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war stories
Apr. 29th, 2012 08:17 pmWhy is there no catchall verb for that thing we do with stories? As in, "I X'd a book, a film, and a radio drama last week." I don't like "consumed," which suggests I scoffed all the goodies and there are none left for you.
Anyway, here's a bit about a book and a film I recently X'd. Both war-related, naturally.
The One That Got Away is a 1957 British POW film, with a twist: the POW is German, the captors he's trying to escape from are British. It's more or less a true story, based on the adventures of Franz von Werra, the only British-held POW to escape during the Second World War. A good part of the film's interest, for me, was seeing the standard POW narrative tropes (the devious interrogators, the solemn warnings from the camp commandant that escape is out of the question, the noise to hide the sounds of tunnelling, the bluffs that could be exposed at any moment, the escapees' struggle against the elements, and so on) with the perspective reversed. It's far from the greatest film ever--there is basically no characterization and very little attempt to explore any narrative possibility beyond the adventure story--but may be worth a look if you like this kind of thing. One big point in its favor is casting an actual German actor, Hardy Kruger, as Werra.
Pat Barker's 2007 novel Life Class is a much more complex kind of story. It follows two art students at the Slade School, Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke, through the summer of 1914 and into the early days of the First World War. Paul and Elinor have a sort-of love affair but are divided by their war experiences (he joins the ambulance corps, she stays at the Slade School), their different attitudes towards the war (he finds it necessary to represent the war in art, she resists doing so), and ultimately by their own personalities more than any external factor. I was trying to think of a way to explain the book in a single sentence, and decided on: It's the story of two people who think they ought to be in love with each other but keep finding they aren't.
Pat Barker became famous for her First World War novels, and I was a bit surprised that I found the early sections of the novel nearly as engaging as the ones set during the war. The war appears here as a tremendously disruptive force, one that changes people's lives even if, like Elinor, they want nothing to do with it. Barker doesn't make the summer before the war idyllic by any means, but there's still a sense of possibility cut off, of lives foreclosed.
As much as I admire Barker as a writer, many of her novels apart from Regeneration--and I mean the novel, not the whole trilogy--feel underdeveloped to me, and this is true of Life Class even though I liked it. Barker specializes in spare prose, glancing moments, fragments, almost shaping the story out of the negative space where the narration doesn't go, and I often found myself wanting more. In particular I wanted to know more about some of the minor characters (though not the antagonist figure, who is a bit too oilily unfeeling and careerist to be plausible), and the events of the last few chapters would, I think, have benefitted from a more leisurely pace.
One reason I like Barker's books is that she doesn't shy away from homoeroticism nor from queer characters. In Life Class, ( spoilers for details and one significant plot development, although this isn't really a book that can be spoiled )
Anyway, here's a bit about a book and a film I recently X'd. Both war-related, naturally.
The One That Got Away is a 1957 British POW film, with a twist: the POW is German, the captors he's trying to escape from are British. It's more or less a true story, based on the adventures of Franz von Werra, the only British-held POW to escape during the Second World War. A good part of the film's interest, for me, was seeing the standard POW narrative tropes (the devious interrogators, the solemn warnings from the camp commandant that escape is out of the question, the noise to hide the sounds of tunnelling, the bluffs that could be exposed at any moment, the escapees' struggle against the elements, and so on) with the perspective reversed. It's far from the greatest film ever--there is basically no characterization and very little attempt to explore any narrative possibility beyond the adventure story--but may be worth a look if you like this kind of thing. One big point in its favor is casting an actual German actor, Hardy Kruger, as Werra.
Pat Barker's 2007 novel Life Class is a much more complex kind of story. It follows two art students at the Slade School, Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke, through the summer of 1914 and into the early days of the First World War. Paul and Elinor have a sort-of love affair but are divided by their war experiences (he joins the ambulance corps, she stays at the Slade School), their different attitudes towards the war (he finds it necessary to represent the war in art, she resists doing so), and ultimately by their own personalities more than any external factor. I was trying to think of a way to explain the book in a single sentence, and decided on: It's the story of two people who think they ought to be in love with each other but keep finding they aren't.
Pat Barker became famous for her First World War novels, and I was a bit surprised that I found the early sections of the novel nearly as engaging as the ones set during the war. The war appears here as a tremendously disruptive force, one that changes people's lives even if, like Elinor, they want nothing to do with it. Barker doesn't make the summer before the war idyllic by any means, but there's still a sense of possibility cut off, of lives foreclosed.
As much as I admire Barker as a writer, many of her novels apart from Regeneration--and I mean the novel, not the whole trilogy--feel underdeveloped to me, and this is true of Life Class even though I liked it. Barker specializes in spare prose, glancing moments, fragments, almost shaping the story out of the negative space where the narration doesn't go, and I often found myself wanting more. In particular I wanted to know more about some of the minor characters (though not the antagonist figure, who is a bit too oilily unfeeling and careerist to be plausible), and the events of the last few chapters would, I think, have benefitted from a more leisurely pace.
One reason I like Barker's books is that she doesn't shy away from homoeroticism nor from queer characters. In Life Class, ( spoilers for details and one significant plot development, although this isn't really a book that can be spoiled )
