes quickly, the blood flooding their skin. No one wanted to make eye contact with a disfigured soldier; they were modern-day lepers.

While the war moves on – not stopping at Christmas, as was expected – the love affair develops as well. Clare and Alex meet secretly but are finally driven apart by conflicting emotions and wishes. Alex feels he needs to tell Ted everything, while Clare wants to protect him and keep the affair secret.

Through Alex’ voice we hear what it must have been like to cover this war as a correspondent. The journalists were not allowed to tell the truth. The numbers of casualties were not mentioned nor were the biggest defeats spoken of. While Clare’s parts rather focus on individuals, Alex’ parts illustrate the enormity of the losses. He evokes the incredible amount of wounded, disfigured and killed soldiers. At moments I had the feeling of seeing all these dead men standing in one huge row before my inner eye. When we visit those cemeteries we get a feeling for those massive losses.

He imagined a thin line linking the cemeteries along the old Western Front, from the smallest graveyards hidden away within woods to those huge, silent cities on the plains where the most ferocious battles had been fought. Some bore the names given to them by the soldiers themselves – Owl Trench, Caterpillar Valley, Crucifix Corner – while others were named after the battalion who had buried their own men there. He imagined how tha line would look from the air; so thick in parts that it resembled a child’s scribble, for they were everywhere these Gardens of Stone.

The novel slowly moves towards the culminating point which is the burial of the “unknown warrior”. The name is chose deliberately as “warrior” sounded more inclusive than “soldier”. The grave which is really located in Westminster Abbey was meant to commemorate all the dead fighters of this war, not only the infantry men. The burial is one of the best and most powerful parts in this novel.

Despite all these impressive elements, I had my problems, as I said. The biggest part of the story is told by Alex. He tells Lombardi, a guy he meets in Flanders after the war, why he is so tormented, why he cannot get over the war. I didn’t get this narrative device at all.  I would have preferred a more straightforward story, not this artificial telling of what happened to someone who has nothing to do with it. This was a common technique in 19th century novels but I think it doesn’t add anything to a modern novel at all. The next biggest negative aspect was the coincidence. I found it highly unlikely that Alex would meet Ted at the end. The third thing that I didn’t think well-done is the love-triangle. I think it was unnecessary that Alex and Clare had an affair. The descriptions of Alex’ feelings worked very well for me but not those of Clare. And the guilt-theme was just an element too much. Last but not least I missed Ted’s point of view.

I have a lot of questions at the end of this novel and would be curious to know what others thought.

Was this really the tone of a WWI novel? Especially the love-affair seemed very WWII to me but maybe that impression stems from the similarity to Pearl Harbor.

What about the facial wounds, does anyone know whether this was a consequence of the trenches? In The officer’s chambers, the young officer loses half of his face on the battle field, but I have really never heard so much about this type of injury from any other war.

Why do you think Carol Ann Lee left out Ted’s point of view? I think she might have risked to fall into the trap of cliché but I am not sure that’s why she chose to leave it out.

I’m really curious to read your thoughts.

Here are other reviews

Anna (Diary of an Eccentric)

Danielle (A Work in Progress)

*******

The Winter of the World was the fourth book in the Literature and War Readalong. The next one will be Shusaku Endo’s The Sea and Poison aka Umi to dokuyaku. Discussion starts on Friday May 27, 2011 .

Literature and War Readalong April 29 2011: The Winter of the World by Carol Ann Lee

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Carol Ann Lee’s novel The Winter of the World that has the same title as a collection of WWI poems, is the last novel in the readalong to be dedicated to WWI. I discovered the novel on Danielle’s blog and thought it would be a good addition to the 11 I had already chosen.

Carol Ann Lee has written mostly nonfiction books before. The Winter of the World is her second novel. This is what can be found on her amazon page.

Carol has written two novels: ‘Come Back To Me’ which is semi-autobiographical, and ‘The Winter of the World’ – about the Unknown Warrior – which received rave reviews when it was published in France last year. Le Monde ended their review: ‘Finally, here is a writer who understands the subtleties of the soul.’ The book was nominated for two major awards in France, but has yet to find a UK publisher (one commented that it was a beautiful story and compared her writing to Ian McEwan, but said it was simply ‘too patriotic’) although it has been published in America by Harper Collins.

Sounds intriguing. The French title is La rafale des tambours.

Among her nonfiction books are One of our Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley, Anne Frank’s Story, The Hidden Life of Otto Frank and Witness: The Story of David Smith Chief Prosecution Witness in the Moors Murders Case.

Should you want to read along you might want to get started a little earlier as the novel has a bit over 300 pages, however the discussion will start late in the month, on Friday 29.

Literature and War Readalong March Wrap up: The Return of the Soldier

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For one reason or the other I had a feeling I knew exactly what this novel was going to be about but I was very wrong. I think that with the exception of Danielle who read The Return of the Soldier for the second time we were all more or less surprised by the book.

When you expect to read a novel about a shell-shocked soldier you don’t necessarily expect to see Freudian theories at work and much less you expect this book to be about a choice, a decision that will change all the lives involved considerably.

What did strike me most in this readalong are the differences between the reviews that have been written which underlines what I wrote in my post where I said this book could be read in many different ways. While I concentrated on summarizing the plot and comparing the symbolical meaning of the three women, trying to link them to Freudian theories, Bookaroundthecorner and Danielle focused on a core theme of the book which is the choice. In her post Bookaroundthecorner points out the following:

The ending is what we call in French a “choix cornélien”, a “Cornelian choice”. The term comes from the French playwright Corneille (17th C). In his plays, the characters must always make a choice between passion and duty, between happiness and what is right. Here, Margaret and Jenny face a Cornelian choice: to cure or not to cure Chris. To cure him is to allow him to be a soldier and be sent to the trenches again, to lead him to a highly probable death.

Anna (Diary of an Eccentric) pointed out that what she liked the most about the book was the fact how it didn’t just give easy answers but encouraged you to think about the characters and their motivations. She also mentioned how life changing the death of Chris’ father was, a fact I must have overlooked completely. Anna also wrote that she felt we never really get to know Kitty and Margaret due to the first person narrative and that she would have liked to hear more about Chris, about what happened to him in the trenches. Although I did appreciate the book’s subtle use of war scenes through the means of Jenny’s nightmares, I expected it to be more from Chris’ point of view as well.

Danielle made an interesting comparison to Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Much like the letter that was shoved under the carpet rather than just under the door in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, letters that should have found their recipient but did not meant an entirely different ending for the two lovers until this unusual meeting.

Danielle also mentions that in the introduction West was quoted saying that a novel should have no empty sentences. This struck me as well, when I read it and I think I can agree with Danielle on the fact that this novel really is a fine example of this.

In all the posts and discussions, the treatment of the classes was mentioned. Apart from Kevin, no one really felt like understanding Kitty. I must admit, I felt an intense dislike and think the others shared this more or less. Of course, Kevin is right in pointing out that she is a product of her upbringing and the society she lives in.

What struck me as very interesting is that Kevin perceived the book as non-feminist. I think I disagree but understand very well how one could come to this conclusion. I believe she deliberately created a weak and vain character like Kitty to criticize the passivity of certain women, especially those who had everything, money, looks, status.

I found the treatment of the war very interesting although it was extremely toned down or rather, because it was so toned down and blended into the story. As a final word I’d like to quote Verlyn Klinkenborg.

It is certainly necessary to read The Return of the Soldier as a way of analyzing the experience of war from the civilian side. But it is also imperative to read this novel as West’s means of analyzing the experience of being female. At the age of twenty-four, West is holding up disparate versions of a woman’s experience and waiting to see which one crashes to the floor. (From the Introduction to The Modern Library Edition, p.xx )

I don’t know if you have noticed the different book covers. I think this is the one I like the most.

Rebecca West: The Return of the Soldier (1918) Literature and War Readalong March

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The soldier returns from the front to the three women who love him. His wife, Kitty, with her cold, moonlight beauty, and his devoted cousin Jenny wait in their exquisite home on the crest of the Harrow-weald. Margaret Allington, his first and long-forgotten love, is nearby in the dreary suburb of Wealdstone. But the soldier is shell-shocked and can only remember the Margaret he loved fifteen years before, when he was a young man and she an inn-keeper’s daughter. His cousin he remembers only as a childhood playmate; his wife he remembers not at all. The women have a choice – to leave him where he wishes to be, or to ‘cure’ him. It is Margaret who reveals a love so great that she can make the final sacrifice.

The Return of the Soldier is unusual because it has been written by a woman and during the war. But it is also unusual in its treatment of the war. Although a tale that takes place on the home-front, the horrors of the war in the trenches shine through constantly.

The novel is a first person narrative,  told by Jenny, Chris’s cousin. It opens on a domestic scene showing Kitty, Chris’ wife and Jenny together in the nursery. We learn immediately that the child who lived there is dead and we also learn a lot about the very different characters of these two women. Kitty is not easily alarmed even though they haven’t heard from Chris for weeks. The very first paragraph shows that she treats the war lightly, does maybe not take it very seriously at all, rather like some adventure, while Jenny is aware of the dangers.

“Ah, don’t begin to fuss!” wailed Kitty. “If a woman began to worry in these days because her husband hadn’t written to her for a fortnight—! Besides, if he’d been anywhere interesting, anywhere where the fighting was really hot, he’d have found some way of telling me instead f just leaving it as “Somewhere in France. He’ll be alright.”

Jenny will tell us later what a very shallow woman Kitty is. Appearances is all that is important to her.

Now, why did Kitty, who was the falsest thing on earth, who was in tune with every kind of falsity, by merely suffering somehow remind us pf reality?

The initial scene is almost idyllic as the house and its surroundings are so lovely and Jenny cannot help but think of how much Chris must miss his life there. Rebecca West is excellent when she describes the surroundings. She chooses words like a painter who tries to get every little shade of what he paints right. Her writing is nuanced and poetical.

The house lies on the crest of Harrowweald, and from its windows the eye drops to miles of emerald pastureland lying wet and brilliant under a westward line of sleek hills blue with distance and distant woods, while nearer it ranges the suave decorum of the lawn and the Lebanon cedar whose branches are like darkness made palpable, and the minatory gauntness of the topmost pines in the wood that breaks downward, its bare boughs a close texture of browns and purples, from the pond on the hill’s edge.

Of the two women, Jenny is the one that brings the war into the novel through her worrying. It is deeply rooted in her consciousness as well as in her subconscious. Her feelings for her cousin are so intense, the identification is total at times and she seems to be the one experiencing the battlefield. Through Jenny we get a clear picture of how much was known on the home-front. In the movie theaters they were shown black and white footage of the front line. To be like Kitty, unaware of the real dangers, you had to be really determined to keep them away from you.

Of late I had had had dreams about him. By night I saw Chris running across the brown rottenness of No Man’s Land, starting back here because he rod upon a hand, not even looking there because of the awfulness of an unburied head, and not till my dream was packed full of horror did I see him pitch forward on his knees as he reached safety—it was that. For on the war-films I have seen men slip down as softly from the trench parapet, and none but the grimmer philosopher would say that they reached safety by their fall.

Into the initial idyll breaks a shabby and elderly looking woman. She is badly dressed and seems of the lowest social class. Both women feel revolted and when they hear why she has come they are quite shocked. Margaret has come to inform them that Chris has been is in a hospital in France and suffers from severe shell-shock. He is amnesic and has eradicated the last 15 years of his memory, believing to still have a relationship with Margaret. The reactions of the two women towards this member of the lower classes is quite disturbing. They almost react as if she was contaminating the house.

Soon after this conversation, Chris is brought back and has indeed lost every memory of his wife and barely recognizes his cousin who is now fifteen years older.

In what follows we see how each of the three women reacts so differently, how each wishes and longs for other things. We learn also about the relationship Chris had with Margaret and why he broke it off and what happened to her after he left her. Despite all this there is no sign of his recovering his memory and finally a doctor is called. At first he isn’t successful but he points out that there may have been a reason why Chris repressed the memory of his marriage. It is only after Margaret suggests to show Chris something that will trigger a strong emotion – in this case things that belonged to the dead child – that he will be able to regain his memory. I the moments before he is shown the baby’s things Jenny is suddenly painfully aware of what a recovery truly means. Should he recover, he will have to go back to the front. In sharp contrast to this, Kitty doesn’t care. She wants her husband to recognize her again, that’s all she cares about. Once the recovery has happened, it’s Jenny again who states clearly what will be.

He walked not loose limbed like a boy, as he had done that very afternoon, but with the soldier’s thread upon the heel. It recalled to me that, bad as we were, we were yet not the worst circumstance of his return. When he dad lifted the yoke of our embraces from his shoulders he would go back to that flooded trench in Flanders under that sky more full of flying death than clouds, to that No Man’s Land where bullets fall like rain on the rotting faces of the dead.

I found it very interesting that The Return of the Soldier can be read in many different ways. Considering the theme of the readalong, I focused on the way she treated WWI but that is not the only topic in this novel. One could also explore the psychological theories or the sociological dimension.

I think The Return of the Soldier is an incredibly subtle and artful novel. The war and it’s horrors are like threads that are woven into the fabric of the story. As a journalist Rebecca West was interested and did report on the war but she was also very interested in Freud’s theories, some of which she has applied in the novel. I think to make of Chris a shell-shocked soldier suffering from amnesia which was not realistic, shows us that she wanted this to be taken symbolically. The psychologist Glen Clifford kindly and eloquently pointed out in a comment on my introductory post that PTSD is characterized by the incapability to forget and amnesia is a very unlikely occurrence.

The three women all symbolize something else and represent different levels of consciousness. Kitty, the wife he has forgotten is the symbol of all the forces that contribute and maintain the class system and the war. She is a typical representative of the British upper class, of those who decide to send  thousands of young men to a certain death. Those who don’t care what is going on “over there”. She symbolizes the unconscious. Margaret on the other hand stands for the working classes, simplicity, those who have to endure what others force upon them. That seems to be pretty much how Chris feels as well. She may be read as the subconscious. Jenny is by far the most intriguing. She moves back and forth between the different levels of consciousness with a capability of seeing things clearly. She is his cousin but thinks and feels rather like a lover. She seems the most authentic, the most emotional, the one who feels what either Kitty or Chris should feel, namely the horror and despair caused by this horrible war and the sadness about the loss of the little boy. It may very well be that the death of the child drove the spouses apart.

I would like to say thanks to Ann Norton from the International Rebecca West Society, for pointing me towards a new critical edition by Bernard Schweizer and Charles Thorne. It contains invaluable material and background information to the book. If you want to have a look at the content here’s the link to the broadview press.

Ann Norton wrote the introduction to the Barnes and Noble Library of Essential Reading Edition.

I am really curious to read what others have to say about this complex novel, be it in a review or in comments.

Other reviews:

Anna (Diary of an Eccentric)

Bookaroundthecorner

Danielle (A Work in Progress)

*****

The Return of the Soldier was the third book in the Literature and War Readalong. The next one will be Carol Ann Lee’s The Winter of the World. Discussion starts on Friday April 29, 2011 .

Literature and War Readalong February Wrap up: How Many Miles to Babylon?

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I wanted to thank all of you who have participated this month. I loved the book and enjoyed the discussions.

Even though there is also a friendship at the heart of How Many Miles to Babylon? this book is totally different from Susan Hill’s novel Strange Meeting which we read in January. As you can easily see my review doesn’t emphasize the role of the friendship between Alec and Jerry as much as Anna’s or Danielle’s (and here as well) does.

I realized when reading the other posts and a few of the comments that some had a bit of a problem with this novel. There were different reasons for this. For one Alec doesn’t appear to be a very likable character, he was even called a coward by some. For several reasons I never thought of him like that and was wondering why. I realized that from the start, I was totally fixed on his going to be executed. I saw him like some Breaker Morant character (which he isn’t) and thinking he did something that would have this consequence set the tone for me from the beginning. Another point of criticism which, with hindsight, seems fair, is the fact that the WWI elements are toned down. WWI seems to serve more as a pretext for the tragic story and to write about Irish history. WWI itself is rather just a backdrop. I did not mind this at all but can understand that this can bee seen differently.

I think we all equally agreed that the mother in this book was an extremely negative figure, the whole family situation, as Kevin pointed out, is highly dysfunctional.

What I couldn’t really solve was the question about the title. Why did she choose this nursery rhyme as the title for her novel? In an article on the net I found one tiny hint, saying that it did underline the relationship between the soldier and his superior.

On Wikipedia I found this list which enumerates how many times the rhyme has been used in popular culture

In popular culture

In literature

In film

In popular music

  • It is parodied as “How many miles to Babyland?” on Lenny and the Squigtones– a comedy album by the characters Lenny and Squiggy from the 1970s sitcom “Laverne & Shirley”.

This is quite a considerable list. It eludes me why this rhyme is so popular with writers and I am still open for any interpretation why Jennifer Johnston chose it as her title.