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The Wars
Robert Ross, a sensitive nineteen-year-old Canadian officer, goes to war - the War to End All Wars. He finds himself in the nightmare world of trench warfare; of mud and smoke, of chlorine gas and rotting corpses. In this world gone mad, Ross performs a last desperate act to declare his commitment to life in the midst of death.
The Wars is quite simply one of the best novels ever written about the First World War.
The Wars is quite simply one of the best novels ever written about the First World War.
218 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
136 people are currently reading
6,671 people want to read
About the author
Timothy Findley
55books345followersTimothy Irving Frederick Findley was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.
One of three sons, Findley was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Allan Gilmour Findley, a stockbroker, and his wife, the former Margaret Maude Bull. His paternal grandfather was president of Massey-Harris, the farm-machinery company. He was raised in the upper class Rosedale district of the city, attending boarding school at St. Andrew's College (although leaving during grade 10 for health reasons). He pursued a career in the arts, studying dance and acting, and had significant success as an actor before turning to writing. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting alongside Alec Guinness, and appeared in the first production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker at the Edinburgh Festival. He also played Peter Pupkin in Sunshine Sketches, the CBC Television adaptation of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
Though Findley had declared his homosexuality as a teenager, he married actress/photographer Janet Reid in 1959, but the union lasted only three months and was dissolved by divorce or annulment two years later. Eventually he became the domestic partner of writer Bill Whitehead, whom he met in 1962. Findley and Whitehead also collaborated on several documentary projects in the 1970s, including the television miniseries The National Dream and Dieppe 1942.
Through Wilder, Findley became a close friend of actress Ruth Gordon, whose work as a screenwriter and playwright inspired Findley to consider writing as well. After Findley published his first short story in the Tamarack Review, Gordon encouraged him to pursue writing more actively, and he eventually left acting in the 1960s.
Findley's first two novels, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969), were originally published in Britain and the United States after having been rejected by Canadian publishers. Findley's third novel, The Wars, was published to great acclaim in 1977 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction. It was adapted for film in 1981.
Timothy Findley received a Governor General's Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, an ACTRA Award, the Order of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Award, and in 1985 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.
His writing was typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic style � Findley, in fact, first invented its name � and was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology. Mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted � sometimes to the point of psychosis � by these burdens.
He publicly mentioned his homosexuality, passingly and perhaps for the first time, on a broadcast of the programme The Shulman File in the 1970s, taking flabbergasted host Morton Shulman completely by surprise.
Findley and Whitehead resided at Stone Orchard, a farm near Cannington, Ontario, and in the south of France. In 1996, Findley was honoured by the French government, who declared him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres.
Findley was also the author of several dramas for television and stage. Elizabeth Rex, his most successful play, premiered at the Stratford Festival of Canada to rave reviews and won a Governor General's award. His 1993 play The Stillborn Lover was adapted by Shaftesbury Films into the television film External Affairs, which aired on CBC Television in 1999. Shadows, first performed in 2001, was his last completed work. Findley was also an active mentor to a number of young Canadian writers, including Marnie Woodrow and Elizabeth Ruth.
One of three sons, Findley was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Allan Gilmour Findley, a stockbroker, and his wife, the former Margaret Maude Bull. His paternal grandfather was president of Massey-Harris, the farm-machinery company. He was raised in the upper class Rosedale district of the city, attending boarding school at St. Andrew's College (although leaving during grade 10 for health reasons). He pursued a career in the arts, studying dance and acting, and had significant success as an actor before turning to writing. He was part of the original Stratford Festival company in the 1950s, acting alongside Alec Guinness, and appeared in the first production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker at the Edinburgh Festival. He also played Peter Pupkin in Sunshine Sketches, the CBC Television adaptation of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
Though Findley had declared his homosexuality as a teenager, he married actress/photographer Janet Reid in 1959, but the union lasted only three months and was dissolved by divorce or annulment two years later. Eventually he became the domestic partner of writer Bill Whitehead, whom he met in 1962. Findley and Whitehead also collaborated on several documentary projects in the 1970s, including the television miniseries The National Dream and Dieppe 1942.
Through Wilder, Findley became a close friend of actress Ruth Gordon, whose work as a screenwriter and playwright inspired Findley to consider writing as well. After Findley published his first short story in the Tamarack Review, Gordon encouraged him to pursue writing more actively, and he eventually left acting in the 1960s.
Findley's first two novels, The Last of the Crazy People (1967) and The Butterfly Plague (1969), were originally published in Britain and the United States after having been rejected by Canadian publishers. Findley's third novel, The Wars, was published to great acclaim in 1977 and went on to win the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction. It was adapted for film in 1981.
Timothy Findley received a Governor General's Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, an ACTRA Award, the Order of Ontario, the Ontario Trillium Award, and in 1985 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, and a president of the Canadian chapter of PEN International.
His writing was typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic style � Findley, in fact, first invented its name � and was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology. Mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted � sometimes to the point of psychosis � by these burdens.
He publicly mentioned his homosexuality, passingly and perhaps for the first time, on a broadcast of the programme The Shulman File in the 1970s, taking flabbergasted host Morton Shulman completely by surprise.
Findley and Whitehead resided at Stone Orchard, a farm near Cannington, Ontario, and in the south of France. In 1996, Findley was honoured by the French government, who declared him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et des lettres.
Findley was also the author of several dramas for television and stage. Elizabeth Rex, his most successful play, premiered at the Stratford Festival of Canada to rave reviews and won a Governor General's award. His 1993 play The Stillborn Lover was adapted by Shaftesbury Films into the television film External Affairs, which aired on CBC Television in 1999. Shadows, first performed in 2001, was his last completed work. Findley was also an active mentor to a number of young Canadian writers, including Marnie Woodrow and Elizabeth Ruth.
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December 24, 2014
I almost did it last night. When I finished this book, I was too overjoyed by its beauty, I thought of putting the book in front of me, stand up and applaud. It’s just that I was not at home. I was in a 24-hr Dunkin� Donuts outlet and people would definitely stare at me and think that I was a losing my mind. I did not know what to do. My head was spinning with joy and I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
Come to think of it, as a reader, how do you celebrate finishing a great novel? At the end of a beautiful opera or stage play, you stand up and clap your hands in appreciation. Or even after a movie. So far, in my 47 years of existence on earth and with at least a movie per month, I only saw two movies when people stood up and applauded after the screening and it was not a premiere showing or something. The movies were Dead Poet’s Society (1989) and Titanic (1997) which shows somehow that Filipinos, in general, know how to appreciate good works of art. I was one of them inside those moviehouses. I felt the same way last night. I wanted to express my appreciation to Timothy Findley (1930-2002) for writing such a beautiful novel. How? Had I been at home, I could have hugged and kissed my wife or daughter and they would understand. But not when you are alone with strangers. You know what I felt doing? If only Brignoles, France is just a 30-min drive from the donut store, I would have gone straight there and bring flowers to Timothy Findley’s grave.
If this novel, The Wars (1977) is to be my basis, I can say that Findley, a Canadian, is a brilliant writer. It is a war drama about a young rich Canadian soldier who joins the army and fights against German forces in trenches in France. Shivers ran through my skin in several scenes. My heart palpitated and my hands shook while holding the book in a couple of parts. It uses first-, second- and third-person narratives, something that is rare and Findley handled it masterfully. The novel is also an example of historiographic metafiction. Finally, it has a strong relevant theme: that war brings out the beast in man and most men in war do not really know what they are fighting for.
I just do not how to properly capture the beauty of this book. Suffice it to say that I will have to review my Top 10 Favorite Novels list as I think this has to be there.
Come to think of it, as a reader, how do you celebrate finishing a great novel? At the end of a beautiful opera or stage play, you stand up and clap your hands in appreciation. Or even after a movie. So far, in my 47 years of existence on earth and with at least a movie per month, I only saw two movies when people stood up and applauded after the screening and it was not a premiere showing or something. The movies were Dead Poet’s Society (1989) and Titanic (1997) which shows somehow that Filipinos, in general, know how to appreciate good works of art. I was one of them inside those moviehouses. I felt the same way last night. I wanted to express my appreciation to Timothy Findley (1930-2002) for writing such a beautiful novel. How? Had I been at home, I could have hugged and kissed my wife or daughter and they would understand. But not when you are alone with strangers. You know what I felt doing? If only Brignoles, France is just a 30-min drive from the donut store, I would have gone straight there and bring flowers to Timothy Findley’s grave.
If this novel, The Wars (1977) is to be my basis, I can say that Findley, a Canadian, is a brilliant writer. It is a war drama about a young rich Canadian soldier who joins the army and fights against German forces in trenches in France. Shivers ran through my skin in several scenes. My heart palpitated and my hands shook while holding the book in a couple of parts. It uses first-, second- and third-person narratives, something that is rare and Findley handled it masterfully. The novel is also an example of historiographic metafiction. Finally, it has a strong relevant theme: that war brings out the beast in man and most men in war do not really know what they are fighting for.
I just do not how to properly capture the beauty of this book. Suffice it to say that I will have to review my Top 10 Favorite Novels list as I think this has to be there.
September 16, 2019
The Wars by Timothy Findley is one of my favorite novels.
Written in 1977, the title of the novel refers both to WW1 and the psychological effects of warfare on the psyche of our protagonist Robert Ross. The war within the war so to speak.
Robert is from Lethbridge Alberta and the novel follows him as a 17 year old on the prairie, then through the war in France and continuing with his leave and convalescence in England.
Back home Robert is raised by a cold mother and a more caring father. After a family tragedy, for which his mother assigns the blame to Robert, he immediately enlists in the Army with his two buddies. Sent overseas they encounter the repeated horrors of trench warfare. As Robert sees so much death his temper and PTSD begin to manifest. Towards the end of the novel, he saves hundreds of horses from certain death on the front line in direct violation of his superior’s orders and then Robert goes berserk and is on the run.
His story is stitched together in vignettes by the historian and narrator of the novel. Perhaps the most memorable character in the novel, Lady Juliet d’Orset, tells the story she knew of Robert from his leave and convalescence at her estate some fifty years prior. As a teen Juliet, she emphasizes it is pronounced “Joolyut�, wrote in her diary about Robert for whom she had a crush. But Robert was romantically involved with her sister. To wit there are some funny voyeuristic scenes from a spying Juliet. The ending of the novel, perhaps not realistic, is heart wrenching.
I was so invested in all of these characters. And this book is about so much more than war. Findley draws a remarkable assemblage of strong and memorable female characters on the home-front. It is the female characters who tell his story.
5 stars. Another one for my six star shelf. A beautiful novel.
Written in 1977, the title of the novel refers both to WW1 and the psychological effects of warfare on the psyche of our protagonist Robert Ross. The war within the war so to speak.
Robert is from Lethbridge Alberta and the novel follows him as a 17 year old on the prairie, then through the war in France and continuing with his leave and convalescence in England.
Back home Robert is raised by a cold mother and a more caring father. After a family tragedy, for which his mother assigns the blame to Robert, he immediately enlists in the Army with his two buddies. Sent overseas they encounter the repeated horrors of trench warfare. As Robert sees so much death his temper and PTSD begin to manifest. Towards the end of the novel, he saves hundreds of horses from certain death on the front line in direct violation of his superior’s orders and then Robert goes berserk and is on the run.
His story is stitched together in vignettes by the historian and narrator of the novel. Perhaps the most memorable character in the novel, Lady Juliet d’Orset, tells the story she knew of Robert from his leave and convalescence at her estate some fifty years prior. As a teen Juliet, she emphasizes it is pronounced “Joolyut�, wrote in her diary about Robert for whom she had a crush. But Robert was romantically involved with her sister. To wit there are some funny voyeuristic scenes from a spying Juliet. The ending of the novel, perhaps not realistic, is heart wrenching.
I was so invested in all of these characters. And this book is about so much more than war. Findley draws a remarkable assemblage of strong and memorable female characters on the home-front. It is the female characters who tell his story.
5 stars. Another one for my six star shelf. A beautiful novel.
December 26, 2022
Not an easy book to read. Both brutal and beautiful!
Timothy Findley based � central protagonist Robert Ross at least partly on his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley. The book is dedicated to him. Thomas' letters home during the First World War were the author's primary source material.
is a 1977 novel about Robert Ross, a nineteen-year-old Canadian who enlists after the death of his beloved, wheelchair bound older sister. Why? In an effort to flee both his grief and what he deems to be the oppressive social norms of Edwardian society. The book follows his war experiences on the Western Front—in the mud, chlorine fumes, fires, body parts and corpses littering the trenches around Ypres.
Animals have a significant role to play in the tale.
How the tale is told is beautiful. There is an artistry to it. The imagery drawn is powerful. The book begins with an event that you don’t fully understand. We see the same event later, and now we do understand!
How members of Robert’s family react to events as they unfold is presented in a well thought out manner. Believable, gripping and heartfelt are the appropriate words of description. The emotions experienced by his mother and his father feel very right to me.
The words “not yet�, in relation to the will to live or the wish to die, will take on a new, special meaning after reading this book.
Honestly, this is all you need to know. Now read it and experience it.
I listened to an audio version read by Ulf Palme. I had to listen carefully to hear every word. He doesn’t enunciate words clearly, which annoyed me. He mumbles. I did hear every word because I put great effort into the listening. Three stars is as high as I can go for the rating of the narration.
Let me repeat. This story is both brutal and beautiful. I see it as a work of art.
**
* 5 stars
* TBR
Thank you, Dan Witte and Rosemarie, for recommending the above two books to me!
* TBR (looks good)
* TBR (recommended by Sandy)
Timothy Findley based � central protagonist Robert Ross at least partly on his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley. The book is dedicated to him. Thomas' letters home during the First World War were the author's primary source material.
is a 1977 novel about Robert Ross, a nineteen-year-old Canadian who enlists after the death of his beloved, wheelchair bound older sister. Why? In an effort to flee both his grief and what he deems to be the oppressive social norms of Edwardian society. The book follows his war experiences on the Western Front—in the mud, chlorine fumes, fires, body parts and corpses littering the trenches around Ypres.
Animals have a significant role to play in the tale.
How the tale is told is beautiful. There is an artistry to it. The imagery drawn is powerful. The book begins with an event that you don’t fully understand. We see the same event later, and now we do understand!
How members of Robert’s family react to events as they unfold is presented in a well thought out manner. Believable, gripping and heartfelt are the appropriate words of description. The emotions experienced by his mother and his father feel very right to me.
The words “not yet�, in relation to the will to live or the wish to die, will take on a new, special meaning after reading this book.
Honestly, this is all you need to know. Now read it and experience it.
I listened to an audio version read by Ulf Palme. I had to listen carefully to hear every word. He doesn’t enunciate words clearly, which annoyed me. He mumbles. I did hear every word because I put great effort into the listening. Three stars is as high as I can go for the rating of the narration.
Let me repeat. This story is both brutal and beautiful. I see it as a work of art.
**
* 5 stars
* TBR
Thank you, Dan Witte and Rosemarie, for recommending the above two books to me!
* TBR (looks good)
* TBR (recommended by Sandy)
August 14, 2016
Moving account of one Canadian man’s experience with World War 1. The novel is barely 200 pages, so what we have here is no sweeping coverage of the war, nor an in-depth immersion in the horrors. But we get enough pictures of Robert Ross’s life leading up to the war for his character to shine through and then sufficient samples from the stages of his training and long service at Ypres in Belgium to feel very intimately the destructive power of the “War to End All Wars�. Findley uses plain and clear prose to render events that Robert experienced without presuming to know what he felt.
At the beginning of the book we get a foreshadowing of the story of Robert Ross. An unknown historian or journalist is trying to piece together his life in World War 1 from the time point of the author’s present in the late 70’s. A large archive of letters and photos he is working with seems to present a metaphor for how history is such a challenging task of reconstruction: Spread over table tops, a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamp.
One picture captures the essence of the fictional author’s quest for understanding:
Robert Ross comes riding straight toward the camera. His hat has fallen off. His hands are knotted to the reins. They bleed. The horse is black and wet and falling. Robert’s lips are parted. He leans along the horse’s neck. His eyes are blank. There is mud on his cheeks and forehead and his uniform is burning—long, bright tails of flame are streaming out behinds him. He leaps through memory without a sound. �. You lay the fiery image back in your mind and let it rest. You know it will obtrude again and again and again until you find its meaning—here.
The story of Robert is that of an ordinary, sensitive man, just trying to do the right thing for the good of his country. He was very attached to his hydrocephalic sister who died as a teen. Having to kill an injured horse on the transport ship Robert is his introduction to the horrors of war, and it connects directly to his father forcing him as a boy to kill his sister’s rabbits after she dies. As a 2nd Lieutenant, he is forced him to strive for leadership, while at the same time he has to carry out orders by officers blind to the realities in the front line. He has no recourse to religious beliefs to help him make sense of the pervasive slaughter this war was marked by. We can only imagine whether he could buy into what one unusually kind officer wrote to his daughter before committing suicide:
Touch these pages and you have me in your fingertips. We survive in one another. Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing dies. I am your father always.
Interviews with an army nurse in her 80’s reveals at the book’s outset that Robert saved a lot of horses from a burning barn, that he did something to get arrested, and that he was terribly burned and spent a long time in a hospital. She is also the apparent mouthpiece later on for what Findley is trying to portray in writing this book: My opinion was—he was a hero. …You see, he did a thing that no one else would even dare think of doing. � Well, it was the war that was crazy, I guess. Not Robert Ross or what he did. By contrast, the leaders who started and managed the war: such men are just the butcher and the grocer—selling us meat and potatoes across the counter. That’s what binds us together. The appeal of our basest instincts. The lowest common denominator.
The only other source from someone who knew Robert was a sister of a lover he briefly had. Her journal as a young girl contains a poignant summary judgment of the war from a brother who also was in combat:
Someone once said to Clive: do you think we will ever be forgiven for what we have done? They meant their generation and the war and what the war had done to civilization. Clive said something I’ve never forgotten. He said: I doubt we’ll ever be forgiven. All I hope is that they’ll remember we were human beings.
At the beginning of the book we get a foreshadowing of the story of Robert Ross. An unknown historian or journalist is trying to piece together his life in World War 1 from the time point of the author’s present in the late 70’s. A large archive of letters and photos he is working with seems to present a metaphor for how history is such a challenging task of reconstruction: Spread over table tops, a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamp.
One picture captures the essence of the fictional author’s quest for understanding:
Robert Ross comes riding straight toward the camera. His hat has fallen off. His hands are knotted to the reins. They bleed. The horse is black and wet and falling. Robert’s lips are parted. He leans along the horse’s neck. His eyes are blank. There is mud on his cheeks and forehead and his uniform is burning—long, bright tails of flame are streaming out behinds him. He leaps through memory without a sound. �. You lay the fiery image back in your mind and let it rest. You know it will obtrude again and again and again until you find its meaning—here.
The story of Robert is that of an ordinary, sensitive man, just trying to do the right thing for the good of his country. He was very attached to his hydrocephalic sister who died as a teen. Having to kill an injured horse on the transport ship Robert is his introduction to the horrors of war, and it connects directly to his father forcing him as a boy to kill his sister’s rabbits after she dies. As a 2nd Lieutenant, he is forced him to strive for leadership, while at the same time he has to carry out orders by officers blind to the realities in the front line. He has no recourse to religious beliefs to help him make sense of the pervasive slaughter this war was marked by. We can only imagine whether he could buy into what one unusually kind officer wrote to his daughter before committing suicide:
Touch these pages and you have me in your fingertips. We survive in one another. Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing dies. I am your father always.
Interviews with an army nurse in her 80’s reveals at the book’s outset that Robert saved a lot of horses from a burning barn, that he did something to get arrested, and that he was terribly burned and spent a long time in a hospital. She is also the apparent mouthpiece later on for what Findley is trying to portray in writing this book: My opinion was—he was a hero. …You see, he did a thing that no one else would even dare think of doing. � Well, it was the war that was crazy, I guess. Not Robert Ross or what he did. By contrast, the leaders who started and managed the war: such men are just the butcher and the grocer—selling us meat and potatoes across the counter. That’s what binds us together. The appeal of our basest instincts. The lowest common denominator.
The only other source from someone who knew Robert was a sister of a lover he briefly had. Her journal as a young girl contains a poignant summary judgment of the war from a brother who also was in combat:
Someone once said to Clive: do you think we will ever be forgiven for what we have done? They meant their generation and the war and what the war had done to civilization. Clive said something I’ve never forgotten. He said: I doubt we’ll ever be forgiven. All I hope is that they’ll remember we were human beings.
January 1, 2015
I waited a little while to write this review, because it felt like a book I needed to muse over for a while. But to be honest I don't think the extra time helped; my feelings about this book are still a bit muddled and overwhelming. I did like it very much, although maybe not quite as much by the end as I thought I would at the beginning. I think the narrative structure (although objectively I can say that it works very effectively) kept me from connecting emotionally to the degree that I expected to with the character.
That said, the theme is one that I found to be extremely moving: a sensitive soul, struggling to both retain his humanity and reconcile his extreme empathy in one of the darkest periods in recent history. I feel a great affinity with characters like Robert who feel deeply, who hate to see innocents (whether human or animal) suffer. As a highly sensitive person who cannot watch news stories (or even violent scenes in movies) that involve cruelty towards children or animals without being haunted for months or even years after, I know how impossible it is to control that extreme empathy/sensitivity trait. That’s a key theme in this book, what happens to a person with extreme empathy who is trapped in the nightmare of World War I, a period which brought out so much darkness and cruelty in so many, and destroyed so many innocents.
There are scenes/moments in this novel that are so incredibly moving, and as I said above the theme hits very close to home. The only reason that I rated it 4 stars instead of 5, is that the archivist/detached perspective kept me from fully connecting with Robert, despite how much I identified with some of his reactions and traits. While I think the structure works well enough for the novel, my personal taste tends towards more intimate connections with characters. I really wanted to get inside his head instead of just read the conjectures and recollections of others, and be there when the exposure to so much darkness led him to unravel and act in the only way he could.
That said, the theme is one that I found to be extremely moving: a sensitive soul, struggling to both retain his humanity and reconcile his extreme empathy in one of the darkest periods in recent history. I feel a great affinity with characters like Robert who feel deeply, who hate to see innocents (whether human or animal) suffer. As a highly sensitive person who cannot watch news stories (or even violent scenes in movies) that involve cruelty towards children or animals without being haunted for months or even years after, I know how impossible it is to control that extreme empathy/sensitivity trait. That’s a key theme in this book, what happens to a person with extreme empathy who is trapped in the nightmare of World War I, a period which brought out so much darkness and cruelty in so many, and destroyed so many innocents.
There are scenes/moments in this novel that are so incredibly moving, and as I said above the theme hits very close to home. The only reason that I rated it 4 stars instead of 5, is that the archivist/detached perspective kept me from fully connecting with Robert, despite how much I identified with some of his reactions and traits. While I think the structure works well enough for the novel, my personal taste tends towards more intimate connections with characters. I really wanted to get inside his head instead of just read the conjectures and recollections of others, and be there when the exposure to so much darkness led him to unravel and act in the only way he could.
April 17, 2017
I was very impressed by this war novel � one of the best I have read. The more I progressed in the book, the more enamored I became, and drawn into the different settings and characters.
All was wonderfully envisioned as one becomes immersed in the narrative. The ending is , but after all this is war � a vast barbaric machine.
I had never heard of this Canadian author, so thanks go to the GR network!
The first twenty to thirty pages are rather intangible, but after it settles into our main character. There is a feeling and depth throughout.
All was wonderfully envisioned as one becomes immersed in the narrative. The ending is , but after all this is war � a vast barbaric machine.
I had never heard of this Canadian author, so thanks go to the GR network!
The first twenty to thirty pages are rather intangible, but after it settles into our main character. There is a feeling and depth throughout.
August 19, 2024
Aug 16, 9am ~~ Review asap.
Aug 18, 5pm ~~ GR friend Sandy mentioned this author some time ago and I was intrigued so I ordered some used copies of a few of his books. I set them up in publication order and this was the first to be read.
The Wars tells the story of a young Canadian named Robert Ross, nineteen years old when he enters the military and is sent to the trenches of WWI. He is so innocent, and is suddenly confronted with the need to come to terms with what he is living through, what he sees, hears, and smells in this so-called 'war to end all wars'.
What a pity about that phrase, by the way. It is one reason that makes all WWI reading so sad for me. Such events were not supposed to happen again but we foolish humans seem obstinately attached to our wars. Are we really so stupid that we cannot find non-violent solutions to our differences?
The book is intense, Robert's experiences are horrifying. You must be prepared for that when you begin this book. You will wonder how he held himself together. You will wonder how anyone could, and you will feel compassion not only for the soldiers of that era, but for all soldiers since then.
I wonder just how many soldiers all over the world right at this minute feel the way Robert felt at one point in the story:
"His body was completely numb and his mind had shrunk to a small, protective shell in which he hoarded the barest essentials of reason."
Send some energy out to them, please. Help them remember that there is hope. There is always hope.
Isn't there?
If not, we are all lost.
Aug 18, 5pm ~~ GR friend Sandy mentioned this author some time ago and I was intrigued so I ordered some used copies of a few of his books. I set them up in publication order and this was the first to be read.
The Wars tells the story of a young Canadian named Robert Ross, nineteen years old when he enters the military and is sent to the trenches of WWI. He is so innocent, and is suddenly confronted with the need to come to terms with what he is living through, what he sees, hears, and smells in this so-called 'war to end all wars'.
What a pity about that phrase, by the way. It is one reason that makes all WWI reading so sad for me. Such events were not supposed to happen again but we foolish humans seem obstinately attached to our wars. Are we really so stupid that we cannot find non-violent solutions to our differences?
The book is intense, Robert's experiences are horrifying. You must be prepared for that when you begin this book. You will wonder how he held himself together. You will wonder how anyone could, and you will feel compassion not only for the soldiers of that era, but for all soldiers since then.
I wonder just how many soldiers all over the world right at this minute feel the way Robert felt at one point in the story:
"His body was completely numb and his mind had shrunk to a small, protective shell in which he hoarded the barest essentials of reason."
Send some energy out to them, please. Help them remember that there is hope. There is always hope.
Isn't there?
If not, we are all lost.
March 23, 2023
This book broke new ground in the field of CanLit when it first came out in the 1970s, and won a GG. The Canadian experience in World War I, the brutality and the nightmares � horses confronted with machine guns � are presented in a frank unsentimental treatment. The wars are not "glorious" in this telling, and ultimately the war is against our own humanity.
However, decades later one has the feeling these muddy trenches have been over-exposed and this approach has been much-imitated and mined for material. Still, the text has energy and the power of the unexpected. In a way, Findley had trouble living up to this achievement � nothing else was ever quite as good (although I’m sure other readers might disagree).
The Wars was Tiff's most popular novel. It has been adapted for stage and screen and 50 years after publication is still widely read.
However, decades later one has the feeling these muddy trenches have been over-exposed and this approach has been much-imitated and mined for material. Still, the text has energy and the power of the unexpected. In a way, Findley had trouble living up to this achievement � nothing else was ever quite as good (although I’m sure other readers might disagree).
The Wars was Tiff's most popular novel. It has been adapted for stage and screen and 50 years after publication is still widely read.
March 18, 2011
I hate reviewing Timothy Findley books. The reason is, I'm always at a loss for words because of how emotionally straining it is to read one of his novels. I hate rereading my review of "Not Wanted on the Voyage" because I realize that my words don't do justice to his books, (and most of my review was a rant about Margaret Atwood.)
Let's not get off track. I'll try to express my feelings about this book as coherently as I can. I'm on such an emotional high from finishing the book, that I feel like I'm writing an e-mail after a glass of Chardonnay. Drunk-mailing they say.
"The Wars" takes place during the First World War. It follows the military career of a sensitive young Canadian soldier, Robert Ross. Robert Ross is thrown into the front lines, where he witnesses the atrocities of trench warfare.
I know, I know. You're probably thinking that you've seen this all before, just another piece of antiwar literature. But it's much more. Findley really takes it up to the next level; He portrays the hell that is war without making it seem over-the-top, or comical.The story is told through the perspectives of a historian, and a handful of people that knew Ross. The story can often seem fragmented because it often switches from a first, second, and third person point of view, but because each perspective has such a distinct voice, it completely works.
Although this is a book about war, and there are definitely some BADASS moments in this book, (the baddest moment involves peeing into handkerchiefs, yes you read that right) what really stands out for me is the depth of Ross's character. Here is a young man, just freshly emerged from boyhood. He wants to escape life with a dysfunctional family, so he enlists for war. The little tidbits about the Ross family in Canada had me very close to tears. Robert Ross was characterized as the type of man to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and in the end, this is what brings him to his breaking point.
Not to say that this book was perfect. I felt at times that the war was just a backdrop to Findley's other themes: dysfunctional families, sexuality, man's relationship with nature, love, mental illness. Regardless, these are themes that he does well.
5 stars. A must read. For everybody, really.
Let's not get off track. I'll try to express my feelings about this book as coherently as I can. I'm on such an emotional high from finishing the book, that I feel like I'm writing an e-mail after a glass of Chardonnay. Drunk-mailing they say.
"The Wars" takes place during the First World War. It follows the military career of a sensitive young Canadian soldier, Robert Ross. Robert Ross is thrown into the front lines, where he witnesses the atrocities of trench warfare.
I know, I know. You're probably thinking that you've seen this all before, just another piece of antiwar literature. But it's much more. Findley really takes it up to the next level; He portrays the hell that is war without making it seem over-the-top, or comical.The story is told through the perspectives of a historian, and a handful of people that knew Ross. The story can often seem fragmented because it often switches from a first, second, and third person point of view, but because each perspective has such a distinct voice, it completely works.
Although this is a book about war, and there are definitely some BADASS moments in this book, (the baddest moment involves peeing into handkerchiefs, yes you read that right) what really stands out for me is the depth of Ross's character. Here is a young man, just freshly emerged from boyhood. He wants to escape life with a dysfunctional family, so he enlists for war. The little tidbits about the Ross family in Canada had me very close to tears. Robert Ross was characterized as the type of man to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and in the end, this is what brings him to his breaking point.
Not to say that this book was perfect. I felt at times that the war was just a backdrop to Findley's other themes: dysfunctional families, sexuality, man's relationship with nature, love, mental illness. Regardless, these are themes that he does well.
5 stars. A must read. For everybody, really.
January 3, 2012
This review was written in the late nineties (just for myself), and it was buried in amongst my things until today, when I uncovered the journal it was written in. I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago (although square brackets indicate some additional information for the sake of readability). It is one of my lost reviews.
Fragments. That is the greatest strength of Canadian Literature for me -- the masterful use of fragments. 's is certainly the masterpiece of fragments, but is its stunning precursor. And the compairsons go far beyond the burning deaths of their heroes. But I'll not pursue that thread here.
The Wars stunned me.
Robet Ross's release of the horses is an amazing expression of humanity in the midst of chaos, yet its power is derived from his murder of Pvt. Cassles. The Pvt. is shot in the face, and we suddenly understand the import of that other scene -- Robert's rape in the bathhouse -- where he Robert realizs that humanity and being humane is insufficient. Everything is suddenly clear to him. It is not that Robert is some insande beast who loves animals more than men [though if he did, I don't think it would make him anything near insane], it is that animals, coyotes, toads, horses, dogs, birds never hurt him. Or in the case of Rowena's rabbits, they symbolize love. Robert knows humanity by knowing animals.
The Wars is the natural world triumphant over our technological holocausts.
[That was a real rambler. I wonder if I was drunk when I wrote that?]
Fragments. That is the greatest strength of Canadian Literature for me -- the masterful use of fragments. 's is certainly the masterpiece of fragments, but is its stunning precursor. And the compairsons go far beyond the burning deaths of their heroes. But I'll not pursue that thread here.
The Wars stunned me.
Robet Ross's release of the horses is an amazing expression of humanity in the midst of chaos, yet its power is derived from his murder of Pvt. Cassles. The Pvt. is shot in the face, and we suddenly understand the import of that other scene -- Robert's rape in the bathhouse -- where he Robert realizs that humanity and being humane is insufficient. Everything is suddenly clear to him. It is not that Robert is some insande beast who loves animals more than men [though if he did, I don't think it would make him anything near insane], it is that animals, coyotes, toads, horses, dogs, birds never hurt him. Or in the case of Rowena's rabbits, they symbolize love. Robert knows humanity by knowing animals.
The Wars is the natural world triumphant over our technological holocausts.
[That was a real rambler. I wonder if I was drunk when I wrote that?]
October 11, 2017
Simply one of the best novels ever, this is a stunning read because it immerses the reader so completely into the experience of Robert Ross that it's hard to extract oneself afterward. I found myself thinking and seeing and imagining the way he does for a long while after I had finished the book--or it had finished with me for the time being. For some reason there are a great many books that are ostensibly about the Great War (WWI), including Birdsong and The Ghost Road and Goodbye To All That, and this is certainly another on the list. However, Findley isn't just addressing war here; he's thinking and feeling deeply about how to live a meaningful life, how to overcome guilt and regret, how to come to terms with failure, why we have to keep on going even when there doesn't seem to be any point in doing so, who we are when there's no one else except us...it goes on and on. But it's not a didactic novel by any means. The last thing it's doing is preaching. It is as good as we can do in terms of getting into someone else's head and living his bold, tragic, quietly incredible life for a little while.
My vote for the best Canadian novel of all time.
My vote for the best Canadian novel of all time.
November 6, 2016
So many parts of this story were heart-breaking. To think that countries send their young men into such atrocious situations. No one could have come back from War unscathed in some way.
Timothy Findley is adept at showing the reader the sights, scenes and conditions of a hand-to-hand war, with all its mud, explosions, living conditions and the death that surrounded everyone at all times of the day and night. This novel was superb in how it portrayed the horror. I don't know if I've ever read a war story that showed so clearly what the fields were like for the front line soldier.
This is an important story and very well told. My heart bleeds for all the Robert Ross' who fought for us. I am filled with gratitude for their sacrifices.
Timothy Findley is adept at showing the reader the sights, scenes and conditions of a hand-to-hand war, with all its mud, explosions, living conditions and the death that surrounded everyone at all times of the day and night. This novel was superb in how it portrayed the horror. I don't know if I've ever read a war story that showed so clearly what the fields were like for the front line soldier.
This is an important story and very well told. My heart bleeds for all the Robert Ross' who fought for us. I am filled with gratitude for their sacrifices.
March 22, 2023
In 2011, Canadian parents challenged the inclusion of Timothy Findley's award-winning novel The Wars on a high school reading list, describing it as depraved and full of sex. I mentioned the challenge in one of my periodic banned book blog entries and promised myself I'd read it. It took me a year to run down a copy -- it's a Canadian novel from the 1970s and you never see it on book store shelves, at least here in the States -- but with the help of a bookseller friend I tracked it down.
And I'm glad I did -- but first to the depravity. The novel is about a young Canadian man, Robert Ross, who joins the military to fight in World War One. The depravity, to my mind, is the war itself, in all its mindless horror. While the complaining parents were busy counting repetitions of the word "breast" (five times), I was counting the bodies of the senselessly killed (thousands). Nevertheless, there it is, that word "breast." Also "penis." Early in the story Robert visits a whorehouse in Alberta; while there the girl he is with shows him a peephole in the wall; through it Robert witnesses a homosexual act. Later in the novel Robert has sex with Lady d'Orsey. Later still he is raped by fellow soldiers in the bathhouse of an insane asylum. In between these acts of depravity Robert fights in the trenches near Ypres and St. Eloi, where he witnesses, participates in, and commits acts of unspeakably lethal obscenity, all for the glory of Canada and the preservation of the British Empire. The parents in Ontario, like so many of their fellow book banners, idiotically confuse condemning depravity with depravity itself, so let's hear no more of them, the small-minded fools.
This is an anti-war novel in the great tradition of anti-war novels, filled with shocking detail but no overt anti-war commentary -- the action, the carnage, and the deaths speak for themselves. Of course Robert goes off to war an innocent young man; his fellow officers and the soldiers under them are innocent young men too. That is affecting; what is more affecting is the inclusion of animals and their sad fates. One of Robert's trenchmates collects small animals -- toads, hedgehogs, rabbits -- small creatures as shellshocked as the men around them. Robert, accidentally, becomes the officer in charge of mules and horses; indeed the climactic showdown occurs during the Somme offensive as Robert is trying to evacuate a hundred horses from a stock barn about to be shelled by the Germans. Birds, horses, dogs, mules, cats -- everywhere are animals trapped in the chaos of the front lines, helpless in the midst of human chaos.
I'm more than halfway convinced the Canadian objections to this book are really in reaction to the ringing clarity of its anti-war message, that counting repetitions of the word "breast" is mere cover for suppressing a dangerous book that might turn potential cannon fodder into pacifists, much like the real reasons behind the repeated challenges to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five here in the States.
Anti-war books may not be your cup of tea. But this is one of the best ones I've ever read, certainly one of the best written, and I'll long remember it.
And I'm glad I did -- but first to the depravity. The novel is about a young Canadian man, Robert Ross, who joins the military to fight in World War One. The depravity, to my mind, is the war itself, in all its mindless horror. While the complaining parents were busy counting repetitions of the word "breast" (five times), I was counting the bodies of the senselessly killed (thousands). Nevertheless, there it is, that word "breast." Also "penis." Early in the story Robert visits a whorehouse in Alberta; while there the girl he is with shows him a peephole in the wall; through it Robert witnesses a homosexual act. Later in the novel Robert has sex with Lady d'Orsey. Later still he is raped by fellow soldiers in the bathhouse of an insane asylum. In between these acts of depravity Robert fights in the trenches near Ypres and St. Eloi, where he witnesses, participates in, and commits acts of unspeakably lethal obscenity, all for the glory of Canada and the preservation of the British Empire. The parents in Ontario, like so many of their fellow book banners, idiotically confuse condemning depravity with depravity itself, so let's hear no more of them, the small-minded fools.
This is an anti-war novel in the great tradition of anti-war novels, filled with shocking detail but no overt anti-war commentary -- the action, the carnage, and the deaths speak for themselves. Of course Robert goes off to war an innocent young man; his fellow officers and the soldiers under them are innocent young men too. That is affecting; what is more affecting is the inclusion of animals and their sad fates. One of Robert's trenchmates collects small animals -- toads, hedgehogs, rabbits -- small creatures as shellshocked as the men around them. Robert, accidentally, becomes the officer in charge of mules and horses; indeed the climactic showdown occurs during the Somme offensive as Robert is trying to evacuate a hundred horses from a stock barn about to be shelled by the Germans. Birds, horses, dogs, mules, cats -- everywhere are animals trapped in the chaos of the front lines, helpless in the midst of human chaos.
I'm more than halfway convinced the Canadian objections to this book are really in reaction to the ringing clarity of its anti-war message, that counting repetitions of the word "breast" is mere cover for suppressing a dangerous book that might turn potential cannon fodder into pacifists, much like the real reasons behind the repeated challenges to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five here in the States.
Anti-war books may not be your cup of tea. But this is one of the best ones I've ever read, certainly one of the best written, and I'll long remember it.
October 29, 2023
This is an incredibly powerful novel. I am so emotionally overwhelmed by it that I need to get some distance from it before I can even consider writing a review. But I have a few thought-provoking quotes to record for posterity.
At 53% - You live when you live. No one else can ever live your life and no one else will ever know what you know. Then was then. Unique. And how does one explain? . . . The thing is not to make excuses for the way you behaved � not to take refuge in tragedy � but to clarify who you are through your response to when you lived. If you can’t do that, then you haven��t made your contribution to the future.
At 54% - Everyone who’s born has come from the sea. Your mother’s womb is just the sea in small. And birds come out of seas in eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they’re born. The placenta is the sea. And your blood is the sea continued in your veins. We are the ocean � walking on the land.
At 70% - But marriage was dangerous. The part of marriage she mistrusted most was the part about being loved. . . . Being loved was letting others feed from your resources � all you had of life was put in jeopardy.
At 83% - Someone once said to Clive: do you think we’ll ever be forgiven for what we’ve done? They meant their generation and the war and what the war had done to civilization. Clive said something I’ve never forgotten. He said: I doubt we’ll ever be forgiven. All I hope is � they’ll remember we were human beings.
At 53% - You live when you live. No one else can ever live your life and no one else will ever know what you know. Then was then. Unique. And how does one explain? . . . The thing is not to make excuses for the way you behaved � not to take refuge in tragedy � but to clarify who you are through your response to when you lived. If you can’t do that, then you haven��t made your contribution to the future.
At 54% - Everyone who’s born has come from the sea. Your mother’s womb is just the sea in small. And birds come out of seas in eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they’re born. The placenta is the sea. And your blood is the sea continued in your veins. We are the ocean � walking on the land.
At 70% - But marriage was dangerous. The part of marriage she mistrusted most was the part about being loved. . . . Being loved was letting others feed from your resources � all you had of life was put in jeopardy.
At 83% - Someone once said to Clive: do you think we’ll ever be forgiven for what we’ve done? They meant their generation and the war and what the war had done to civilization. Clive said something I’ve never forgotten. He said: I doubt we’ll ever be forgiven. All I hope is � they’ll remember we were human beings.
June 10, 2017
I wanted this to expand on my WWI reading experience. It did in a rather minor way. Many of the books on trench warfare speak of the mud. Findley does a better job of making this phenomenon real than anything else I've read.
There was nothing truly wrong with this, but it isn't good enough to rave about. I haven't looked to see what else Findley has written. I am almost overwhelmed by my choices of reading material, that I doubt I'll go looking for another. Still, if I tripped over something that seemed to fit where my reading is at that moment, I will be glad to to pick it up.
The mud. There are no good similes. Mud must be a Flemish word. Mud was invented here. Mudland might have been its name. The ground is the colour of steel. Over most of the plain there isn't a trace of topsoil: only sand and clay. The Belgians call them 'clyttes,' these fields, and the further you go towards the sea, the worse the clyttes become. In them, the water is reached by the plough at an average depth of eighteen inches. When it rains (which is almost constantly from early September through to March, except when it snows) the water rises at you out of the ground. It rises from your footprints - and an army marching over a field can cause a flood. In 1916, it was said that you 'waded to the front.' Men and horses sank from sight. They drowned in mud. Their graves, it seemed just dug themselves and pulled them down.But I needed more than a good description of mud to make this real. I had some quibbles with the construction. We are given that it is some sort of archivist telling the story. There are some sections where the archivist interviews some elderly women who knew the main character, Robert Ross. If the vehicle of interviews would have been used throughout, I think it might have been better understood, for I never could figure out where the rest of the story was coming from. There was no reference to any 'record' and besides, there were parts that were so personal I doubt they would have ever appeared in any 'record.' This unevenness was disconcerting to me as a reader.
There was nothing truly wrong with this, but it isn't good enough to rave about. I haven't looked to see what else Findley has written. I am almost overwhelmed by my choices of reading material, that I doubt I'll go looking for another. Still, if I tripped over something that seemed to fit where my reading is at that moment, I will be glad to to pick it up.
October 6, 2011
World War 1. The trench warfare. Principal protagonists both male, young and handsome. This, and Sebastian Faulk's "Birdsong" (another 1001 book which I would have reviewed, and given five stars, had I not read it long before I joined goodreads).
When you get so much, or even just a second helping, of the same thing your pleasure tends to be less and less. You'll go, hey, I've seen this before: family, war, a little sex and romance, the present's memory suddenly hurtling towards the past, the beauty, promise and innocence of youth destroyed, the what-could-have-beens.
Which is older, this or "Birdsong"? There is a scene here. Robert (the main character) and his companions are trapped. A young German soldier sees them, helpless, and can easily shoot them all. But this enemy just watches them. Occassionally he gestures to them as if telling them to hurry up and escape. "Why?", the omniscient narrator asks.--
"The bird sang.
"One long note descending: three 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 to the day he died."
Birdsong.
When you get so much, or even just a second helping, of the same thing your pleasure tends to be less and less. You'll go, hey, I've seen this before: family, war, a little sex and romance, the present's memory suddenly hurtling towards the past, the beauty, promise and innocence of youth destroyed, the what-could-have-beens.
Which is older, this or "Birdsong"? There is a scene here. Robert (the main character) and his companions are trapped. A young German soldier sees them, helpless, and can easily shoot them all. But this enemy just watches them. Occassionally he gestures to them as if telling them to hurry up and escape. "Why?", the omniscient narrator asks.--
"The bird sang.
"One long note descending: three 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 to the day he died."
Birdsong.
December 13, 2014
I had to read this for my grade 12 English class, and I have to say that it is, without a doubt, one of the worst books I have ever read.
It has horrible pacing, and no consistency as to the "Voice" telling the story. It was supposed to be told from the point of view of a historian, but there was often detail in scenes that the historian couldn't have access to (IE rape scene), Directly followed by a scene that was glossed over that should have been given more time (IE the entire last chapter)
The perspective jumped from 1st person to 3rd person to the writer talking directly to the reader, often without any explanation, foreshadowing or need for it.
I could only be vaguely interested in Robert and his struggles because of the large (For a 200 page book) cast of characters. None of them were given more than a single character trait and as a result they all sort of blended together.
The story itself wasn't that extraordinary either, especially having been given the climax chapter at the beginning of the book as well as the end. Too much time is spent on describing scenes that don't ever seem to lead anywhere (IE Brothel scene).
It has horrible pacing, and no consistency as to the "Voice" telling the story. It was supposed to be told from the point of view of a historian, but there was often detail in scenes that the historian couldn't have access to (IE rape scene), Directly followed by a scene that was glossed over that should have been given more time (IE the entire last chapter)
The perspective jumped from 1st person to 3rd person to the writer talking directly to the reader, often without any explanation, foreshadowing or need for it.
I could only be vaguely interested in Robert and his struggles because of the large (For a 200 page book) cast of characters. None of them were given more than a single character trait and as a result they all sort of blended together.
The story itself wasn't that extraordinary either, especially having been given the climax chapter at the beginning of the book as well as the end. Too much time is spent on describing scenes that don't ever seem to lead anywhere (IE Brothel scene).
August 9, 2024
The epitome of dull and boring. I had to read this for my English class, and I hated every second. Half the scenes (especially the ones that made me unbearably uncomfortable) were completely unnecessary to the plot. It felt like a pointless waste of time.
There's no way I'm writing an essay on this book.
I'm putting this on here to count towards my reading goal. I don't need the boost, I just think all those hours of my life should count towards SOMETHING.
Zero stars.
There's no way I'm writing an essay on this book.
I'm putting this on here to count towards my reading goal. I don't need the boost, I just think all those hours of my life should count towards SOMETHING.
Zero stars.
October 21, 2017
Canadian attitudes towards war are strangely more encapsulating than American attitudes. There seems no definitive pride in victory; only in living.
January 4, 2023
این کتاب را به اجبار خواندم. موقعیتی پیش آمد و سراغش رفتم و متوجه شدم جزو کتابها� معروف کانادایی است. برایم سوال شد چرا ترجمه نشده که طی داستان جوابم را گرفتم: صحنهها� جنسی و معضلات جنسی شخصیت اول.
داستان درمورد پسری به نام رابرت راس است که در کانادا زندگی میکن� و فوت خواهرش باعث میشو� برای جبهه� جنگ جهانی اول نامنویس� کند. اسم کتاب جنگهاس� و این جنگه� به جنگ جهانی اول و جنگها� روانی و درونی رابرت اشاره دارد. رابرت که حتی نتوانست خرگوشها� خواهرش را بکشد در جنگ فرمانده و همرزم� را که مانع آزاد کردن اسبه� بودند را میکش�. حیوانات در داستان نقش پررنگی دارند و هرکدام نماد چیزی هستند مثلا پرنده نماد وضعیت شوم پیش رو و خرگوش نماد معصومیت است.
در کل کتاب ضدجنگ است و بدیه� و زشتیها� جنگ را نشان میده�.
داستان درمورد پسری به نام رابرت راس است که در کانادا زندگی میکن� و فوت خواهرش باعث میشو� برای جبهه� جنگ جهانی اول نامنویس� کند. اسم کتاب جنگهاس� و این جنگه� به جنگ جهانی اول و جنگها� روانی و درونی رابرت اشاره دارد. رابرت که حتی نتوانست خرگوشها� خواهرش را بکشد در جنگ فرمانده و همرزم� را که مانع آزاد کردن اسبه� بودند را میکش�. حیوانات در داستان نقش پررنگی دارند و هرکدام نماد چیزی هستند مثلا پرنده نماد وضعیت شوم پیش رو و خرگوش نماد معصومیت است.
در کل کتاب ضدجنگ است و بدیه� و زشتیها� جنگ را نشان میده�.
March 7, 2017
I remember reading a book by Timothy Findley as a teenager in Toronto. My parents had a copy of "The Last of the Crazy People" on their shelves and I randomly picked it up. I think the cover appealed to me. I don't remember much about it now except that it made me feel uncomfortable. Looking it up I see it's considered a pioneer of the "Southern Ontario gothic" genre! Not really YA I guess.
Fast forward a few decades and a Facebook acquaintance posted this link to required reading for students around the world: .
I recognized a few of the books on the list; Mockingbird for the US (Lee, not Collins!), The Betrothed for Italy, Things Fall Apart for the oddly coupled "Ghana; Nigeria". Flipping ahead to Canada for the easy get I arrive at Findley's "The Wars". Never read it! What kind of Canadian was I, eh? I resolved to remedy this post haste only to be confronted by the difficulty of obtaining a copy of this Canlit classic in my adopted home of New York. The lions of Manhattan growled with disinterest: the venerable NYPL did not have a single copy available for borrowing. Amazon didn't have any used copies of it in my price range (it was published in 1977, should I really be expected to pay more than the cost of a Tim Hortons double double?). Even raiding my parent's bookshelves (transplanted from Toronto to Connecticut) was fruitless. A few Findleys were found (including the aforementioned Southern Ontario gothic) but not The Wars.
I'm sure there are Findley filled shelves in high schools stretching from Etobicoke to Scarborough but the lone loaner in the "Toronto of the South" was located deep in the stacks of the Brooklyn Public Library and not speedily enough decanted to the holds shelf of my local branch where my wife kindly picked it up for me. (Funnily enough she turned out to have a copy on the shelves of her childhood bedroom, still ensconced in non-Gothic Southern Ontario but that came out much later) The bright lining of this saga of course being that I don't have to worry about anyone else putting a hold on it: I can renew to my hearts content.
So, ya hoser, how was the book?
Well, despite the glib tone of this review so far, it was an amazing and heartbreaking read. I'm not sure I would've appreciated it nearly as much had I read it in high school. I recommend it highly. It really is very Canadian, the main characters are Canadian of course and Canada's vaunted landscape makes many appearances: the streets and valleys of Toronto as well as prairie outposts and the ocean off Nova Scotia. Even an immigrant kid whose parents moved to Canada around Expo 67 (Habitat!) can get inspired by it. I guess that's what each nation's required reading is supposed to do?
Although its subject is the horror of war it's told in an impressionistic way that softens the blows a little; through a series of vignettes that are almost like short stories. Unflinching depictions of chaos alternate with moments of absurdity and humor. These fragments come together to form a compelling portrait. So wherever you are, if you haven't read this classic, or you read it long ago in high school, it is worth your while to track it down. Except if you're in Brooklyn because I've still got it checked out.
Some quotes:
"Siegfried said a marvelous thing - (Sassoon) - he was taking his troops to the front and they were walking along a road that had been shelled and he saw a soldier lying dead by the road his head had been smashed. It was an awful shock. The first dead man he'd seen, I think and he said that after a while you see them everywhere and you sort of accepted it but the acceptance made him mad and he said this marvelous thing: I still maintain that an ordinary human being has a right to be horrified by a mangled body seen an afternoon walk."
"I remember the strangest sight when the raid was over. I'd been hiding under a bed and when I crawled out and stood up and I looked down the rows of platforms where the tents had been and there, at the edge of the step, sat a pure white cat we'd had as a mascot. It was cleaning its paws! Serenely cleaning its paws."
Fast forward a few decades and a Facebook acquaintance posted this link to required reading for students around the world: .
I recognized a few of the books on the list; Mockingbird for the US (Lee, not Collins!), The Betrothed for Italy, Things Fall Apart for the oddly coupled "Ghana; Nigeria". Flipping ahead to Canada for the easy get I arrive at Findley's "The Wars". Never read it! What kind of Canadian was I, eh? I resolved to remedy this post haste only to be confronted by the difficulty of obtaining a copy of this Canlit classic in my adopted home of New York. The lions of Manhattan growled with disinterest: the venerable NYPL did not have a single copy available for borrowing. Amazon didn't have any used copies of it in my price range (it was published in 1977, should I really be expected to pay more than the cost of a Tim Hortons double double?). Even raiding my parent's bookshelves (transplanted from Toronto to Connecticut) was fruitless. A few Findleys were found (including the aforementioned Southern Ontario gothic) but not The Wars.
I'm sure there are Findley filled shelves in high schools stretching from Etobicoke to Scarborough but the lone loaner in the "Toronto of the South" was located deep in the stacks of the Brooklyn Public Library and not speedily enough decanted to the holds shelf of my local branch where my wife kindly picked it up for me. (Funnily enough she turned out to have a copy on the shelves of her childhood bedroom, still ensconced in non-Gothic Southern Ontario but that came out much later) The bright lining of this saga of course being that I don't have to worry about anyone else putting a hold on it: I can renew to my hearts content.
So, ya hoser, how was the book?
Well, despite the glib tone of this review so far, it was an amazing and heartbreaking read. I'm not sure I would've appreciated it nearly as much had I read it in high school. I recommend it highly. It really is very Canadian, the main characters are Canadian of course and Canada's vaunted landscape makes many appearances: the streets and valleys of Toronto as well as prairie outposts and the ocean off Nova Scotia. Even an immigrant kid whose parents moved to Canada around Expo 67 (Habitat!) can get inspired by it. I guess that's what each nation's required reading is supposed to do?
Although its subject is the horror of war it's told in an impressionistic way that softens the blows a little; through a series of vignettes that are almost like short stories. Unflinching depictions of chaos alternate with moments of absurdity and humor. These fragments come together to form a compelling portrait. So wherever you are, if you haven't read this classic, or you read it long ago in high school, it is worth your while to track it down. Except if you're in Brooklyn because I've still got it checked out.
Some quotes:
"Siegfried said a marvelous thing - (Sassoon) - he was taking his troops to the front and they were walking along a road that had been shelled and he saw a soldier lying dead by the road his head had been smashed. It was an awful shock. The first dead man he'd seen, I think and he said that after a while you see them everywhere and you sort of accepted it but the acceptance made him mad and he said this marvelous thing: I still maintain that an ordinary human being has a right to be horrified by a mangled body seen an afternoon walk."
"I remember the strangest sight when the raid was over. I'd been hiding under a bed and when I crawled out and stood up and I looked down the rows of platforms where the tents had been and there, at the edge of the step, sat a pure white cat we'd had as a mascot. It was cleaning its paws! Serenely cleaning its paws."
October 15, 2014
Beauty and pain. Pathos and prosaic passion. Heartrending, compassionate, truth. No one says it like Tiff did.
"It's the ordinary men and women who've made us what we are. Monstrous, complacent and mad" (Pg15).
"Staring down expressionless, he watched as his reflection was beaten into submission by the rain" (Pg18).
"All of these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call 'revenge'. Because a girl had died -- and her rabbits had survived her" (Pg23).
Findlay structures characters, narrative and actions with the precision of a door catching your heel. He builds each hero and heroine, casually giving them memorable characteristics: Taffler, the famous war hero with the fabulously accurate throwing arm; Villiers, the burn victim who, swaddled in bandages and morphine, never gets to hear or see his beloved when she visits him in hospital; Harris, the best-friend and unspoken-love who adored swimming underwater; Levitt, the scholar who brings a book by von Clauswitz to the trenches so 'someone will tell us what's going on'; Rodwell, the phlegmatic visual artist with his odd menagerie (toads, hedgehogs, rabbits, birds); Juliet d'Orsey, the "malapert dwarf" of a child with her so-beautiful sister and childhood diaries; Rowena, the disabled sister with her pet rabbits; and Robert, the loyal son with his teenaged guilt for being absent during the accident that killed his sister and his inability to save her beloved pets.
With these mundane attributes, Findlay makes his characters real then, in the tradition of the best sagas, magics them into tragic heros and heroines by twisting away each of these most human of elements {spoiler alert}: Taffler becomes the armless, suicidal, patient; Harris drowns in pre-antibiotic bronchitis; Levitt looses his books and his sanity; Rodwell looses his observer's detachment when comrades torture rats; Juliet cannot forget, no matter how much gin she drinks; Rowena dies when she falls from her chair while feeding her pets; and Robert, who dies as an Everyman loyally trying to live up to every other character's ruined potential. He refuses the option of suicide (unlike Taffler), recovers from horrific burns long enough to be photographed with his beloved Barbara on his arm (unlike Villiers & Harris); he saves the toad and shoots the mad, death-causing soldier (unlike Rodwell); he saves several of the doomed horses (unlike his pre-war teenaged self). But, as with all tragic heroes, it is the things we value the most: responsibility, loyalty, idealism, heroism, respect for life, that cause Robert's fall from grace.
This is Findlay's jujitsu mastery of the form: not only does he craft a story of tragic heroes, of young boys and girls confronting what von Clausewitz called 'politics by other means', of people who vivify Hannah Arendt's recognition that normal can become evil, Findlay twists the banal, distant horrors of a long-ago war into contemporary, present, tears. In this, the most stunning indictment of war that I have ever read, Timothy Findlay reminds us of the transience, yet constancy and importance of beauty, hope, love, and life.
"It's the ordinary men and women who've made us what we are. Monstrous, complacent and mad" (Pg15).
"Staring down expressionless, he watched as his reflection was beaten into submission by the rain" (Pg18).
"All of these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call 'revenge'. Because a girl had died -- and her rabbits had survived her" (Pg23).
Findlay structures characters, narrative and actions with the precision of a door catching your heel. He builds each hero and heroine, casually giving them memorable characteristics: Taffler, the famous war hero with the fabulously accurate throwing arm; Villiers, the burn victim who, swaddled in bandages and morphine, never gets to hear or see his beloved when she visits him in hospital; Harris, the best-friend and unspoken-love who adored swimming underwater; Levitt, the scholar who brings a book by von Clauswitz to the trenches so 'someone will tell us what's going on'; Rodwell, the phlegmatic visual artist with his odd menagerie (toads, hedgehogs, rabbits, birds); Juliet d'Orsey, the "malapert dwarf" of a child with her so-beautiful sister and childhood diaries; Rowena, the disabled sister with her pet rabbits; and Robert, the loyal son with his teenaged guilt for being absent during the accident that killed his sister and his inability to save her beloved pets.
With these mundane attributes, Findlay makes his characters real then, in the tradition of the best sagas, magics them into tragic heros and heroines by twisting away each of these most human of elements {spoiler alert}: Taffler becomes the armless, suicidal, patient; Harris drowns in pre-antibiotic bronchitis; Levitt looses his books and his sanity; Rodwell looses his observer's detachment when comrades torture rats; Juliet cannot forget, no matter how much gin she drinks; Rowena dies when she falls from her chair while feeding her pets; and Robert, who dies as an Everyman loyally trying to live up to every other character's ruined potential. He refuses the option of suicide (unlike Taffler), recovers from horrific burns long enough to be photographed with his beloved Barbara on his arm (unlike Villiers & Harris); he saves the toad and shoots the mad, death-causing soldier (unlike Rodwell); he saves several of the doomed horses (unlike his pre-war teenaged self). But, as with all tragic heroes, it is the things we value the most: responsibility, loyalty, idealism, heroism, respect for life, that cause Robert's fall from grace.
This is Findlay's jujitsu mastery of the form: not only does he craft a story of tragic heroes, of young boys and girls confronting what von Clausewitz called 'politics by other means', of people who vivify Hannah Arendt's recognition that normal can become evil, Findlay twists the banal, distant horrors of a long-ago war into contemporary, present, tears. In this, the most stunning indictment of war that I have ever read, Timothy Findlay reminds us of the transience, yet constancy and importance of beauty, hope, love, and life.
December 10, 2014
3.5 stars.
The Wars by Timothy Findley would be a great pick for a book club looking for a WWI book. It practically begs to be discussed. It is broken into five parts, all focusing on the same Canadian soldier. Each section has a different focus � pre-war at home, the trenches, etc. Written in 1977, to me it seems early in the timeline of disjointed fiction. And, as I have found with many such works, it was a mixed bag. It was interesting to study the various threads and the symbolism scattered throughout. Unfortunately, at times and ultimately there were loose ends and unexplained events that begged for clarity. I was compelled to continue reading for Findley undoubtedly can write.
No matter how many books one reads about a war, there is always a fresh perspective and “new to me� information. For example, I did not know that Canadian soldiers were trained in England. Downton Abbey fans know that wealthy estates were used as hospitals or care facilities for wounded soldiers, but I would otherwise not have been aware of that. There are also young British men who were anti-war. Something else I learned recently.
Worth reading, but I would recommend to read this as part of the WWI canon. This is the fourth or fifth fictional WWI work I have read this year. I do this in remembrance to all who lost their lives, minds, and physical well-being to it. The living memory of that war is now lost. The handful of people over the age of 100 who have any memory would have been too young to have served.
The Wars by Timothy Findley would be a great pick for a book club looking for a WWI book. It practically begs to be discussed. It is broken into five parts, all focusing on the same Canadian soldier. Each section has a different focus � pre-war at home, the trenches, etc. Written in 1977, to me it seems early in the timeline of disjointed fiction. And, as I have found with many such works, it was a mixed bag. It was interesting to study the various threads and the symbolism scattered throughout. Unfortunately, at times and ultimately there were loose ends and unexplained events that begged for clarity. I was compelled to continue reading for Findley undoubtedly can write.
No matter how many books one reads about a war, there is always a fresh perspective and “new to me� information. For example, I did not know that Canadian soldiers were trained in England. Downton Abbey fans know that wealthy estates were used as hospitals or care facilities for wounded soldiers, but I would otherwise not have been aware of that. There are also young British men who were anti-war. Something else I learned recently.
Worth reading, but I would recommend to read this as part of the WWI canon. This is the fourth or fifth fictional WWI work I have read this year. I do this in remembrance to all who lost their lives, minds, and physical well-being to it. The living memory of that war is now lost. The handful of people over the age of 100 who have any memory would have been too young to have served.
January 14, 2024
[CanLit 1] Trying to read more Canadian books this year. An auspicious start with this one.
3.5. Beautiful writing. Heartbreaking depictions of human cruelty. Tough one for horse lovers. Lost its focus a little in the last third, but a moving book
3.5. Beautiful writing. Heartbreaking depictions of human cruelty. Tough one for horse lovers. Lost its focus a little in the last third, but a moving book
April 30, 2024
The potential was there but it was painfully boring.
April 16, 2023
The story line was pretty good, it keeps you engaged with interesting events and issues the character encounters. However it’s a difficult read and very easy to put down for a few weeks if you’re not interested in historical metafiction. Over all three stars. Nothing much about it.
March 25, 2025
A truly great read and a wonderful way to bridge the old and new year (2024-2025). There is a great pleasure in finishing one's reading for one year and starting that of a new one on a high note, particularly when it is with the same book. That I was ignorant of this novel, and author, only reflects how little any of us can ever really know of great literature. That discovering this novel has led me to discover a new author is one of the great pleasures of reading. I am in the process of buying several of his novels so I am sure to have more to say about Timothy Findley.
As for this novel? it is sublime, moving and utterly unforgettable. It is a far finer work than so many of the novels that appeared around the centenary of WWI and also, I think, truer. It is a great anti-war novel, is there any other kind worth reading?, has anyone written a novel celebrating war that is worth reading? (Ernst Junger maybe but I haven't read his 'Storm of Steel'). In my very limited knowledge I find that the most powerful writing about war emerges not from the descriptions of battles and the violence of war, but away from it. So it is with 'The Wars'. Although there are the most devastatingly powerful scenes of battle and violence in this novel the most gut-wrenching episodes took place far away from the battlefield. Indeed one of the most powerful scenes was, for me, the moment when Ross's mother (Robert Ross the central character in the novel, see my footnote *1 below) leaves a church service because she can't stand that it is celebrating a war that has taken away and is killing the sons of so many in the congregation. That she is ostensibly a distant mother who has caused her son to join the army (I won't say more because details should be found by reading the novel not the review) makes it all the more powerful.
What is amazing, particularly compared to more recent door-stop novels or multi-volume series about WWI (and I am convinced that one of the key scenes in 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks was at the very least 'inspired' by this novel if not actually pinched from it), is how succinct 'The Wars' is. Just over two hundred pages and it covers a richness of themes and experiences, as well as a dreadful denouement, and you do not feel the need for another word, except that like all wonderful books you never want it to end. But in its brevity it is utterly complete.
Why Findley was not nominated for the UK Booker or any other UK prize for this novel (I know he won awards in Canada) is hard to credit, except that its date of publication, 1977, was too soon, or too late. WWI had been superseded as an exemplar of wars horrors and it would not be rediscovered for another thirty or forty years.
This is a novel that should be on school curriculum, though I am glad it isn't because nothing kills a great novel then inflicting it on the young. It deserves to stand with the greatest of the novels written by participants in WWI. If you come to it and feel that you have read these things before, you have, by inferior authors. This is the sort of novel I call definitive.
A note on my shelving the book as 'queer-interest', this is based on the novel, though it is not in anyway a 'gay' novel, and what I have learnt about the author. There is a 'allusively' homoerotic subtext to certain motivations and more dierctly homoerotic actions within the novel. It is very subtle and beautiful and utterly 'right' for the historical period. If you want the past written to reflect today don't touch this novel. It is not what you are looking for.
I want to say more, but what? I will conclude that I loved this novel.
*1 I only discovered this novel because its protagonist is called Robert Ross and was Canadian and when I first heard of a Canadian novel about someone named Robert Ross I wondered was it a roman a clef on 'Robbie' Ross, friend of Oscar Wilde. Needless to say it is not.
As for this novel? it is sublime, moving and utterly unforgettable. It is a far finer work than so many of the novels that appeared around the centenary of WWI and also, I think, truer. It is a great anti-war novel, is there any other kind worth reading?, has anyone written a novel celebrating war that is worth reading? (Ernst Junger maybe but I haven't read his 'Storm of Steel'). In my very limited knowledge I find that the most powerful writing about war emerges not from the descriptions of battles and the violence of war, but away from it. So it is with 'The Wars'. Although there are the most devastatingly powerful scenes of battle and violence in this novel the most gut-wrenching episodes took place far away from the battlefield. Indeed one of the most powerful scenes was, for me, the moment when Ross's mother (Robert Ross the central character in the novel, see my footnote *1 below) leaves a church service because she can't stand that it is celebrating a war that has taken away and is killing the sons of so many in the congregation. That she is ostensibly a distant mother who has caused her son to join the army (I won't say more because details should be found by reading the novel not the review) makes it all the more powerful.
What is amazing, particularly compared to more recent door-stop novels or multi-volume series about WWI (and I am convinced that one of the key scenes in 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks was at the very least 'inspired' by this novel if not actually pinched from it), is how succinct 'The Wars' is. Just over two hundred pages and it covers a richness of themes and experiences, as well as a dreadful denouement, and you do not feel the need for another word, except that like all wonderful books you never want it to end. But in its brevity it is utterly complete.
Why Findley was not nominated for the UK Booker or any other UK prize for this novel (I know he won awards in Canada) is hard to credit, except that its date of publication, 1977, was too soon, or too late. WWI had been superseded as an exemplar of wars horrors and it would not be rediscovered for another thirty or forty years.
This is a novel that should be on school curriculum, though I am glad it isn't because nothing kills a great novel then inflicting it on the young. It deserves to stand with the greatest of the novels written by participants in WWI. If you come to it and feel that you have read these things before, you have, by inferior authors. This is the sort of novel I call definitive.
A note on my shelving the book as 'queer-interest', this is based on the novel, though it is not in anyway a 'gay' novel, and what I have learnt about the author. There is a 'allusively' homoerotic subtext to certain motivations and more dierctly homoerotic actions within the novel. It is very subtle and beautiful and utterly 'right' for the historical period. If you want the past written to reflect today don't touch this novel. It is not what you are looking for.
I want to say more, but what? I will conclude that I loved this novel.
*1 I only discovered this novel because its protagonist is called Robert Ross and was Canadian and when I first heard of a Canadian novel about someone named Robert Ross I wondered was it a roman a clef on 'Robbie' Ross, friend of Oscar Wilde. Needless to say it is not.
April 22, 2015
Brutal and raw, and yet because of the narrative technique not a little reserved. Somehow it all works.
I wonder if Findley's intention wasn't to completely upend all the traditional 'war story' cliches. Instead of the loyal band of brothers-in-arms (who die off one by one in the most tearjerking manner possible, preferably after a good death speech), other soldiers drift in and out of Robert Ross' life, often in only a page or two, without us ever learning much about any of them. People lose their minds or get reassigned for no apparent reason except the ridiculousness of a ridiculous war. Usually they end up dying, but there's no time for Ross (or us) to reflect. He's trapped marching through a hellish landscape and the only character he has time to really get to know is the mud.
"I'm here to tell you, Robert, no one belongs to anyone. We're all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy of strangers..."
Instead of the warrior's loyal wife weeping quietly at home, there's Barbara D'Orsy, who goes from handsome soldier to handsome soldier with almost mercenary intent, sating herself like a vulture until the soldier of the moment is wounded or killed or otherwise found lacking. Then she's off to the next man.
Instead of the proud family holding up the homefront, Robert's mother goes mad. The rest of his family seems to pretty much disown him by the end.
Instead of comradery there's a shocking gang rape. The Good Guys aren't winning here, they're being slaughtered by the thousands and being led by utter incompetents.
It's one of the most 'real' war novels I've read, or at least it feels that way. Nothing's ever accomplished in any of the graphic battles, full of gas and men burning alongside their horses. There's a scene in which Robert has to hold off unprepared soldiers - his own men - at gunpoint to keep them from stealing his gas mask. Then, when he does offer it to a wounded man, that man ends up dying anyway. Grim stuff.
Nature plays a huge role, whether it's being saved or destroyed - the toad burying itself in the mud, the sister's rabbits, the makeshift vet clinic in the trenches. The symbolism builds up to the final act .
The other thing worth noting is the homosexual undercurrent. There's a definite question of is he/isn't he, which isn't ever really answered. Probably the whole point is that it's never really answered. Robert falls in love (what kind of love isn't quite clear) with another soldier, but the narrative style, in which an unnamed researcher is chronicling Robert's story, keeps that relationship at a distance. Sex, when it does feature, is uniformly violent - whether with Barbara, or with the prostitute at the brothel (where Robert spies on a soldier involved in some horse-and-rider BDSM with another man), or with that gang rape scene towards the end. Maybe another attempt to rupture a cliche?
Beyond all that the language is gorgeous.
I wish there was more focus on the ending, that our journalist stand-in didn't end things so abruptly, that we knew more about Robert's post-war life. But that's a minor quibble for what is a cruelly lovely book.
I wonder if Findley's intention wasn't to completely upend all the traditional 'war story' cliches. Instead of the loyal band of brothers-in-arms (who die off one by one in the most tearjerking manner possible, preferably after a good death speech), other soldiers drift in and out of Robert Ross' life, often in only a page or two, without us ever learning much about any of them. People lose their minds or get reassigned for no apparent reason except the ridiculousness of a ridiculous war. Usually they end up dying, but there's no time for Ross (or us) to reflect. He's trapped marching through a hellish landscape and the only character he has time to really get to know is the mud.
"I'm here to tell you, Robert, no one belongs to anyone. We're all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy of strangers..."
Instead of the warrior's loyal wife weeping quietly at home, there's Barbara D'Orsy, who goes from handsome soldier to handsome soldier with almost mercenary intent, sating herself like a vulture until the soldier of the moment is wounded or killed or otherwise found lacking. Then she's off to the next man.
Instead of the proud family holding up the homefront, Robert's mother goes mad. The rest of his family seems to pretty much disown him by the end.
Instead of comradery there's a shocking gang rape. The Good Guys aren't winning here, they're being slaughtered by the thousands and being led by utter incompetents.
It's one of the most 'real' war novels I've read, or at least it feels that way. Nothing's ever accomplished in any of the graphic battles, full of gas and men burning alongside their horses. There's a scene in which Robert has to hold off unprepared soldiers - his own men - at gunpoint to keep them from stealing his gas mask. Then, when he does offer it to a wounded man, that man ends up dying anyway. Grim stuff.
Nature plays a huge role, whether it's being saved or destroyed - the toad burying itself in the mud, the sister's rabbits, the makeshift vet clinic in the trenches. The symbolism builds up to the final act .
The other thing worth noting is the homosexual undercurrent. There's a definite question of is he/isn't he, which isn't ever really answered. Probably the whole point is that it's never really answered. Robert falls in love (what kind of love isn't quite clear) with another soldier, but the narrative style, in which an unnamed researcher is chronicling Robert's story, keeps that relationship at a distance. Sex, when it does feature, is uniformly violent - whether with Barbara, or with the prostitute at the brothel (where Robert spies on a soldier involved in some horse-and-rider BDSM with another man), or with that gang rape scene towards the end. Maybe another attempt to rupture a cliche?
Beyond all that the language is gorgeous.
I wish there was more focus on the ending, that our journalist stand-in didn't end things so abruptly, that we knew more about Robert's post-war life. But that's a minor quibble for what is a cruelly lovely book.
July 15, 2024
One of the most personal accounts of an otherwise global loss of innocence, of the rupture that was the war to end all wars. Perhaps unique to the genre, this book is about life!
(Summer Reading Challenge � “Award winners� Won the Governor’s General Prize, 1977 for Best Canadian Fiction )
(Summer Reading Challenge � “Award winners� Won the Governor’s General Prize, 1977 for Best Canadian Fiction )
September 30, 2018
Wars by Timothy Findley follows the story of fictional character Robert Ross and his journey as a soldier during the First World War. I thought Robert was a very captivating character because of the experiences he had gone through before the war. One of the main reason why he decided to enlist in the war was to escape the grief he was feeling for the death of his older sister. In the war, he survived through the death of many of fellow soldiers as well as the guilt of killing other individuals. I found the character of Robert really interesting to follow because I could see how much war really affected him as the novel progressed. I felt that the book did an excellent job in accurately representing the experiences of a soldier during war. Nothing was ever sugar coated and the I noticed that the use of first, second and third person narrative was effective in providing raw emotions for the reader. While there were content heavy scenes throughout the book, I felt that there were also several filler scenes. When I wasn’t reading the scenes that drove the story forward, I found the novel a little tedious to get through. This is one of the main reasons why I didn’t rate this a five star book. While I still believe that this is an interesting read and would recommend it to those who are thinking about reading it, I didn’t feel that it had an exceptionally strong impact on me.
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