- Hardcover: 226 pages
- Publisher: Toronto, ON: Clarke, Irwin; 1st Edition edition (1977)
- ISBN-10: 0440192390
- ISBN-13: 978-0772011886
- ASIN: 0772011885
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #540,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Please read this review before purchasing the novel.,
By
This review is from: The Wars (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
I am surprised at the reviews of this novel. I see some people claiming to have literally burned this book and I see a ?teacher? who condemns a Governor General?s Award winning novel without the courtesy of proper punctuation or even capital letters. And I see people claiming that this novel is the greatest ever produced by a Canadian. The truth is somewhere in between. But make no mistake: it is a classic for good reason.Anger comes from confusion so it is no surprise to see many angry people reacting to ?The Wars?. It is a difficult read. Robert Ross is a difficult character to identify with because Findley holds him at arm?s length for almost the entire novel. The only instances I remember where the reader is given direct access to Robert?s innermost thoughts are in the opening section, before he enlists in the army. From there we are shown his actions and only the most obvious of thoughts. Much of the novel is presented as hearsay, where the reader sees the toll the war takes on both his family and personal life, and this is perhaps the reason for the negative reviews here: the reader cannot become attached to Robert Ross. Findley does not present empathy as an option. We are forced to examine his actions coolly with little emotion involved save the horror of killing or the pleasure of love. What does this say about Findley?s goal with this novel? Why does he not allow us to be close to Robert Ross? Because he is not a hero. He is not a great man. He was the average soldier (or officer, in this case) and his trials were average for the Great War. This is a novel about World War One written sixty years (or so) after the armistice, and we are now approaching its one hundred year anniversary. So why do readers think it should be a rip roaring adventure of bravery and heroism? Wake up people. It is a novel about the legacy the war has left. It is about how we were and are affected by it and that is why it is written from the point of view or a reseacher/historian. It is about darkness and savagery and how these things are in all of us, only to be revealed by the horrors we subject each other to. Look at the things Robert has to deal with within his own army. Are the Germans the ?bad guys? in this novel? We only ever see one, and he shows great humanity and sacrifice. Robert?s own army wreaks as much destruction and havoc in the lives of their own soldiers as they do to the Germans. It is not a heroic tale of Us versus Them. It is a cautionary tale of Us vs. Ourselves. Do not expect ?Saving Private Ryan?. Expect ?Apocalypse Now?. Do not expect a page turner. Expect a meditation on humanity?s darkest hour, and you will not be disappointed. This is a novel to be read by the intelligent and the brave, not the simple and arrogant. Approach it with the right mindset and you will find a classic.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
World War 1 fiction,
By Bruce H (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wars (Paperback)
This novel is about the experiences of a Canadian man in World War 1. The flow of the story is occasionally interrupted by the activities of a researcher investigating the life of Robert Ross (a Second Lieutenant in the Canadian Army) in some kind of archive or interviewing people who met Ross during his lifetime. It is never made clear what is happening; why is the researcher/interviewer doing his investigations? Why is he writing this account (i.e. the novel)? There is no real conclusion to the novel or resolution of the researcher plot. Findley has Ross die shortly after World War 1 and the researcher plot abruptly ends.The sections of the novel that are actually about fighting in the trenches are reasonably good. I think Findley properly emphasizes how dirty, mud-filled and wretched the trenches of World War 1 were. Occasionally, there are flashbacks to the protagonist's family in Canada, which were poorly executed. Findley should have focused on the actual war and avoided these diversions. In Canada, this novel won the Governor General's Award in 1977 but I don't see why it is so spectacular. There is a sense that the protagonist is something of a controversial figure (he deserts the army and shoots some Canadian soldiers) but Ross' history and legacy is simply left too ambiguous. In rating this novel, I wanted to give it 2.5 stars, but alas, Amazon does not allow that. The novel simply strikes me as mediocre; there is nothing exceptional to it.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Wars is good, but don`t be expecting a masterpiece,
By Quetzal (Brampton, Ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Wars (Paperback)
From reading the other reviews for 'The Wars' by Timothy Findley it looks like they eithered loved this book or really hated it. Me I come somewhere down the middle since Findley does a comendable job when describing the terror and unreality of being on the front line of war, but he loses me with the abstract tone of the story with its changing narratives (from the archivest looking at pictures of Robert Ross,to interviews with two people that knew Ross, and normal third person ominiscent narrative). Because of it I couldn`t get a strong emotional connection to the main character.
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