1915.
The year itself looks sepia and soiled - muddied like its pictures. In the snapshots, everyone at first seems timid - lost - irresolute. Boys and men stand squinting at the camera. Women turn away suspicious. They still maintain a public reticence....
...Then something happens. April. Ypres. Six thousand dead and wounded. The war that was meant to end my Christmas might not end till summer. Maybe Fall. This is where the pictures alter - fill up with soldiers - horses - wagons. Everyone is waving at either the soldiers or the cameras. More and more people want to be seen. More and more people want to be remembered. Hundreds - thousands - crowd into frame.
Here come the troops down Yonge street! The women abandon all their former reticence and rush into the roadway, throwing flowers and waving flags. Here come the 48th highlanders! Boys run after them on bikes. Girls, whose mouth hangs over, hardly dare to follow. Older men remove their hats. There is Sir Samuel Hughes standing on the dais, taking the farewell salute. 'GOD SAVE THE KING!!!' (a banner). Everywhere you look, trains are pulling out of stations, ships are sailing out of ports. Music drowns the long hurrah. Everyone is focused now, shadinf their eyes against the sun. Everyone is watching with an outstretched arm. Silence at the edge of wharves and time....
...Then you see him: Robert Ross - standing on the sidelines with pocketed hands - feet apart and narrowed eyes. His hair falls sideways across his forehead. He wears a checkered cap and a dark blue suit. He watches with a dubious expression; half admiring, half reluctant to admire. He's old enough to go to war. He hasn't gone. He doubts the validity in all this martialling of men, but the doubt is inarticulate. I stammers in his brain. He puts his hand out sideways, turns. He reaches for the wicker back of a wheelchair. 'Come on Rowena, there's still the rest of the park to sit in [p. 8-9].'
Robert's intuition warns him against the flurry of nationalism proffered by the alliance of the crown and Sir Sam to the masses. It appeals to the youth searching for an identity in a world whose modernisation has been sped up by war. He would rather protect the serenity of his dear disabled sister than join the impersonal fray, but cannot justify his reluctance. He is everything to his helpless sister, and would become nothing to the eminent British Empire were he to enlist - and yet, his inklings are undermined even by his own family; a mother who hands out chocolate to the departing troops, a brother who has altered his wagon to vaguely resemble a tank, and a father, whose own sense of forboding remains mute.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
"Maudit anglais (american, serb, etc...)!"
When his tale had been told and he saw that Robert didn't comprehend [what he'd said in Flemish], he began it again in French. Robert knew it was French because he recognised that vaches were cows. But that was all. 'Can't you speak English?' He asked politely. This was the wrong thing to say. The man threw down his hat and began to shout.
"Enklesh! Enklesh! Vous etes anglais? Maudit anglais!" he screamed. Robert became alarmed. He backed his horse away but the man pursued him. 'Maudit anglais!!' he kept shouting. He picked up his hat and threw it. 'Ce sont tous des assassins!' he cried [p.71].
The farmer had approached Robert asking him if he'd seen his cows, which he'd lost that morning. For the peasant, whose livlihood could possibly have been commandeered, or caught in the line of fire by these foreign troops, the language barrier seems to serve as the final straw in his frustrations. It is likely that the peasant has few political views, as he has spent his entire life in the fields, quite unaffected by Bismarck's intricate house-of-card building, and the delicate diplomacy that came crashing down with it in the flurry of empiric intentions. His life was his cows. And now it was being destroyed by these Englishmen who had invaded his countryside.
To the peasant, 'they are all murderers', every last Englishman. His only perception of these men is that their purpose is to get close enough to shoot at other human beings, and insodoing, devastate his fields and quite possibly pillaged his livestock. He shall never see the English counterpart to his style of life.
Stourbridge St.Aubyn's is...a village about seventeen miles from Cambridge on the river stour. The river rises at Cambridgeshire and empties into the Northsea at Harwich. For most of its journey, it constitutes the border between Essex and Suffolks. The countryside is among the most beautiful in the world - being flat and made up of those lush green fields - hedges spires and hedges that define the word 'English.' Spring in this region has no equal anywhere. The fields are filled with black and white cows - the riverbanks are filled with yellow flowers - larks fly up in endless song - and rain, when it falls is soft and warm. Here are...roads that wind past the naked swimmers in the ponds and deposit you at innyards where the smell of ale and apples makes you drunk before you've past the gate. It is an old world, defined by centuries of slow-motion [p. 144].
Although wars are declared on diplomatic grounds, the angry prejudices filter into the bedrock below the very fields of the commonfolk, contaminating the crop of following generations. Wars suck out the humanity from human interaction, so that the people of the 'other' side can't imagine that they could ever relate to you and your culture that is clearly built on malicious intentions to destroy their peace and quiet.
And this is why Findley called his work the Wars - in the plural. This is one of the truths about war that rings true wherever it is fought, inevitably dragging civilians into the conflict, from Belgium to Baghdad to the Balkans.
"Enklesh! Enklesh! Vous etes anglais? Maudit anglais!" he screamed. Robert became alarmed. He backed his horse away but the man pursued him. 'Maudit anglais!!' he kept shouting. He picked up his hat and threw it. 'Ce sont tous des assassins!' he cried [p.71].
The farmer had approached Robert asking him if he'd seen his cows, which he'd lost that morning. For the peasant, whose livlihood could possibly have been commandeered, or caught in the line of fire by these foreign troops, the language barrier seems to serve as the final straw in his frustrations. It is likely that the peasant has few political views, as he has spent his entire life in the fields, quite unaffected by Bismarck's intricate house-of-card building, and the delicate diplomacy that came crashing down with it in the flurry of empiric intentions. His life was his cows. And now it was being destroyed by these Englishmen who had invaded his countryside.
To the peasant, 'they are all murderers', every last Englishman. His only perception of these men is that their purpose is to get close enough to shoot at other human beings, and insodoing, devastate his fields and quite possibly pillaged his livestock. He shall never see the English counterpart to his style of life.
Stourbridge St.Aubyn's is...a village about seventeen miles from Cambridge on the river stour. The river rises at Cambridgeshire and empties into the Northsea at Harwich. For most of its journey, it constitutes the border between Essex and Suffolks. The countryside is among the most beautiful in the world - being flat and made up of those lush green fields - hedges spires and hedges that define the word 'English.' Spring in this region has no equal anywhere. The fields are filled with black and white cows - the riverbanks are filled with yellow flowers - larks fly up in endless song - and rain, when it falls is soft and warm. Here are...roads that wind past the naked swimmers in the ponds and deposit you at innyards where the smell of ale and apples makes you drunk before you've past the gate. It is an old world, defined by centuries of slow-motion [p. 144].
Although wars are declared on diplomatic grounds, the angry prejudices filter into the bedrock below the very fields of the commonfolk, contaminating the crop of following generations. Wars suck out the humanity from human interaction, so that the people of the 'other' side can't imagine that they could ever relate to you and your culture that is clearly built on malicious intentions to destroy their peace and quiet.
And this is why Findley called his work the Wars - in the plural. This is one of the truths about war that rings true wherever it is fought, inevitably dragging civilians into the conflict, from Belgium to Baghdad to the Balkans.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Bringing WWI to Death
I admit that I had regarded WWI through Grade-10-History goggles before reading The Wars .
Findley's work of riveting fiction, however, made it seem more real than the dully detached narratives of a textbook.
WWI was like any other war in the absurdity of organising, preparing and training huge masses of men to kill one another in the name of some intangible goal. The year and the motivation that drove them over the top was not important - battle charges have pitted human against human from the time we could wield spears. The thing that defined this war, however, was the fact that the charge meant for many men both literally and figuratively 'going over the top'.
The technology of the 20th century shattered the veneer of Edwardian elegance with impersonal killing machines that revealed and amplified the extent of human brutality and callousness fostered by war.
The weapon with which the Germans now attacked had been introduced at Verdun. It was something called a 'flamethrower' and rumors had come down the line describing it - but no one had believed. Men, it said, carrying tanks of fire on their backs came in advance of the troops and spread the fire with hoses. Water burned and snow went up in smoke. Nothing remained. It was virtual attrition. The ultimate weapon had been invented. Only powder and dust remained of trenches filled with men. These were the rumors. Some of the commanders laughed. Fire can't come out of hoses. Don't be ridiculous. If fire came out of hoses, the men who wielded them would be the first to burn. (Dynamite and tanks and gas and aeroplanes had all been dismissed with the same rebuttal. A: men would not do such things and B: they could not. Then they did (p. 132).)
Technology spawned a war that was fought on calculist efficiency, and in turn made man himself part of the production line in 'vitory manufacture.' Keeping assembly running smoothly were the supervising officers.
They wore red armbands. Their holsters were open. They were directing traffic and keeping their eyes out for possible deserters. And, of course, for spies. Often, when there were large-scale troop movements like this, renegades would make an attempt to get to the rear posing as wounded or sometimes messengers. Spies too, could infiltrate the ranks - usually posing as local peasants or refugees from near the front. The job of the M.P.s (Military Police) was often quite brutal. In the trenches before an attack it was their responsibility to see that everyone went over the top. Their orders were to kill any man who refused.
And it never occured to them that a man might not go over the top because he already had - 'shell shock' would not be identified till long after the war.
Findley's work of riveting fiction, however, made it seem more real than the dully detached narratives of a textbook.
WWI was like any other war in the absurdity of organising, preparing and training huge masses of men to kill one another in the name of some intangible goal. The year and the motivation that drove them over the top was not important - battle charges have pitted human against human from the time we could wield spears. The thing that defined this war, however, was the fact that the charge meant for many men both literally and figuratively 'going over the top'.
The technology of the 20th century shattered the veneer of Edwardian elegance with impersonal killing machines that revealed and amplified the extent of human brutality and callousness fostered by war.
The weapon with which the Germans now attacked had been introduced at Verdun. It was something called a 'flamethrower' and rumors had come down the line describing it - but no one had believed. Men, it said, carrying tanks of fire on their backs came in advance of the troops and spread the fire with hoses. Water burned and snow went up in smoke. Nothing remained. It was virtual attrition. The ultimate weapon had been invented. Only powder and dust remained of trenches filled with men. These were the rumors. Some of the commanders laughed. Fire can't come out of hoses. Don't be ridiculous. If fire came out of hoses, the men who wielded them would be the first to burn. (Dynamite and tanks and gas and aeroplanes had all been dismissed with the same rebuttal. A: men would not do such things and B: they could not. Then they did (p. 132).)
Technology spawned a war that was fought on calculist efficiency, and in turn made man himself part of the production line in 'vitory manufacture.' Keeping assembly running smoothly were the supervising officers.
They wore red armbands. Their holsters were open. They were directing traffic and keeping their eyes out for possible deserters. And, of course, for spies. Often, when there were large-scale troop movements like this, renegades would make an attempt to get to the rear posing as wounded or sometimes messengers. Spies too, could infiltrate the ranks - usually posing as local peasants or refugees from near the front. The job of the M.P.s (Military Police) was often quite brutal. In the trenches before an attack it was their responsibility to see that everyone went over the top. Their orders were to kill any man who refused.
And it never occured to them that a man might not go over the top because he already had - 'shell shock' would not be identified till long after the war.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Hero's Introduction
All this happened a long time ago, but not so long ago that everyone who played a part in it is dead. Some can still be met in dark rooms with nurses in attendance. They look at you and rearrange their thoughts. They say: 'I don't remember.' The occupants of memory have to be protected from strangers. Ask what happened they say: 'I don't know,' mention Robert Ross and they look away. 'He's dead,' they tell you, and this is not news. 'Tell me about the horses,' you ask. Sometimes they weep at this. Other times they say, 'That bastard!' Then the nurses nod at you, much as to say - you see? It's best to go away somewhere else. In the end, the only facts are public (p.6-7).
The Wars is an epitaph for the humane swept up in conflict. Robert Ross' particulat story is one of how a man who refused to be broken by the most mechanised attrition the world had ever known,was thus instead consumed by it's fire. The objective of this reflection is not to give you a summary of the book, but to point out how well the introduction draws you in and makes you wonder what this man's life could have been about to have left behind such a presence in the fading memories of those who met him or heard what he'd done.
And what he'd done really is the essence of this book - People can only be found in what they do (p. 7) - is the last phrase of the introduction. Tracking his departure from Toronto as an awkward boy to his final stand as a man of resolve, the narrator never allows us into his mind. His actions prove what he believes in;
First and foremost, Robert trusted the basic humanity of every person. After a gas attack where he saved his men by telling them to lay face down, breathing through torn, urine-saturated shirt tails, a German sniper finds them in the sinkhole where they had become trapped. He realises that the soldier does not mean to harm them; 'Fritzie' is alone and, like any sane person, would abhor the thought of shooting helpless fish in a filthy, undignified, chlorine-laced barrel. Robert does not fire at the soldier. He sends his men up into no-man's land and back to relative safety.
But when it is his turn to climb out of the frozen earth, a moment of panic seizes him. The German drops his binoculars, and in reaching after them into the pit, Robert mistakes his grasping arms for lunging toward him. He shoots. The German is dead a heartbeat later.
Robert sagged against the ground. It was even worse than that. Lying beside the German was a Mauser rifle the kind used by Snipers. He could have killed them all. Surely that had been his intention. But he'd relented. Why?
The bird sang.
One long descending note that wavered on the brink of sadness.
That was why.
It sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him till the day he died (p. 131).
Birdsong as Ross' reason for why the German spared their lives shows us the second philosophy which guided Ross' life and ultimately determined his fate. The innocent fragility of animals (and of the vulnerable being that his disabled sister was before her death) was to Ross something that could bring men back to their senses after having been desensitised by war, and if a human had been driven past this point in his war-inflicted insanity, he was to be considered, in Ross' eyes, a monster...
Ross' camp at the village of Bailleul is being bombarded in a firestorm. It is clear to him that the Germans intent is to raze the settlement to the ground. He asks permission from his captain to risk driving the horses further behind British lines to save them. His captain refuses, having lost all reason and concept of the value of life. All he cares about is the artificial construct of honour "What would it look like?" he said to Robert. "We should never live it down (p. 182)."
After another half hour, Robert decides to condemn himself and save the horses. But it is too late; before all of the horses have been let into the yard, the barn explodes. He looks around him at the dead and dying horses and decides;
"If an animal had done this - we would call it mad and shoot it," and at that precise moment, Captain leather rose to his knees and began to struggle to his feet. Robert shot him between the eyes.
It took him half an hour to kill the mules and horses. He tore the lapels from his uniform and left the battlefield (p. 184).
He manages to drive some of the surviving horses away from the front, along the way killing another man trying to stop his getaway. Eventually, they become cornered, and in his desperation he drives them into a barn. He cannot be persuaded to give himself and the horses up "We shall not be taken! (p. 191)" are his final words. Those who are after him, believing the 'we' to be a pronoun in reference to an accomplice rather than the horses, set the barn alight and trap him inside, along with the animals he tried to save.
Robert meets a children's illustrator in the 'Stained Glass Dugout' who also refers to animals with personal pronouns. He shelters, cares for and draws the hurt animals he finds, crushed or shocked, stray or refugees from destroyed trees or burrows.
"I should draw that toad, for instance, just as he is, without embellishment. In his own right, he has a good deal of character (p. 89)."
Eventually he too, dies of his compassion for the helpless creatures who have been dragged into warfare. Rodwell, a children's illustrator eventually kills himself after men crazed by the terror of the flame thrower force him to watch the murder of a cat. Rodwell, like Ross, cannot live if it means resigning to a world of unfeeling brutality.
In the death of Robert's sister Rowena, Findley leaves us with the impression that maybe some things are just too vulnerable in their purity to live in this world.
Robert was his sister's devoted keeper.
"She is called a hydrocephalic - which in plain language means she was born with water on the brain. Her expression is lovely and pensive. She wears a wide and colourful sash and on her lap she holds a large white rabbit. Robert told her once, she was the first person he remembered seeing. He was lying in a crib and, waking from a nap with half-closed eyes, he saw his sister gliding in her chair and coming to rest beside him. She stared at him a long, long time and he stared back. When she smiled, he thought she was his mother. Later, when he realised she couldn't walk and never left the chair, he became her guardian (p. 10).
Throughout his childhood and for the rest of Rowena's life, he would come with her to the barn where she could sit with her rabbits. But the day he stayed alone in his room and left Rowena in the hands of Stuart his younger brother, she fell unwatched and unheard and died.
"Robert?"
"Yes Rowena."
"Will you stay with me forever?"
"Yes Rowena."
"Can the Rabbits stay forever too?"
"Yes, Rowena."
This was forever. Now the rabbits had to be killed.
"Why do the Rabbits have to be killed?"
"Because they were hers."
"But that can't possibly make any sense."
"Nonetheless, it must be done."
"I'll look after them."
"Gracious Robert! You're a grown up man!"
"Can't we give them away?"
"Who to? Ten rabbits? Surely you can't be serious."
"What about Stuart? Can't he look after them?"
"Knowing Stuart, I can't imagine why you ask that question."
"I'll take care of them. Please!"
"Robert - control yourself!"
Silence.
"Who's going to kill them?"
"You are (p.10)."
Robert wouldn't kill them, but he tried to fight off the man hired to kill Rowena's rabbits. He joins the army ashamed of his failure and trying to find meaning for his thus far useless life. The introduction to The Wars sends the reader off imagining the thoughts and emotions behind Robert Ross' future struggle to preserve the innocent in a mad and ruthless world. The public facts - the official story woven by the transcript of his trial and a presumably guilty verdict which leave fellow veterans and most of his family (only his father attended the buirial) disgraced -condemn his memory. We read to understand what forces him to act in defence of fragility, and to see him from the perspective of those who still weep for the loss of whatever it is inside him that goes up in the flames of his failed escape from the line of fire.
The Wars is an epitaph for the humane swept up in conflict. Robert Ross' particulat story is one of how a man who refused to be broken by the most mechanised attrition the world had ever known,was thus instead consumed by it's fire. The objective of this reflection is not to give you a summary of the book, but to point out how well the introduction draws you in and makes you wonder what this man's life could have been about to have left behind such a presence in the fading memories of those who met him or heard what he'd done.
And what he'd done really is the essence of this book - People can only be found in what they do (p. 7) - is the last phrase of the introduction. Tracking his departure from Toronto as an awkward boy to his final stand as a man of resolve, the narrator never allows us into his mind. His actions prove what he believes in;
First and foremost, Robert trusted the basic humanity of every person. After a gas attack where he saved his men by telling them to lay face down, breathing through torn, urine-saturated shirt tails, a German sniper finds them in the sinkhole where they had become trapped. He realises that the soldier does not mean to harm them; 'Fritzie' is alone and, like any sane person, would abhor the thought of shooting helpless fish in a filthy, undignified, chlorine-laced barrel. Robert does not fire at the soldier. He sends his men up into no-man's land and back to relative safety.
But when it is his turn to climb out of the frozen earth, a moment of panic seizes him. The German drops his binoculars, and in reaching after them into the pit, Robert mistakes his grasping arms for lunging toward him. He shoots. The German is dead a heartbeat later.
Robert sagged against the ground. It was even worse than that. Lying beside the German was a Mauser rifle the kind used by Snipers. He could have killed them all. Surely that had been his intention. But he'd relented. Why?
The bird sang.
One long descending note that wavered on the brink of sadness.
That was why.
It sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him till the day he died (p. 131).
Birdsong as Ross' reason for why the German spared their lives shows us the second philosophy which guided Ross' life and ultimately determined his fate. The innocent fragility of animals (and of the vulnerable being that his disabled sister was before her death) was to Ross something that could bring men back to their senses after having been desensitised by war, and if a human had been driven past this point in his war-inflicted insanity, he was to be considered, in Ross' eyes, a monster...
Ross' camp at the village of Bailleul is being bombarded in a firestorm. It is clear to him that the Germans intent is to raze the settlement to the ground. He asks permission from his captain to risk driving the horses further behind British lines to save them. His captain refuses, having lost all reason and concept of the value of life. All he cares about is the artificial construct of honour "What would it look like?" he said to Robert. "We should never live it down (p. 182)."
After another half hour, Robert decides to condemn himself and save the horses. But it is too late; before all of the horses have been let into the yard, the barn explodes. He looks around him at the dead and dying horses and decides;
"If an animal had done this - we would call it mad and shoot it," and at that precise moment, Captain leather rose to his knees and began to struggle to his feet. Robert shot him between the eyes.
It took him half an hour to kill the mules and horses. He tore the lapels from his uniform and left the battlefield (p. 184).
He manages to drive some of the surviving horses away from the front, along the way killing another man trying to stop his getaway. Eventually, they become cornered, and in his desperation he drives them into a barn. He cannot be persuaded to give himself and the horses up "We shall not be taken! (p. 191)" are his final words. Those who are after him, believing the 'we' to be a pronoun in reference to an accomplice rather than the horses, set the barn alight and trap him inside, along with the animals he tried to save.
Robert meets a children's illustrator in the 'Stained Glass Dugout' who also refers to animals with personal pronouns. He shelters, cares for and draws the hurt animals he finds, crushed or shocked, stray or refugees from destroyed trees or burrows.
"I should draw that toad, for instance, just as he is, without embellishment. In his own right, he has a good deal of character (p. 89)."
Eventually he too, dies of his compassion for the helpless creatures who have been dragged into warfare. Rodwell, a children's illustrator eventually kills himself after men crazed by the terror of the flame thrower force him to watch the murder of a cat. Rodwell, like Ross, cannot live if it means resigning to a world of unfeeling brutality.
In the death of Robert's sister Rowena, Findley leaves us with the impression that maybe some things are just too vulnerable in their purity to live in this world.
Robert was his sister's devoted keeper.
"She is called a hydrocephalic - which in plain language means she was born with water on the brain. Her expression is lovely and pensive. She wears a wide and colourful sash and on her lap she holds a large white rabbit. Robert told her once, she was the first person he remembered seeing. He was lying in a crib and, waking from a nap with half-closed eyes, he saw his sister gliding in her chair and coming to rest beside him. She stared at him a long, long time and he stared back. When she smiled, he thought she was his mother. Later, when he realised she couldn't walk and never left the chair, he became her guardian (p. 10).
Throughout his childhood and for the rest of Rowena's life, he would come with her to the barn where she could sit with her rabbits. But the day he stayed alone in his room and left Rowena in the hands of Stuart his younger brother, she fell unwatched and unheard and died.
"Robert?"
"Yes Rowena."
"Will you stay with me forever?"
"Yes Rowena."
"Can the Rabbits stay forever too?"
"Yes, Rowena."
This was forever. Now the rabbits had to be killed.
"Why do the Rabbits have to be killed?"
"Because they were hers."
"But that can't possibly make any sense."
"Nonetheless, it must be done."
"I'll look after them."
"Gracious Robert! You're a grown up man!"
"Can't we give them away?"
"Who to? Ten rabbits? Surely you can't be serious."
"What about Stuart? Can't he look after them?"
"Knowing Stuart, I can't imagine why you ask that question."
"I'll take care of them. Please!"
"Robert - control yourself!"
Silence.
"Who's going to kill them?"
"You are (p.10)."
Robert wouldn't kill them, but he tried to fight off the man hired to kill Rowena's rabbits. He joins the army ashamed of his failure and trying to find meaning for his thus far useless life. The introduction to The Wars sends the reader off imagining the thoughts and emotions behind Robert Ross' future struggle to preserve the innocent in a mad and ruthless world. The public facts - the official story woven by the transcript of his trial and a presumably guilty verdict which leave fellow veterans and most of his family (only his father attended the buirial) disgraced -condemn his memory. We read to understand what forces him to act in defence of fragility, and to see him from the perspective of those who still weep for the loss of whatever it is inside him that goes up in the flames of his failed escape from the line of fire.
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