Reviews

I bought this book in the spring but was saving it for when I could give it my full and undivided attention; I don’t know if the wait resulted in my expectations getting too high but I was a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed the book (or else I wouldn’t have rated it so highly), but it felt quite formulaic and one-dimensional. I would have liked more description of both characters and setting. Ellwood and Gaunt were cardboard cut-out of characters - perfectly contrasting each other, too perfectly contrasting each other. It would have been more forgivable if there were any other characters that were more fleshed-out (my picks would have been Pritchard, Roseveare, Devi, or Maud). Speaking of secondary characters, I almost needed a flow chart to remember who was who, who did what before the war, and who died each horrible death - as a result their deaths and the subsequent impact it had of Gaunt and/or Ellwood, was not as gut-wrenching as it could have been (

except Roseveare, that was one extra little twist of the knife, dying one day before Armistice

). The July 12th, 1916 edition of the Preshutian (p. 304 - 311) helped to give more substance to the secondary characters but it was too little, too late.

One last criticism that I have is the abruptness of the change in Ellwood’s personality. He was gung-ho and relatively personable until he was wounded. Of course, disfigurement would create a change in anyone but his sudden distaste for Gaunt felt forced. Like the author realized how unlikely it would have been for both characters to be wounded only physically and slapped some shell-shock (PTSD) in at the last moment to check all the boxes.

Something that this book does really well is highlight the absurdity of war. The “gallant[ry] and “glorious[ness]” of dying covered in mud, and the blood of your brothers-in-arms, screaming for someone, anyone to help you. For what? For old men to talk?

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Quotes I quite liked:

* “We have conquered the world with promises that could not be kept. We told those Algerians that their civilization was no good, that they must have ours instead, we carried our white man’s burden dutifully, enlightening Indians – Indians! They who built the Taj Mahal! And Egyptians! For we knew better than their pyramids! We swarmed through Africa and America because we were better than they, of course we were, we were making war humane, and now it has broken down and they are dragged into hell with us. We have doomed the world with our advancements, with our democracy that is so much better than whatever they’ve thought of, with our technology that will so improve their lives, and now Algerian men much choke to death on their own melted insides in the wet, Belgian trenches“ (p. 75)

*”’it seems unfair, doesn’t it? Our parents got to live their whole lives without anything like this.’ ‘Busily building up the world that led to this.’
‘I suppose they thought they had their own problems,’ said Ellwood. ‘No one ever thinks their life is easy.’” (p. 271)

*”It was as if the dirt had a heartbeat, and it pounded to be saved, urgently alive … The land had lain for a century, dead, but now it had a awoken, demanding blood.” (p. 272)

*”It made you feel as if you were at the centre of the universe… It was like watching the universe split in half.” (p. 273)

*”It was hard to look at him and remember all the years they had spent together, not knowing what violence awaited them.” (p. 274)

*”That chivalry appeared to have blood out somewhere in France.” (p. 313)

*”Men who proved that Gaunt’s own troubles, were ancient and survivable”. (p. 329)

*”I do think it’s peculiar, how much more drawn people are to disaster than to beauty, how curious we are about the things that can be done to a body, don’t you find that interesting … ?” (p. 344)