Author: Sebastian Barry
Original Copyright Date: 2005
Would Recommend to a friend?: Yes
Back Cover Description:
"...Irish author and playwright Sebastian Barry has created a powerful new novel about divided loyalties and the realities of war. In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front. Once there he encounters violence on a scale he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and then camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side. Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home...."
My Thoughts:
This was a beautifully written book; the language was absolutely stunning. It walked the fine line between prose and poetry to perfection. The subject matter however can be difficult at times. It is war after all.
The basic story is a good one. A young lad goes off to war to make his father proud of him, finds a girl before he ships off to war, and deals with the horrors in the trenches of World War I. But the twist is the Irish revolt which starts up while he is away. He has to deal with fighting in Belgium and at home, where he is the "enemy" in both places.
Trench warfare, mustard gas, death, injury, mud, cold, and rain seem to be surround every scene and never leaves the characters alone, even when they aren't on the front lines or in Belgium for that matter. But throughout all that, the main character Willie, despite peeing his pants before most any battle, copes with this adversity with a grace and dignity that only men of yore seem to have. You know, the ones that get interviewed on TV shows reminiscing about The War, talking about the small details that got them through the atrocities that surrounded them: A flower here, a song by a comrade there, a lady back home waiting for him, etc... Willie is not always brave, but he never runs. Each time he had to kill a German, it weighed heavily on his soul, despite the fact that he was being attacked and almost died himself.
Sebastian Barry does a great job moving the story forward without bogging it down in the details. He provides more than enough detail to understand the motivations and driving forces for all the main characters without turning it into a thousand page Vanity Fair style epic which it probably could have been.
But enough of the story, lets get back to the prose, that is the real story here. It is hard to give examples in this format because the author uses sweeping narrative instead of poignant little quotable nuggets to progress the themes throughout the book. I remember whole scenes which were simply awe inspiring.
For example. In one scene, after a particularly brutal gas attack and hand to hand combat which left 800 of the 1200 front line soldiers dead; Willie's group is brought back to the reserver lines to recuperate. The soldiers set up a small stage in a barn and hold a somewhat impromptu concert. As I am reading it, I come to a paragraph which I think shows some of the beauty of the moment. In this scene, the first performer gets up nervously and starts to sing:
This isn't to say that there aren't great quotes in the book.
This was a beautifully written book; the language was absolutely stunning. It walked the fine line between prose and poetry to perfection. The subject matter however can be difficult at times. It is war after all.
The basic story is a good one. A young lad goes off to war to make his father proud of him, finds a girl before he ships off to war, and deals with the horrors in the trenches of World War I. But the twist is the Irish revolt which starts up while he is away. He has to deal with fighting in Belgium and at home, where he is the "enemy" in both places.
Trench warfare, mustard gas, death, injury, mud, cold, and rain seem to be surround every scene and never leaves the characters alone, even when they aren't on the front lines or in Belgium for that matter. But throughout all that, the main character Willie, despite peeing his pants before most any battle, copes with this adversity with a grace and dignity that only men of yore seem to have. You know, the ones that get interviewed on TV shows reminiscing about The War, talking about the small details that got them through the atrocities that surrounded them: A flower here, a song by a comrade there, a lady back home waiting for him, etc... Willie is not always brave, but he never runs. Each time he had to kill a German, it weighed heavily on his soul, despite the fact that he was being attacked and almost died himself.
Sebastian Barry does a great job moving the story forward without bogging it down in the details. He provides more than enough detail to understand the motivations and driving forces for all the main characters without turning it into a thousand page Vanity Fair style epic which it probably could have been.
But enough of the story, lets get back to the prose, that is the real story here. It is hard to give examples in this format because the author uses sweeping narrative instead of poignant little quotable nuggets to progress the themes throughout the book. I remember whole scenes which were simply awe inspiring.
For example. In one scene, after a particularly brutal gas attack and hand to hand combat which left 800 of the 1200 front line soldiers dead; Willie's group is brought back to the reserver lines to recuperate. The soldiers set up a small stage in a barn and hold a somewhat impromptu concert. As I am reading it, I come to a paragraph which I think shows some of the beauty of the moment. In this scene, the first performer gets up nervously and starts to sing:
"The listeners were stilled because in the song there was a melody that brought from their own memories coloured hint and living sparks of the past. The past was a valued thing bit it was also dangerous to them in the toxic wastelands of the war. It needed a box of safety round it, and this small room for concerts was a good as they had found"However, this poignant scene goes on for several pages and I soon gave up trying write it down in my reading notebook and just wrote a page number down instead. I felt the shelter and comfort that the soldiers felt. I was wrapped up into the beauty "Ave Maria" as Willie sings it even though I personally only know the first few bars. I was there. Very few books have ever done that to me consistently throughout a book.
This isn't to say that there aren't great quotes in the book.
"The pith of sorrow was in the upshot a little seed of death"Thanks Tom for the recommendation and letting me borrow the book!
based upon your review, my interest has peaked.
ReplyDeletei'll have to look for the book here.