Great War related novels

[MichaelBully]

I have wondered if I am the only person who has started reading Great War novels but has a real problem in getting through them? I know that plenty of people rate Pat Barker's novels 'Regeneration' and ' The Eye In The Door' highly. But I couldn't complete either. My main problem is that if Seigfried Sasoon or Wilfred Owen , or any person who was an actual historical figure, is depicted therein, I instinctively want to know the source for what they have said or done, and have a real problem in separating the historical figure from the literary character, and eventually give up. I'd rather consult a biography.

I have also started ' We That Were Young' by Irene Rathbone and just couldn't get through it. I'd much rather Irene Rathbone had written a memoir of her Great War experience in working in YMCA camps and then as a VAD nurse than write a novel. Then of course there is Vera Brittain who achieved so much more when she put her plans to be a novelist on hold and just wrote about her life experiences in 'Testament of Youth' rather than fictionalise them.

Interested to know what other people think on this subject, are there novels based set in the Great War that really can add to our overall knowledge of what occured? If so, which novels have people found useful in this respect.

[Paul Reed]

There are many works of fiction from the 1920s and 30s well worth looking at. Frederick Manning's Her Privates We/Middle Parts of Fortune is arguably one of the finest books written on the war. I would also recommend Henry Williamson's many novels covering the Great War.

http://www.henrywilliamson.co.uk/

[MichaelBully]

There are many works of fiction from the 1920s and 30s well worth looking at. Frederick Manning's Her Privates We/Middle Parts of Fortune is arguably one of the finest books written on the war. I would also recommend Henry Williamson's many novels covering the Great War.

http://www.henrywilliamson.co.uk/

Thank you Paul will investigate these writers further. In thinking over this topice, it is probably best to make a distinction between people who were directly involved in the Great War but chose to construct a novel and some fictional characters around their experiences and people who have subsequently set their novels in the Great War but had no direct experience of the Great War.

[JPAE]

Michael,

In 1980/81 I read the John Masters' Trilogy, Now God be Thanked, Heart of War and In the Green of Spring. I seem to remember that the tale-telling was very much in the style of "An every-day story of country folk", with visits to the Front every now and then. I would not be able to read any of these books now, and I suspect it fitted with a passion for the basic, old-fashioned lifestyle we attempted at the time. Paul's mention of Henry Williamson has reinforced my feeling that if I do return to fiction, his work would be the starting point. The Williamson Society site is very inspirational.

Phil.

[Steven Broomfield]

Maybe the difference is between novels written by those who were there, and novels written by those who weren't.

I dislike modern novels as a breed (generally speaking), and my suspicion is that any novellist writing 60+ years after the event will put his/her modern opinions and views into the thing.

I'd agree with Manning and Williamson as recommendations.

[dycer]

Many people on this Forum dislike "Covenant with Death".I cannot immediately remember the Author's name.

Not least because,in his lifetime,they challenged the Historical accuracy,of his Book.

A Novel,is a work,of fiction and the Author is entitled to draw from facts,be it experienced or from research.

Whether a Book,of fiction set in a particular Historical period,which the reader cannot now follow its nuances is the problem of the reader not the Author.

I accept that as a genre,WW1,is difficult for a fiction Author,to try and describe,with any meaning.

But cannot that be said of the Classics e.g. Shakespeare,Bronte,etc?

George

[Sue Light]

Interested to know what other people think on this subject, are there novels based set in the Great War that really can add to our overall knowledge of what occured? If so, which novels have people found useful in this respect.

Michael

You dismiss 'We That Were Young' and yet I feel it falls exactly into your class of books 'that really can add to our overall knowledge of what occurred.' Irene Rathbone's description of life with the YMCA is a unique insight into an area that is really not available elsewhere and an extremely valuable account. And how accurate are parts of Testament of Youth? Not fiction, but in my opinion not a balanced representation of the life of a VAD, and definitely not an accurate representation of the trained nurses she worked under - has she 'fictionalised' her account, or is she looking back through too many years to give a true account of some aspects of her life during the Great War?

'Not So Quiet ... Stepdaughters of War' (Helen Zenna Smith/Evadne Price) is another semi-biographical account, overblown and black, but which gives so much insight into the life of VAD ambulance drivers in France - an area which would otherwise remain virtually unknown, and for that, must be valued.

Sue

[MichaelBully]

Michael

You dismiss 'We That Were Young' and yet I feel it falls exactly into your class of books 'that really can add to our overall knowledge of what occurred.' Irene Rathbone's description of life with the YMCA is a unique insight into an area that is really not available elsewhere and an extremely valuable account. And how accurate are parts of Testament of Youth? Not fiction, but in my opinion not a balanced representation of the life of a VAD, and definitely not an accurate representation of the trained nurses she worked under - has she 'fictionalised' her account, or is she looking back through too many years to give a true account of some aspects of her life during the Great War?

'Not So Quiet ... Stepdaughters of War' (Helen Zenna Smith/Evadne Price) is another semi-biographical account, overblown and black, but which gives so much insight into the life of VAD ambulance drivers in France - an area which would otherwise remain virtually unknown, and for that, must be valued.

Sue

Hello Sue, I don't mean to dismiss 'We That Were Young' completely- I just wish Irene Rathbone had written an account of her Great War experiences and not tried to write a novel. I don't know enough about her life to work out why she thought that her experiences should be conveyed via writing a novel. I couldn't get through it- that may be my problem more than any fault of the writer. But I did try very hard.

The accuracy of 'Testament of Youth' is open to question, of course and is worthy of a thread in itself. Vera wrote her account in 1929-1933, and the book is also addressing Vera's own concerns of the era that she was writing in. The difference is that personally I can read 'Testament of Youth' repeatedly - in some respects I prefer 'Chronicle of Youth' - but I certainly want to cross reference her writing as much as possible . And it was Vera's work that encouraged me to buy Irene Rathbone 's book in the first place.

[john jerome mcmanus]

G'day Michael.

Without addressing your question directly may I suggest you read "How Young They Died" by Stuart Cloete.

Cloete was a surviving Great War Veteran and this work was first published in 1969.

My principal interest in the Great War is the role played by the AIF but I did find this novel informative.

Regards

Pop

(Sean McManus)

ps

Merry Christmas !

[marina]

Novels are not history texts = they are not designed to inform, but to entertain.

[Sue Light]

Of course it's not possible to say why Irene Rathbone wrote a novel rather than memoirs, but perhaps she found it too hard to look back on her life during the war without turning it into fiction. I agree that it's not everyone's cup of tea - perhaps no-one's cup of tea - with its 'Brief Encounter' breathless, middle-class dialogue, but it is an example of a book where detail survives which simply cannot be found elsewhere. I realise that most members of this forum have little interest in womens' lives and work during the war, but her description of soldiers arriving in France, and their close relationship with the YMCA which met so many of their needs, really does fill a gap which is so often ignored - soldier arrives in France, soldier goes to the front, soldier gets wounded/killed, soldier goes home/gets buried - so often that's all that gets recorded. And of course this is autobiographical fiction, rather than the straight fiction produced by writers today. So in my opinion one of those novels that despite its shortcomings is of immense use to the serious Great War researcher.

On the other hand, the straight memoir (whoever wrote it) has some real potential pitfalls, as it's so easy to assume that the content is accurate when it's not. Although I won't get into a very long VB discussion, Testament of Youth is a very good example of a book that is so rare in its subject and content, that it's come to be seen as a definitive view of women's lives during the war in general - there is nothing else to contradict or balance it - and although a fine literary work, has perhaps done a disservice to the tens of thousands of other women in a similar position whose rather different experiences have gone unrecorded. There are so many memoirs written by men that I don't think a similar situation arises there - they can be compared and contrasted much more easily and the duff ones weeded out.

Sue

[ianw]

I too would recommend the Manning particularly the unexpurgated version where the language rings more true. If you really want to upset yourself try Ben Elton's efforts - dreadful is not the word (IMO).

Generally, I can't see the point of novels about the Great War unless they are written by men and women who lived through it. Of course you could make the counter argument that although you see the war through the prism of their experience, perhaps they were too close to the events to write rationally about it.

[truthergw]

Much of Marcel Proust's " A la recherche du temps perdu" was written during the years of the Great War. The author lost many friends to the war.

[MichaelBully]

Of course it's not possible to say why Irene Rathbone wrote a novel rather than memoirs, but perhaps she found it too hard to look back on her life during the war without turning it into fiction. I agree that it's not everyone's cup of tea - perhaps no-one's cup of tea - with its 'Brief Encounter' breathless, middle-class dialogue, but it is an example of a book where detail survives which simply cannot be found elsewhere. I realise that most members of this forum have little interest in womens' lives and work during the war, but her description of soldiers arriving in France, and their close relationship with the YMCA which met so many of their needs, really does fill a gap which is so often ignored - soldier arrives in France, soldier goes to the front, soldier gets wounded/killed, soldier goes home/gets buried - so often that's all that gets recorded. And of course this is autobiographical fiction, rather than the straight fiction produced by writers today. So in my opinion one of those novels that despite its shortcomings is of immense use to the serious Great War researcher.

On the other hand, the straight memoir (whoever wrote it) has some real potential pitfalls, as it's so easy to assume that the content is accurate when it's not. Although I won't get into a very long VB discussion, Testament of Youth is a very good example of a book that is so rare in its subject and content, that it's come to be seen as a definitive view of women's lives during the war in general - there is nothing else to contradict or balance it - and although a fine literary work, has perhaps done a disservice to the tens of thousands of other women in a similar position whose rather different experiences have gone unrecorded. There are so many memoirs written by men that I don't think a similar situation arises there - they can be compared and contrasted much more easily and the duff ones weeded out.

Sue

Thank you Sue, I promise that in 2010 I will give Irene Rathbone a second chance. Personally I am always looking for sources concerning how the Great War impacted on women's live. Besides Vera's work ( which I rate highly but want to cross reference) I was impressed by Mary Borden's 'The Forbidden Zone' - and am glad that she wrote down her experiences of nursing in France as a memoir rather than a novel.

I agree that a potential problem with 'Testament of Youth' that it can be cited too quickly as representing a standard 'woman's view ' of the Great War. But Vera Brittain seemed to have embarked on this work from 1929- 1933 because she felt that women's experiences were being left out of the new wave of Great War memoir writing that was emerging in the late 1920's, and I am not sure if Vera thought that she was writing the definitive text in this respect. With her novel 'Honourable Estate' (1936) she was trying to write a fictional work that would depict the changes to women's lives from 1900- 1930. I gave up once trying to read this- and even gave my copy away. A year later I bought another copy and forced myself to read it to the bitter end. It would have been so much better as a more straightforward history rather than trying to weave her ideas and experiences into fiction.

[dfaulder]

>><<

Interested to know what other people think on this subject, are there novels based set in the Great War that really can add to our overall knowledge of what occurred? If so, which novels have people found useful in this respect.

I guess this rather depends on what one means by "knowledge". If you want to "know" about say the tunneling war, you could:

• Read War Diaries of the units concerned
• Read a specialist history
• Read a General Social History such as Tommy by Richard Holmes
• Read the novel Birdsong by Faulds

All in my view will contribute something to your "knowledge".

David

[Terry_Reeves]

"An Ice Cream War" by William Boyd. One of the few novels about the war in East Africa, it is full of dark humour and well researched.

TR

[centurion]

Maybe the difference is between novels written by those who were there, and novels written by those who weren't.

I dislike modern novels as a breed (generally speaking), and my suspicion is that any novellist writing 60+ years after the event will put his/her modern opinions and views into the thing.

Not a universal truth as the historical novels of Patrick O'Brian (Nelson's navy), Steven Saylor (republican Rome) and George Shipway (bronze age Greece and eighteenth century India) show. There must be/have been someone of that class writing WW1 novels surely.

[truthergw]

Not a universal truth as the historical novels of Patrick O'Brian (Nelson's navy), Steven Saylor (republican Rome) and George Shipway (bronze age Greece and eighteenth century India) show. There must be/have been someone of that class writing WW1 novels surely.

I wonder if WWII coming so close on the heels of the Great War spoiled that? Just about the time when really good novelists would be thinking about writing their WW1 novel, they were busy surviving the 2nd. Plus there was the reaction against war in general through the thirties. There were several acclaimed novels of the 2nd World War Norman Mailer's for one, but has there been a ' great ' novel?

[centurion]

C S Forester did manage Brown on Resolution a WW1 naval novel, not a literary masterpiece but good of its kind and reflecting the attitudes of its time. It has a very bleak ending.

[paulgranger]

I have given up on modern novels about the Great War, after failing to finish Jeff Shaara's woeful 'To The Last Man' And yet. I much enjoyed his earlier novels of the American Civil War, which, like his Great War effort, are woven around actual historical characters. Perhaps it is the distinction that the Great War is part of my history, and also an abiding interest, whereas The ACW isn't. I am prepared to accept his ACW novels as written, as I know no better, but not his Great War effort, with all its obvious errors, and slightly skewwiff descriptions and dialogue. I don't think any modern author will ever write the great novel of World War One. Our modern mindset and attitudes will colour any such attempt, and this will get more and more so as the events fade into the past, We will have more novels, doubtless, but they will be as historically accurate as any of those written about the Romans, or the Crusades, or the Napoleonic Wars, in that they will be written by those who weren't there.

[truthergw]

I revisited the original post and it has raised a question for me. Ought we to read novels to get a better idea of a historical event? Is a novel not an artistic slant on something? If it is, will an artist's rendition of an historical event help us to understand it? Should it?

[MichaelBully]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread and for all your suggestions for further reading. Appreciated. In two hours I am meant to be heading off for some Yuletide celebrating in Scotland depending if our flight is still running due to the snow up there.

May I wish everyone a very happy christmas and best wishes for 2010.

[dycer]

I revisited the original post and it has raised a question for me. Ought we to read novels to get a better idea of a historical event? Is a novel not an artistic slant on something? If it is, will an artist's rendition of an historical event help us to understand it? Should it?

Have to agree with you, Tom.

I have a copy of "Biggles of 266" which I must have received as a present about the time I started to enjoy the pleasure of independent reading,probably about 9 or 10 years old.

In his Foreword W.E. Johns writes

"These are some of the earliest Biggles stories.They appeared in "The Modern Boy" about 1932,when the events of the Kaiser's war were still fresh in mind -----.

To the student of modern warfare and high performance aircraft these stories will appear far-fetched.So they are.But in 1916 war-flying was far-fetched.So were some of the incidents of Hitler's war,if it comes to that.I doubt if any writer would court derision by having his hero fall out of an aircraft flying at 18,000 feet without a parachute-and live to tell the tale."

WW1 Novels give a taste of its history,adventure,reality,etc.It is up to the reader to look for the more serious works in which they go on to gain a greater and more accurate insight.

One wonders,though,whether the modern generation,brought up with War Games on Playstations,etc will be able to allow their minds to run riot as ours did.

George

[truthergw]

Hi George. I agree. I prefer a story in a book to a story on TV. The pictures are much better and the telly never gets it quite right!

[MichaelBully]

QUOTE (truthergw @ Dec 20 2009, 09:08 PM) I revisited the original post and it has raised a question for me. Ought we to read novels to get a better idea of a historical event? Is a novel not an artistic slant on something? If it is, will an artist's rendition of an historical event help us to understand it? Should it?

Thanks for summing this up Tom, probably the core of my query and more of an open question in the sense that it would be difficult to ever supply a definite answer.

Broadly speaking there seem to be a group of writers who have decided to emobdy their real life experience of the Great War in a novel format, such as the aforementioned Irene Rathbone. For WW1 buffs is it worth getting rid of the layer of fiction as it were and holding on to the fact that the novelist was drawing on their first hand experience. From reading back over this thread it seems that quite a few people have cited examples of cases where it has been worth reading a fictionalised account written by someone who was caught up in the Great War.

Another category of writers who were not at all involved in the Great War but have used the Great War as a basis for their fiction. Here I am still not sure. Perhaps reading a novel set in the Great War might stimulate more research such as 'Birdsong' encouraging people to read more about the use of tunnels on the Western Front so perhaps indirectly have something to add?