A MIX OF MEMORY AND MYTH WAR FICTION Danielle Hall The magnitude of war as a human experience is so severe that the creative community of writers and filmmakers yearns to capture it in their works. In fact, some of the finest films and most unforgettable novels have revolved around devastating armed conflicts. Think of Battleship Potemkin (1925), Gone With the Wind (1939) or The Great Dictator (1940). They are among the cinematic masterpieces. Also, think of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front or Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Both about the First World War, one written by a German and the other by an American, they rank among the all-time-great works of fiction, their popularity still showing no signs of ebbing. Authors Glen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen significantly remark in their new book, War on the Silver Screen: “More films have been made about World War II than about any other armed hostility in American history.” Indeed war has always been a gripping theme for filmmakers and writers as much in the US as in Europe and elsewhere. Since an epic film owes its success to a large extent to a great story, let us survey the canvas of the novels about war. War fiction is an important cultural weapon for combating the effects of armed conflicts and counteracting the high-decibel official propaganda to glorify the great victory and demonise the enemy. The Pentagon evening briefing during the Vietnam War earned an interesting sobriquet in the parlance of the journalists covering the conflict: Five O’clock Follies. When jingoism wanes with the passage of time, the war novels, with the advantage of detachment and distance, challenge and influence the residual discourses which so often formulate our contemporary under- 62 | The Equator Line standings of history. The space of time between a conflict and corresponding hindsight serves to create that air of critical inquiry and curiosity within which such fiction is fostered. A definition of war is given to us as ‘an encounter between sovereign states, or within a single nation, which is characterised by social conflict, extreme violence and economic disruption’. Yet perspectives on war and its outcomes are entirely subjective, depending on how the individual perceives the situation and its wider impact. The formulations of such perceptions are often moulded by discourses which surround the war. Other than objectively seeking to record historical events, such war-time coverage often tends to hold ulterior motives. Roald Dahl himself tells us, in his memoir Going Solo (1986), that during the war years ‘the more dramatic the story, the better it was’. Narratives such as witness testimony and secondary discourses, existing in the form of political commentary or reportage, mark attempts to disseminate rumour through print capitalism and consequently develop a rhetoric of blame . War, in this sense, becomes a commodity, marketed and sold to the appropriate audiences. In environments where trauma and violence have dominated, new kinds of history are created and new versions of national “truth” proliferate. These official discourses then go on to form the grand narrative of history, which is often considered biased for these very reasons. Writings around the times of hostility, on the other hand, take a street-level view of the military campaign and its consequences. To use Gyanendra Pandey’s expression, a turn to the fragments of history can often offer alternative narratives on the war-time experience, enabling us to develop a greater understanding of war and to formulate new perspectives. War fiction presents itself as one of these key fragments, through which we can begin to consider and understand the potential existence of narratives which have been excluded or marginalised by official history. War fiction consequently helps us to make sense of our personal, national and global history too. War novels of any kind have long been a popular choice of sub-genre. Deeply rooted in history, and relating firmly to a context with which we are either familiar or endeavour to understand, war fiction provides us with a multiplicity of resources which make equally valuable contributions to the grand-narratives of conflict. Through war fiction, readers are permitted to enter new situations, become licensed to overhear private conversations, to witness unrecorded events and to access the private thoughts of the protagonists too. Consequently, the popularity of war fiction stems from its ability to convey a more rounded experience of war, resisting the censorship and omission which so often impacts the grand narrative of official history. The Equator Line | 63 War Fiction War fictions offer alternative narratives which often reflect the personal side of conflict. They use the culturally familiar framework of the novel to present a new past, which connects individual voices and perspectives to singular national events. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie believes that good war fiction contains an empathetic human quality or an emotional truth, which is often so accurately presented through the use of an identifiable protagonist. Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1941) explores the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of Robert Jordan: ‘Don’t fumble with it. Take your time. Don’t try to do it faster than you can. You can’t lose now […] Don’t try to do it faster than you can. I wish that shooting would be over up above. Go on. Put it in just as fast as you can and wedge it tight and lash it fast. You’re shaking like a goddamn woman. What the hell is the matter with you?’ In this extract, as Jordan strategically places explosives to destroy the bridge, we become privy to his innermost thoughts about the situation and his main anxieties concerning himself. In this text, the pressure of the sense of urgency which exists in the situation is not conveyed to us by an omniscient narrator, but rather through the reassurance Robert Jordan offers to himself. The repetition of the phrase ‘Don’t try to do it faster than you can’ gestures towards the skill, accuracy and meticulousness required of this operation. We begin to understand the burden Jordan feels working in this situation, and his angst to carry out the task correctly. However, his state of mind is revealed through the contradictions he makes and the questions he asks of himself in this section too. In between the urgency to exercise caution and take time fixing the explosives, Jordan simultaneously ushers himself along: ‘Put it in just as fast as you can’. Here, we become aware that the pressure is beginning to take its toll. Rather than thinking through the processes involved in the operation, planting explosives in places where they are to be most effective, Jordan’s mind becomes consumed by the speed at which he is working, consequently he focuses very loosely on the actual objective: ‘wedge it tight and lash it fast’. Similarly, Jordan also becomes distracted by external noises: ‘I wish that shooting would be over up above’. The sounds of warfare creep into the narrative through his perspective as a distant threat which still demands the attention of those in earshot. Finally, we are then informed of the physical and mental effects the combination of time, pressure and war-time noise has had on Robert Jordan: ‘You’re shaking like a goddamn woman. What the hell is the matter with you?’ Firstly, we become aware of the physical impact war has had on Jordan’s body. His quivering movements could be a result of the aforementioned circumstances, or indeed residual trauma manifesting itself via the body as a result of all he has endured. However, he fails to acknowledge any of this. Questioning himself, Jordan fails recognize or allow a justification of the external factors which have caused a change to his 64 | The Equator Line War Fiction normal ability to function. Mentally, he denies there can be any external influence on his body’s movements and concludes that there must be something wrong with him alone. Through the protagonist of Robert Jordan, Hemmingway presents us with the exact human empathy Adichie refers to. This text is an effective piece of war fiction because it attaches human qualities and experiences to a situation which would otherwise be presented in history as simply “an explosion of a bridge”. Jordan relays to us the tension experienced in attempting to do so, the selfdoubt which often manifests during times of intense pressure and the trauma which often results as a consequence of experiencing war. Through using such identifiable protagonists, war fictions often offer emotional truths to situations which have otherwise been sanitized or muddied by history. War fiction is often also able to uncover memories or stories which have been excluded from the public domain by trauma, repression and self-censorship too. The freedom to adopt new, or indeed multiple, perspectives within a novel often means that wartime experiences can be re-presented from different points of view. All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) presents to us the internal sufferings experienced by soldiers in World War I: ‘The earth is more important to the soldier than to anybody else. When he presses himself to the earth, long and violently, when he urges himself deep into it with his face and with his limbs, under fire and with the fear of death upon him […] he groans out his terror and screams into its silence and safety, the earth absorbs it all’ . In this extract, our focus is drawn to the experience of a soldier in his potential last moments of life. The importance of the land upon which we live, and over which we battle, takes on a new meaning for a soldier. It becomes a space upon which safety and shelter is desperately sought as the soldier pushes himself down to avoid fire, whilst simultaneously existing as a place where the soldier can confide his deepest terror and fear. Remarque exposes us to the familiar vision of a soldier lying face down in a field. Yet, whereas such images have become commonly associated with death, Remarque uses his experience as a surviving veteran to inform passages such as these, giving the reader a new perspective on those moments where the fear of violence is imminent, yet death in the field never comes. Such traumatic, repressed memories are often voiced in war fictions, consequently adding new perspectives to war-time reportage. Similarly, censored narratives of war-time experience are often exposed through war fiction to contribute to the formulation of a more complete, unbiased understanding of history too. Freedom’s Mother (2012) by Anisul Hoque presents itself as a key piece of docu-fiction on the Bangladesh Liberation The Equator Line | 65 War Fiction War, which explores different forms of censorship to challenge the established past and inject new experiences into the history we currently hold. Tracing the story of this war, Hoque investigated existing archival information to accurately re-present the story of Safia Begum and her freedom fighter son Azad. Exploring the domestic side of self-censorship in war, Hoque presents us with Safia Begum: a mother who resists ‘every attempt to chronicle her epic battle [because] it had never occurred to her that hers was a story that could be told and retold across cultures and down generations’ . Safia’s refusal to believe her son has been martyred in war means that she feels her story of waiting for his return is insignificant. Consequently, Freedom’s Mother (2012) seeks to explore the reasons behind an individual refusal to enter history, which simultaneously presents a new perspective for thinking about absences in the existing archive. However, this text explores political censorship too. Making reference to a massacre in Jinjira, Freedom’s Mother (2012) informs us of exactly how at least ten thousand people were killed in an attack which has been marginalized by official history: ‘the soldiers sprayed incendiary powder over the people […] to make sure the burning humans had absolutely no chance of survival the helicopters strafed them from above’ . Rather than flatly outlining the sequence of events at Jinjira, as historical reportage would have sought to do, Hoque alternatively states the reasoning behind such acts of violence. With this, he offers a criticism of the political censorship of existing history, drawing attention to the fact that Jinjira is a new narrative which has remained unreported because it occurred ‘deep in the interiors’ . Consequently, Freedom’s Mother (2012) problematizes the totality of existing documentation and official history. It uncovers a narrative which has, until now, been stored in memory and deliberately represents it to confuse the established past. With this, Freedom’s Mother (2012) gestures towards the possibility of other, more severe, unreported narratives which may also emerge with time. Texts such as these mark attempts to write the story of an individual back into history, enabling the reader to explore the experience of war through a relatable, identifiable protagonist. In addition to using war fiction to problematize and contribute to the existing archive which formulates history, the production of war fiction can be a cathartic process for its author too. Redeployment (2014) marks an authorial attempt to deal with the devastation of the Iraq War and a US marine veteran’s return to civilian life. For all involved, war and its repercussions can be incredibly problematic and using fiction to convey the experience of the individual has been considered one way of beginning to encounter and deal with the residual trauma of war time. Similarly, such fictions are also used as a tool through which history can be re-written by those who live in its heritage. Chimamanda 66 | The Equator Line War Fiction Ngozi Adichie openly states that her text, Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), is an attempt to take ownership of the history of the Nigeria-Biafra War which she believes defines her as a person. In this sense, war fiction allows both the authors and the readership of their texts to negotiate and engage with the trauma and legacies of war which have affected us. Consequently, war fiction is an incredibly useful resource for connecting individual voices to the grand narrative of history. Such voices develop our understandings about war-time experience, transformation and its residual trauma, whilst simultaneously raising questions about political omission, selfcensorship and the possibility of the existence of more hidden voices and experiences too. War fiction explores personal narratives to transform perceptions of war, attaching an empathetic human quality and emotional truth to the supposedly “objective” outline of history as we know it. Danielle Hall is a PhD Research Scholar at Leeds Beckett University, working on a thesis about contemporary Bangladeshi fiction. She was awarded a distinction for her MA in Contemporary Literature, with a dissertation on trauma, identity and re-rooting cultural heritage in this context. Danielle Hall
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 12:05:13 +0000
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