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NO MAN'S LAND; FICTION FROM A WORLD AT WAR
Kirkus Reviews (Print)
July 15, 2014, Tuesday
SECTION: FICTION
"Fiction reveals truth thatreality obscures," Emerson wrote, a thought
that underpins 46 short piecesassembled by Ayrton (The Alphabet
Garden, 1995) to define the"treacherous blundering tragi-comedy"
that history labels World WarI.Ayrton has drawn from writingsof
major authors recognized for work of that era-William Faulkner,
Erich MariaRemarque, Siegfried Sassoon-but readers seeking a new
perspective will alsofind fiction set in the Balkans, Gallipoli,
and among mountain campaigns whereSerbs, Croats, Greeks, Turks and
Romanians fought and bled, froze and died.Most striking are pieces
written by former Volunteer Aid Detachment workers,mainly upper- and
middle-class women who left lives of privilege to findthemselves among
shot-off faces, gassed lungs and amputated limbs in"stinking yellow
water and grey-green foaming soap, with bloody bandagesand cotton wool
floating in it. Suppurating, nauseating cotton wool." MaryBorden was a
wealthy Chicago woman who personally financed a field hospital.Borden
also worked as a nurse, and her pieces range from the melancholy to
aspare dialogue script of doctors crammed into an operating tent-a
lunglacerated by three bullet holes is patched, a gangrenous leg is
amputated, anda man with a mortal stomach wound begs for water.
Some pieces are reportorial.Some are surrealist. Others are grotesque,
such as Faulkner's"Crevasse," in which marching troops plunge into a
mass grave. Andthen there are the absurdist, such as Hasek's "Svejk
Goes to the War."Every piece gives voice to the "timeless confusion,
a chaos of noise,fatigue, anxiety and horror" that is war on the
industrial scale.American readers will appreciate the perspectives
of writers who focus on theexperiences of colonial troops or the
celebrated German Ernst Junger, or VahanTotovents, who explores the
origins of Armenian genocide. It's a book to be read at random,too
intense to digest in a single reading, but a worthy addition to any
historybuff's library.
Publication Date: 2014-09-15 Publisher: Pegasus Stage: Adult ISBN:
978-1-60598-649-4 Price: $15.95 Author: Ayrton, Pete
Kirkus Reviews (Print)
July 15, 2014, Tuesday
SECTION: FICTION
"Fiction reveals truth thatreality obscures," Emerson wrote, a thought
that underpins 46 short piecesassembled by Ayrton (The Alphabet
Garden, 1995) to define the"treacherous blundering tragi-comedy"
that history labels World WarI.Ayrton has drawn from writingsof
major authors recognized for work of that era-William Faulkner,
Erich MariaRemarque, Siegfried Sassoon-but readers seeking a new
perspective will alsofind fiction set in the Balkans, Gallipoli,
and among mountain campaigns whereSerbs, Croats, Greeks, Turks and
Romanians fought and bled, froze and died.Most striking are pieces
written by former Volunteer Aid Detachment workers,mainly upper- and
middle-class women who left lives of privilege to findthemselves among
shot-off faces, gassed lungs and amputated limbs in"stinking yellow
water and grey-green foaming soap, with bloody bandagesand cotton wool
floating in it. Suppurating, nauseating cotton wool." MaryBorden was a
wealthy Chicago woman who personally financed a field hospital.Borden
also worked as a nurse, and her pieces range from the melancholy to
aspare dialogue script of doctors crammed into an operating tent-a
lunglacerated by three bullet holes is patched, a gangrenous leg is
amputated, anda man with a mortal stomach wound begs for water.
Some pieces are reportorial.Some are surrealist. Others are grotesque,
such as Faulkner's"Crevasse," in which marching troops plunge into a
mass grave. Andthen there are the absurdist, such as Hasek's "Svejk
Goes to the War."Every piece gives voice to the "timeless confusion,
a chaos of noise,fatigue, anxiety and horror" that is war on the
industrial scale.American readers will appreciate the perspectives
of writers who focus on theexperiences of colonial troops or the
celebrated German Ernst Junger, or VahanTotovents, who explores the
origins of Armenian genocide. It's a book to be read at random,too
intense to digest in a single reading, but a worthy addition to any
historybuff's library.
Publication Date: 2014-09-15 Publisher: Pegasus Stage: Adult ISBN:
978-1-60598-649-4 Price: $15.95 Author: Ayrton, Pete