- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (20 Aug 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571207995
- ISBN-13: 978-0571207992
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 386,236 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'The ferocious truth of a work of art.' The New Yorker 'The Wars is quite simply one of the best novels of the Great War. A magnificent book.' Province Vancouver
Product Description
Robert Ross, a sensitive nineteen-year-old Canadian officer, went to war - the War to End All Wars. He found himself in the nightmare world of trench warfare; of mud and smoke, of chlorine gas and rotting corpses. In this world gone mad, Robert Ross performed 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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
At just over 200 pages, this is a book to be quickly consumed rather than lingered over. It has a fresh narrative form, appearing as research notes from various sources as the life of the central character is revealed.
What Findley does well is to demonstrate the effects of war both on a naive young Canadian officer confronted with the trenches of Ypres at just nineteen, and to a lesser degree the impact on those around him and his family back home. I liked this balanced approach, with a steady progression from "back home" to "at the front", though the writing is at its best as the combat is detailed. The conclusion was also pleasingly original.
Whilst this was an engaging read, the central character is interesting but not sympathetically drawn; he seemed to me to be too aloof for me to identify with him. His loss of innocence is on the whole convincing, with the exception of a couple of sex scenes which seemed gratuitous.
There is not a shortage of WW1 literature; those seeking something that stays with them a while after they have finished the book might also want to consider the Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker, or Verdun by Jules Romains.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
37 reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Did we read the same book?
15 Sep 2004
Format:Paperback
I feel as though, reading through all of the reviews of this novel, that I must not have read the same book as those who gave this book poor ratings. I believe it is honestly one of the best books I have ever read.
Yes, the characters are not normal--but they start off that way. It is the war that tears apart their family, turns them into killers, forces them to commit acts of depravity. Yes, Ross is a very complex character--but not to begin with. He begins as a simple, if not naive young adult in Canada and ends a mad, misunderstood soldier in Europe. Yes, Findley changes the narrative every 20 pages or so and yes, it can be confusing. But the book is about finding the humanity in the inhumanity of war by taking a look at a fictional but personal case. Findley's aim is not neatly tying up loose ends and making everything "fit" but unravelling tied ends and showing that nothing "fits."
If you enjoy happy endings that give easy answers and generic lessons, read another book. Findley's work is complicated, disturbing, and heavy and I for one enjoyed it. It's a book I still think about years after reading it and would recommend not "burning it to the ground" as some other critics have suggested, but leaving it until one is mature enough to comprehend its brevity.
Yes, the characters are not normal--but they start off that way. It is the war that tears apart their family, turns them into killers, forces them to commit acts of depravity. Yes, Ross is a very complex character--but not to begin with. He begins as a simple, if not naive young adult in Canada and ends a mad, misunderstood soldier in Europe. Yes, Findley changes the narrative every 20 pages or so and yes, it can be confusing. But the book is about finding the humanity in the inhumanity of war by taking a look at a fictional but personal case. Findley's aim is not neatly tying up loose ends and making everything "fit" but unravelling tied ends and showing that nothing "fits."
If you enjoy happy endings that give easy answers and generic lessons, read another book. Findley's work is complicated, disturbing, and heavy and I for one enjoyed it. It's a book I still think about years after reading it and would recommend not "burning it to the ground" as some other critics have suggested, but leaving it until one is mature enough to comprehend its brevity.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
The Wars tells what the media ignores
23 Nov 2003
Format:Paperback
The Wars is a memory of Robert Ross, a nineteen year old Canadian Soldier who fought in the First World War, as reconstructed by the narrator through articles, photographs and interviews of those who knew him during his short life. It is before this life ended that controversy surrounds, when he is purported to have committed such unthinkable atrocities that remain unnamed until the conclusion of the tale.
Beginning with the loss of his eldest sister to the disease Spina Bifida, the story moves to his resulting enlistment to the Canadian Army, brief training in the general tactics of war, and shipment overseas to join in the all-consuming chaos of the First World War.
Spread across the battle fields of Europe, the life of Robert Ross re-enacted as the pieces are brought together. First person accounts of the utterly humiliating circumstances, impotence, and insanity he encounters as the fires that pursue him throughout his life are interwoven throughout to complete the picture of a man misunderstood for the crimes he committed.
It is these first person accounts that lead us through the plot in an attempt not to justify, but to perhaps give the reader some insight as to why Ross' life ended so clearly counter to how it had begun.
Timothy Findley set out with a purpose in The Wars, which was to illustrate the insanity of war by manipulating the conventions of how atrocity is understood, and finally tearing these conventions down altogether. To do this, he took the fictitious example of a soldier who had dishonoured himself in battle, and then forces us to understand how and why such a thing could occur. For a more in depth analysis, check out yourwords dot ca. The result is the destruction of our conventional understanding and acceptance of military law, a societal application invented by propagandists and furthered by arms dealers, therefore opening our ability to not only see, but recognize the destruction of the individual through such an overwhelming ordeal that is often minimalized through sensationalistic media-headline appointed terms such as "tragedy" or "catastrophe". It is for this reason that the book should be a part of everyone's education.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Beyond Words
19 Aug 1999
Format:Paperback
There is little I can say about this book except READ IT. Having read about eleven of Findley's works, I would rate this in the top three, behind Headhunter and Not Wanted on the Voyage, perhaps. This is an excellent novel written by, in my opinion, the most talented writer alive today. Findley's abstract style may take a little while to grow on some readers, but once it does, it will make them bona fide Findley addicts like yours truly.
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