Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Penguin, Canada (2005), Paperback, 198 pages
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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member lit_chick
Publisher’s Summary:
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
My Review:
I have no idea how I’ve managed to miss this masterpiece by Findley, published in 1977, until now – but I’m grateful for two things that happened recently, which put it into my hands. First, a friend asked me about it out of the blue, and days later, I spotted it on on CBC’s list, 100 Novels That Make You Proud to Be Canadian. Indeed. I knew I had to read it.
Robert Ross comes from an upper middle class family in Toronto. His most precious relationship is with his disabled sister, Rowena, whom he adores. Shortly following her untimely, accidental death, Ross enlists, looking for a purpose, and for a way forward out of his grief. What he finds is another matter altogether. In Ypres, where the novel is primarily set, the horror he experiences defies imagination. Ypres marked the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front – casualties numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Touchingly, Findley reminds us throughout the novel of the animals who also served, or were displaced by war. Ross and his comrade, Rodwell, empathize with the universality of suffering, both animal and human. Ultimately, their empathy will be their undoing. In fact, in the novel’s Prologue, Ross’s first interaction is with horses. When the narration switches focus, I wondered, “What happened to the horses?” I was hooked.
Undoubtedly, the novel’s narration is one of its primary strengths. In writing The Wars, Findley relied on family photographs, the wartime letters of his uncle, and interviews with some who could “still be met in dark old rooms with nurses in attendance” (8) – and, in doing, so, created a narrator who is an anonymous, ghostly presence. Guy Vanderhaeghe, another Canadian writer whose work I admire, writes in the Introduction that this “unnamed figure is above all a cunning narrative strategy.” (xiii) I can attest to this, given my own reading experience: Who is he? Or she? What is the relation between this presence and Ross that compels him or her to so relentlessly pursue his story?
Vanderhaeghe goes on to write that “The Wars is the finest historical novel ever written by a Canadian, and serious historical novels are always as much about the present as they are about the past.” (xiv) We are agreed, on both points. I think the greatest gifts of literature are that it informs us of our past, teaches us about our present, and offers direction for our future. I can only compare The Wars to All Quiet on the Western Front – and this I do not do lightly: while the novels are very different, both are powerful indictments of war. A must read!
_______________
Most Powerful Quotes:
“People can only be found in what they do.” (9)
“What you people who weren't yet born can never know is what it meant to sleep in cities under silent falls of snow when all night long the only sounds you heard were dogs that parked at trains that passed so far away they took a short cut through your dreams and no one even woke. It was the war that changed that. It was. After the Great War for Civilization - sleep was different everywhere.” (44)
“I doubt we will ever be forgiven. All I hope is – they'll remember we were human beings.” (164)
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
Show More
desperate act to declare his commitment to life in the midst of death.My Review:
I have no idea how I’ve managed to miss this masterpiece by Findley, published in 1977, until now – but I’m grateful for two things that happened recently, which put it into my hands. First, a friend asked me about it out of the blue, and days later, I spotted it on on CBC’s list, 100 Novels That Make You Proud to Be Canadian. Indeed. I knew I had to read it.
Robert Ross comes from an upper middle class family in Toronto. His most precious relationship is with his disabled sister, Rowena, whom he adores. Shortly following her untimely, accidental death, Ross enlists, looking for a purpose, and for a way forward out of his grief. What he finds is another matter altogether. In Ypres, where the novel is primarily set, the horror he experiences defies imagination. Ypres marked the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front – casualties numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Touchingly, Findley reminds us throughout the novel of the animals who also served, or were displaced by war. Ross and his comrade, Rodwell, empathize with the universality of suffering, both animal and human. Ultimately, their empathy will be their undoing. In fact, in the novel’s Prologue, Ross’s first interaction is with horses. When the narration switches focus, I wondered, “What happened to the horses?” I was hooked.
Undoubtedly, the novel’s narration is one of its primary strengths. In writing The Wars, Findley relied on family photographs, the wartime letters of his uncle, and interviews with some who could “still be met in dark old rooms with nurses in attendance” (8) – and, in doing, so, created a narrator who is an anonymous, ghostly presence. Guy Vanderhaeghe, another Canadian writer whose work I admire, writes in the Introduction that this “unnamed figure is above all a cunning narrative strategy.” (xiii) I can attest to this, given my own reading experience: Who is he? Or she? What is the relation between this presence and Ross that compels him or her to so relentlessly pursue his story?
Vanderhaeghe goes on to write that “The Wars is the finest historical novel ever written by a Canadian, and serious historical novels are always as much about the present as they are about the past.” (xiv) We are agreed, on both points. I think the greatest gifts of literature are that it informs us of our past, teaches us about our present, and offers direction for our future. I can only compare The Wars to All Quiet on the Western Front – and this I do not do lightly: while the novels are very different, both are powerful indictments of war. A must read!
_______________
Most Powerful Quotes:
“People can only be found in what they do.” (9)
“What you people who weren't yet born can never know is what it meant to sleep in cities under silent falls of snow when all night long the only sounds you heard were dogs that parked at trains that passed so far away they took a short cut through your dreams and no one even woke. It was the war that changed that. It was. After the Great War for Civilization - sleep was different everywhere.” (44)
“I doubt we will ever be forgiven. All I hope is – they'll remember we were human beings.” (164)
Show Less
LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
I'm a bit torn on this one, because the trench atrocities (it's a WWI book) are atrocious in a way that makes you feel solemn and sad and not "war-porned" (an actual art movement in the Iraq War era, btw, though it seems to be mostly one guy, or "warpunk" as he called himself, booo), and there are
At least Robert Ross was never a patriot. At least he loved horses. At least his moments of homoerotic transfixion are done in a way that makes our souls stir for feelings deep and buried, although there are also moments in that regard that totally don't ring true and feel like exploitation (again). The scene of Robert's rape is so cynically done, the effort to inject it with tenderness reading like a heavy-handed reminder that he was just that beautiful and his death was such tragic.
He was beautiful. I'm sorry he died. I'm sorry Timothy Findley thought he would be the most marketable character to write about (no doubt rightly) and that the most marketable thing to do with him would be to kill him and cry crocodile tears.
Show More
modernist narrative flourishes that make it pretty, Robert Ross's sensitive sensibilities come across ephemeral and pretty (and make it more pretty) and their destruction as heartbreaking, not--again--exploitative; but I just can't get over that Timothy Findley could have written about anyone in this world and so of course he wrote about a beautiful, sensitive, beloved eldest son of an upper-middle-class Upper Canada gentry family, basically the exact Great War Canadian iteration of the "universal protagonist," basically the guy from fucking Garden State. Why? This book is fine and even good, Timothy Findley, but were you so out of touch with everything else that was out there that you thought this was the story that needed to be told? Of course you were, you were a blue-eyed upper-middle-class Upper Canada boy yourself, weren't you? You had a story and you were gonna send it spurting out come hell or relative obscurity and a job teaching high school in Burlington. I'm guilty of a small presentism here, but it feels a bit like trolling--enough about tin soldier boys and their upbringing in WASPy cold rooms and their disillusionment and how they wanted to burn like dingledodies and burned like human torches instead, especially as a postscript from 1977. I mean, I get it, I have a blue-eyed towheaded son too, and if there's another world war in 2034, let me kiss his shorn skull and sing Danny Boy in private and not elbow out everybody else's stories in a seminal Canadian novel, you know?At least Robert Ross was never a patriot. At least he loved horses. At least his moments of homoerotic transfixion are done in a way that makes our souls stir for feelings deep and buried, although there are also moments in that regard that totally don't ring true and feel like exploitation (again). The scene of Robert's rape is so cynically done, the effort to inject it with tenderness reading like a heavy-handed reminder that he was just that beautiful and his death was such tragic.
He was beautiful. I'm sorry he died. I'm sorry Timothy Findley thought he would be the most marketable character to write about (no doubt rightly) and that the most marketable thing to do with him would be to kill him and cry crocodile tears.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lkernagh
I have to start this review off by saying that I was a little shocked to see this book displaying as a "Beach Reads" book on the amazon.ca webpage. The gritty and yet metaphysical examination of the meaning of life, survival and the atrocities that humans have inflicted upon other humans doesn't
-----------
Someone once said to Clive: do you think we will ever be forgiven for what we have done? They meant their generation and the war and waht the war had done to civilization. Clive said something that I've never forgotten. He said: I doubt we'll ever be forgiven. All I hope is - they'll remember that we were human beings. Overall, another brilliant, thought-provoking read from one of my favorite Canadian authors. I can see why this won the 1977 Governor General's Award. A worthy read.
Show More
quite equate into a "beach read"... not in my mind anyways. I mean, this has some similarities to the story telling of Brideshead Revisited but with the grim brutal futility of war as a full frontal assault, minus the whole drinking and waxing philosophical bit. Now, don't get me wrong. I happen to be a huge fan of Findley's stories, especially the way he gets under his character's skin to expose the human condition for the flawed thing that it really is. I can highly, highly recommend Findley's The Last of the Crazy People, but I digress. In The Wars, Findley experiments with story telling by presenting the narration of this story as one of an unnamed individual's work to cobble together fragments of memories, snapshots and facts to tell Ross's story. I am still undecided if this was the best mechanism to use, as the story tends to jump around a bit and I was a bit confused as to what exactly happened to one of the characters, but Findley's ability to make me experience the trench warfare of World War I in all of its mud, confusion, harrowing despair, coupled with the determination to rise above it all is what continues to resonate within me long after I finished reading this story. Findley has a knack for producing wonderful quote-worthy passages, like the following monologue by Robert's mother early in the story: For a moment she looked at what she'd done and then, without looking up, she spoke in a voice as passionless as sleep: "You think Rowena belonged to you. Well I'm here to tell you, Robert, that no one belongs to anyone. We're all cut off at birth with a knife and left at the mercy of strangers. You hear that? Strangers. I know what you want to do. I know you're going to go away and be a solder. Well - you can go to hell. I'm not responsible. I'm just another stranger. Birth I can give you - but life I cannot. I can't keep anyone alive. Not anymore. I close off this review with two more quotes that really resonated with me while I was reading this story: The first dead man he'd seen, I think. And he said that after a while you saw them everywhere and you sort of accepted it. But the acceptance made him mad and he said this marvelous thing: I still maintain that an ordinary human being has a right to be horrified by a mangled body seen on an afternoon walk. So what it was we were denied was to be ordinary. All our ordinary credos and expectations vanished. Vanished There was so much death. No one can imagine. These were not accidents - or the quiet, expected deaths of the old. These were murders. By the thousands. All your friends were...murdered.-----------
Someone once said to Clive: do you think we will ever be forgiven for what we have done? They meant their generation and the war and waht the war had done to civilization. Clive said something that I've never forgotten. He said: I doubt we'll ever be forgiven. All I hope is - they'll remember that we were human beings. Overall, another brilliant, thought-provoking read from one of my favorite Canadian authors. I can see why this won the 1977 Governor General's Award. A worthy read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecrow
With Remembrance Day approaching (Nov 11th in Canada), I was looking for an appropriately themed novel and hadn't read Timothy Findley before. In the space of two hundred pages he produced this virtuoso performance of moving back and forth in time, changing perspectives, briefly offering the 2nd
Robert Ross is a man instinctively opposed to violence and offended by death, which makes signing up for the war an almost absurd thing to get himself involved in. He views it as penance and escape after his beloved sister dies of an accident. His story has its origins in southern Ontario, then a training camp in Alberta, then on board the troop ship to Europe. On the western front Robert is assigned to the mortars. It both does and does not develop as you might expect, and always there is the unresolved mystery involving horses that still lies ahead. The ending encourages re-reading, and re-evaluating of both the novel and of the war it portrays, and of those who endured it. Never forget.
Show More
person, dictated interviews, portions of diaries and letters ... making all these shifts seem effortless and never chaotic or randomly performed. As its readers we are both being told the story and made to feel as though we ourselves are its researchers. We are investigating some act that will only be spelled out in full at the novel's end. Not knowing what it is in advance will prove key to its perception.Robert Ross is a man instinctively opposed to violence and offended by death, which makes signing up for the war an almost absurd thing to get himself involved in. He views it as penance and escape after his beloved sister dies of an accident. His story has its origins in southern Ontario, then a training camp in Alberta, then on board the troop ship to Europe. On the western front Robert is assigned to the mortars. It both does and does not develop as you might expect, and always there is the unresolved mystery involving horses that still lies ahead. The ending encourages re-reading, and re-evaluating of both the novel and of the war it portrays, and of those who endured it. Never forget.
Show Less
LibraryThing member chriswhitmore
Enjoyed the writing style in this book a lot more than in pilgram. Story starts off pretty slow and gets more and more interesting as life in the war is described. The whole thing is a bit disjointed but was well worth the read.
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
A harsh and provocative look at WWI
LibraryThing member gypsysmom
I'd be hardpressed to categorize Timothy Findley's writing style. Every book of his that I have read has been significantly different from the other. In this book Findley uses a journalistic style to tell the story of Robert Ross. He also opens the book with the scene that is the culmination of his
The back cover captures the essence of this story :
"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 like in the midst of death.
I thought the story was magnificently told even though it is not easy to read. But that's the point I think. The First World War was horrific and it shouldn't be the subject of light literature.
Show More
story. Then he repeats this scene at the end but now we know how Ross came to be in that situation.The back cover captures the essence of this story :
"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 like in the midst of death.
I thought the story was magnificently told even though it is not easy to read. But that's the point I think. The First World War was horrific and it shouldn't be the subject of light literature.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LDVoorberg
A short but heavy book about one man's experience in World War I. Horses (and animals in general) are a significant motif.
I really enjoyed the narrative style, second person POV, as though the reader is the researcher looking at the photos and assembling the evidence. It works.
There is no glossing
I really enjoyed the narrative style, second person POV, as though the reader is the researcher looking at the photos and assembling the evidence. It works.
There is no glossing
Show More
over the horrors of war in this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member ParadisePorch
When I saw The Wars was the April choice for the War & Literature Readalong, I wondered how I had never heard of this early novel by one of Canada’s literary leaders. Since I’ve read it, I wonder all the more.
Set in WWI, the story tells of young officer Robert Ross who enlists after a family
Findley’s prose is spare. There are no wasted words. It’s very powerful, and with no profanity. 5 stars
Read this if: you care about the animals—chiefly horses and mules—that were caught ’in service’ in the Great War.
Set in WWI, the story tells of young officer Robert Ross who enlists after a family
Show More
tragedy leaves him bereft. Written and published in the mid-1970s when it was still possible to talk to people who remembered that war, and the elderly veterans who marched in the Remembrance Day parade had fought in the French mud, it has an immediacy and power that many other First World War novels that I have read lack.Findley’s prose is spare. There are no wasted words. It’s very powerful, and with no profanity. 5 stars
Read this if: you care about the animals—chiefly horses and mules—that were caught ’in service’ in the Great War.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
This is a tremendously evocative book for me. It summons up, the smell of Toronto, and is probably as acute in dealing with trenches of France. I could bring myself to see the "Warhorse" movie because this book had already dealt with that emotional space for me. Probably going to outlive a lot of
Show More
other contemporary fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member lamour
Robert Ross is a sensitive young Canadian whose family owns a successful farm equipment company in Toronto at the start of WW I. When many of his friends join the armed forces, he does too. We follow him through his training in Canada, his trip across the Atlantic in a crowded ship, and his
While in England he mets some of his distant relatives who lead him to meet & love the carefree Lady Barbara d'Orsey. Through her we witness the horrendous injuries the soldiers suffer at the front for all her lovers seem to come home missing limbs and other body parts.
For another truthful view of life in the trenches, you cannot go wrong with Findley's novel.
Show More
training in England and finally to the trenches in France with its hell on earth atmosphere.While in England he mets some of his distant relatives who lead him to meet & love the carefree Lady Barbara d'Orsey. Through her we witness the horrendous injuries the soldiers suffer at the front for all her lovers seem to come home missing limbs and other body parts.
For another truthful view of life in the trenches, you cannot go wrong with Findley's novel.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Carlathelibrarian
A story about World War one, that is not long, but hits the gut hard. I read this as part of a group read so it took a while as there were assigned sections, but I finally had to read ahead and finish as I could not wait any longer. Robert Ross is the main character in this story. His story starts
Show More
before the war with a glimpe of his family life, then goes on to his enlistment, training, then his tenure overseas. The descriptions in this book are mesmerizing and makes you see the horrors of this time. Much of Robert's story is told through interviews with others and diaries so it is their recollections of what he went through. A truly Canadian story of the war that I recommend everyone read. Show Less
LibraryThing member LynnB
A very powerful story about a young officer fighting at Ypres in World War I. Robert Ross experiences the horrors of war on the battlefield and personally, leading him to an ultimate act of.....? That is the question the unnamed narrator tries to answer by looking at old letters and photographs and
Show More
interviewing the few people still alive several years after the War. Was Robert's act one of bravery or madness....was he a traitor or a hero? Robert is a gentle, sensitive soul in the midst of violence and madness. A very powerful character. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Wars by Timothy Findley is a short book but it packs a very large punch. The story of one Canadian lad who goes off to the trenches in World War I was an intricate and heart wrenching story. The brutality that the author describes in rich, lyrical language makes it plain that there is really
This book really grabbed me and I think this had a great deal to do with my own grandfather who ran away at age sixteen to fight in World War I. He was caught the first time, but succeeded a year later at seventeen. The things he saw and did affected him for the rest of his life. He kept a diary about his experiences and many of his descriptions matched with this book.
The Wars was a moving account of one Canadian man’s experience during World War I, and while it is not an in-depth exploration, the author introduces his character and allows us to sample his early life, his training and his war experiences that together paint a clear and penetrating picture of the shock and struggle that these soldiers were exposed to. Although the book left me feeling emotionally drained, The Wars was a very impressive read.
Show More
nothing noble about warfare and that the psychological effects of this particular war were devastating.This book really grabbed me and I think this had a great deal to do with my own grandfather who ran away at age sixteen to fight in World War I. He was caught the first time, but succeeded a year later at seventeen. The things he saw and did affected him for the rest of his life. He kept a diary about his experiences and many of his descriptions matched with this book.
The Wars was a moving account of one Canadian man’s experience during World War I, and while it is not an in-depth exploration, the author introduces his character and allows us to sample his early life, his training and his war experiences that together paint a clear and penetrating picture of the shock and struggle that these soldiers were exposed to. Although the book left me feeling emotionally drained, The Wars was a very impressive read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member beentsy
I loved this book. The descriptive language brought out so many emotions in me and as I finished reading it I was in tears. Has also made me want to find out more about WWI, especially the role Canadians played in it.
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1977
Physical description
198 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0143051423 / 9780143051428