By Mary Chan
Writing a column about fiction is difficult because the columnist must convey in prose the power of often-lyrical, brutal or transcendent writing. In other words, the authors I am about to discuss are much better writers than I am.
I have been thinking a lot about fiction in the past week, mostly because I have overindulged in blanket news media coverage of the war in Iraq. Switching from live, pixelated shots of the Iraqi desert and in depth analysis of Iraqi reconstruction does not provide what has been pointedly lacking in any war coverage: complex explorations of how conflict affects people at the deepest, most intimate, psychological and emotional level.
Thus is the realm of fiction and poetry, of authors like Kurt Vonnegut and poets like Wilfred Owen (Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est is a must-read for warhounds). While peace protestors and newspaper pundits urged the world to remember the human aspects of war, their rhetoric encased the suffering in a generalized bubble of fragility and vulnerability. To understand the effects of war on people, it must get personal.
The brilliance of good fiction lies in its ability to articulate the personal while simultaneously alluding to the greater, unseen forces that affect its characters. Good war literature does not ignore the greater picture for the quotidian details. Rather, it deftly moves back and forth, between the universal and the personal, from the past to the future to the present.
My supporting evidence? Since my editor would have a heart attack if I submitted the complete texts of novels, I will settle for a list. This list is by no means exclusive, but they are all books I have read and feel comfortable recommending.
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys: Set in the British countryside in 1941, The Lost Garden is a meditation on the themes of love, death and the mutability of truth. A story filled with strong image after strong image, its most powerful visual is that of a child’s hand and sleeve sticking out of the rubbish of a bombed London townhouse.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway follows a day in the life of London society matron Clarissa Dalloway five years after the end of WWI. Clarissa Dalloway’s literary parallel is Septimus Smith, a shell-shocked soldier still adjusting to civilian life. Woolf’s use of stream-of-consciousness narrative technique makes Septimus’ frightened insanity particularly moving.
Comfort Women by Nora Okja Keller: A difficult read due to its content, Comfort Women tells the story of the complex relationship between Becca and her mother Akiko, a woman who, as a 15-year-old in WWII Korea, was forced to work as a prostitute for Japanese soldiers.
The Wars by Timothy Findley: A classic Canadian novel about the degrading, dehumanizing aspects of war and small redemptions.
Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell: Because totalitarianism in a post-war environment does not seem so far-fetched right now.
Obasan by Joy Kogawa: A tale about a Japanese girl who was interned in this country during WWII, Obasan reminds us that though wars might take place overseas, their root sentiments can still infect a supposedly fair society. This should be required reading for anyone who believes that Canada was always a liberal, open, multicultural society.
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje: In a time when nationalism is such a prevalent force south of the border, this nuanced, layered, lyrical book explores how myths of nation were undermined in WWII.
Slaughterhouse Five, Mothernight, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut: Not all war novels have to be sad; some are funny in a sad, satirical kind of way. A German-American who was a POW in WWII, Vonnegut was imprisoned in Dresden when it was firebombed by allied forces. He recounted his experience in the time-travel based Slaughterhouse Five, and set Mothernight in the Nazi Regime. The Sirens of Titan includes a war even greater in scope: Mars vs. Earth. Bush wins.