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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 4, 2012 17:41:57 GMT -6
The Dark Cloud bump - consisting of near a decade requesting people read this damned thing, recently increasing in hysteria to buying radio time and physical threats - has produced to date, if we can believe everyone here, eh, let's see........zero readers.
Of course, the rural counties haven't reported in yet, but all polling shows zero. None. Not a one. Nobody. Nada. Nothing.
It is not a light read, by the by, but I think worth it. He references things and works not included, so be prepared to look up poems on the web. His favorite of WW1 is Isaac Rosenberg's.
Break of Day in the Trenches
The darkness crumbles away It is the same old druid Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat, As I pull the parapet's poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies, Now you have touched this English hand You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver -what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in men's veins Drop, and are ever dropping; But mine in my ear is safe, Just a little white with the dust.
Also, these poets, mostly young guys, were often killed in the war. Owen only a few days before the Armistice, Rosenberg - who was a really good painter as well - seven months before.
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Post by El Crab on Mar 4, 2012 18:25:19 GMT -6
The Dark Cloud bump - consisting of near a decade requesting people read this damned thing, recently increasing in hysteria to buying radio time and physical threats - has produced to date, if we can believe everyone here, eh, let's see........zero readers. Fred bought it to read, at least give yourself credit for that. And I woulda bought it, but I already own it. And I will get to it, I promise. In Flanders Field is the only WWI poetry I know, and like Fred, I have very little experience with poetry as a whole.
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Post by clw on Mar 4, 2012 20:42:54 GMT -6
The Dark Cloud bump - consisting of near a decade requesting people read this damned thing, recently increasing in hysteria to buying radio time and physical threats - has produced to date, if we can believe everyone here, eh, let's see........zero readers. Of course, the rural counties haven't reported in yet, but all polling shows zero. None. Not a one. Nobody. Nada. Nothing. I'm starting it after Brzezinski's latest, which is after Margaret Carrington's Absaraka, which is after Custer's Last Campaign... but I'm terrified there'll be a quiz.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 4, 2012 21:27:16 GMT -6
We're adults. No quiz. Essay, but orally.
What I think the book does - because it did to me - was provide a brand new way to look at history and reveal tools that have been unused but easily available. And I think it aids how the Custer myths ought to be viewed, and the Civil War, and all history with abundant literature and find the things that could be applied further back.
It's dedicated to Tech Sgt. Edward Keith Hudson, "killed beside me in France March 15, 1945." He id's with combat vets.
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2012 14:06:56 GMT -6
Well my copy of The Great War and Modern Memoryarrived today and guess what?On page one we meet my old friend Thomas Hardy.
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Mar 9, 2012 15:30:04 GMT -6
In Flanders Field is the only WWI poetry I know, and like Fred, I have very little experience with poetry as a whole. Wilfred Owen 1893-1918 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisions. (From Anthem for doomed Youth) Siegfried Sasson 1886-1967 Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows. (From Dreamers) Crab, we all miss something if we don't read some poetry and we miss a lot if we don't read war poetry. The brilliant wordsmiths who create extraordinarily touching and evocative scenes of war in their verse can often teach us more about what the 7th Cavalry must have experienced at the LBH than much of the literature we use for research. Just pick some at random, you'll appreciate its value.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 9, 2012 17:33:12 GMT -6
Agree, Hunk, and my contention is that the world that died in 1914 was not much different than the one in 1876, as things simply didn't change fast or much, but was starting to. I'm not the world's greatest fan of poetry per se, but I love good writing, and these kids (they were) could write so well. So can Fussell, and it's a moving book. But I understand it takes work; it did for me, and I was an English major.
And, I think the bit that literature's premiere place in the English speaking mental world during those years gave structure to thought and emotion that we do not appreciate today but should is terribly important. It's necessary to interpret their tales. The guys struggling to find words and manner to testify and give accounts, be they participants or reporters or diarists, had common forms of reference that appear. The Last Stand format and motif is but one. Many of these guys heard sermons every Sunday all their lives, and ministers had common forms of reference aside from the Bible, like Pilgrim's Progress and poetry.
I was always struck by how Tolkien, Hemingway, Ralph Vaughn Williams and others fought in some of the most god awful battles (or were stretcher bearers, more dangerous) and how little attention was given to their trauma in understanding/appreciating their work. Read in Fussell about how the Germans and English imagined each other in the troglodyte world they inhabited. The imagined underground cities of deserters from both sides who roamed the No Man's Land at night, and how the actual German airplane wings appear as the fell beasts' in Lord of the Rings. And living in the trenches for weeks at a time, with the sky taking on all sorts of meaning.
Anyway. I thought clw would enjoy both the poetry and the discussion of how these young men dealt with stuff that nobody - absolutely nobody - had to before, and that combat vets might appreciate the effort Fussell makes here. Because he's one of them.
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Post by fred on Mar 9, 2012 20:33:49 GMT -6
... we all miss something if we don't read some poetry and we miss a lot if we don't read war poetry. Either way, I have missed a lot... unfortunately. Hopefully the Fussell book will change that. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by El Crab on Mar 10, 2012 1:05:58 GMT -6
In Flanders Field is the only WWI poetry I know, and like Fred, I have very little experience with poetry as a whole. Wilfred Owen 1893-1918 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisions. (From Anthem for doomed Youth) Siegfried Sasson 1886-1967 Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land, Drawing no dividend from time's tomorrows. (From Dreamers) Crab, we all miss something if we don't read some poetry and we miss a lot if we don't read war poetry. The brilliant wordsmiths who create extraordinarily touching and evocative scenes of war in their verse can often teach us more about what the 7th Cavalry must have experienced at the LBH than much of the literature we use for research. Just pick some at random, you'll appreciate its value. I can get behind this. I just needed a little shove in the right direction. Thank you, Hunk. And DC. I'll dig out that copy of The Great War and Modern Memory and start catching up.
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Post by clw on Mar 10, 2012 8:52:03 GMT -6
I needed a refresher on 1876 having been away from things for awhile, so I've been wading through Grey's CLC. A good choice for my goal but there I was, up to my butt in tmelines and you all may remember what I think of timelines. As usual, my head was starting to hurt. So around 9pm I picked up Fussell. Next thing I knew it was 2am. "An Inquiry into the Curious Literariness of Real Life" indeed.
Edmund Blunden on the Somme... By the end of the day both sides had seen, in a sad scrawl of broken earth and murdered men, the answer to the question. No road. No thouroughfare. Neither race had won or would win the War. The War had won, and would go on winning.
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Post by clw on Mar 10, 2012 9:15:19 GMT -6
But I can remember reading his bit about Vita Lampada, a terrible boy's poem by Newbolt, a friend of General Haig, and reading the second verse. The sand of the desert (grass of the prairie) is sodden red, -- Red with the wreck of a square (troop) that broke; -- The Gatling's jammed (north, somewhere)and the Colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed his banks, And England's (Canada's) far, and Honour a name, But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks: 'Play up! play up! and play the game!' ........and thinking, with a few alterations (in parentheses): Cooke's last thoughts. Although, the poem was written well after Custer's fight. And I thought: gee, if that occurred to me right off, I can easily understand how people utilize literary templates to describe their own experiences and others. Of course, we all know we do that to greater and lesser extent (people forget how Doonesbury's first bit was the lead character talking to himself as a movie director explaining motivation to an actor, or as a voice over given drama to the ordinary), but Fussell's contention is that this has always happened and it affects how history is written and memory recalled. I certainly think it true of the LBH, and that the Last Stand and other contentions are literary touches, not historical or factual ones. Because things were phrased the way they were by the FIRST accounts, we take them in over literal sense when they might (and I think 'are') just how people in a certain time and space had been taught to think and, most important, recall. When I read that poem last night I remembered this post. It is a gem. That said, if we don't consider the literary insights from those who fought, no matter how histrionic they may be, we have no real understanding of that moment in time. The context and perspective of any war is so much more than pins on a map or written orders given.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 10, 2012 15:49:37 GMT -6
During the Iraq War, when President Bush was talking about wanted posters, and the type of references he made, anybody his age - I am - knew where he got them. It was obvious, no need to reference it.
We grew up in the 1950's with television westerns: Davy Crockett, Cheyenne, tons of them. Their ethics and their theme songs were part of our mental world. We can all still sing Maverick, and Cheyenne, and Wyatt Earp, and all that stuff. That was OUR mental literature and we - and the President - utilized it in describing events or situations.
In 1876 as in 1914 the recesses of our minds now filled with movies and radio and recorded music and television was, in their minds, filled with literature, either first hand or in watered down versions depending upon education. But they were common frames of references and they didn't have to explain them to each other. But future historians well might.
Fussell uncovers what he calls our buried lives that appear in these references, although he's focused on the Brits in WWI in this book. But the method is as applicable to 1876 as studying the WB western template is to understanding Bush (or me, or Fred, or anyone in that era). Things, fads, appear so quick now and vanish that they don't have the same effect, so it makes it harder to implant the notion that things were different in this way, and to imagine what choices officers made to describe things.
Schlessinger, a kid at Beecher Island, said the Indians jumped from invisibility into combat and were as scary as Highlanders. That doesn't have the resonance now it did then, but that is how the world saw the savage Scots (and, eh, much truth to that...) seen though the eyes of terrified and much smaller British soldiers. They'd read or heard all the myths and tales that Walter Scott and others pillaged for their tales.
When Samuel Johnson and Boswell visited the MacLeod's Dunvegan castle, the MacLeods were trying to show him they were not animals and were civilized (-ish) because Johnson had written Scots and Irish were like white apes, etc., and they were adamant about changing his mind. Boswell was won over, hard to say about Johnson as I recall. Forgotten now, but Johnson alone as a critic had huge influence over what was read and therefore became the mental baggage of that era. Not much competition, but Johnson made/kept Shakespeare and others prominent. Suppose he had liked someone else as much. That would have changed everything to this very day.
And think if Christ's story in the Bible was different, and instead of the cross he immolated himself like Buddhists do periodically and then arose from the ashes and ascended to heaven in plain view of the mob and Romans. Sacrifice on behalf of everyone is still there, but ........all the metaphors and references that arose from the cross and Easter vanish from our literature if it were't in the best evidence we have: the Gospels, written decades after and not really first person accounts. THAT's how important it is to know something of the mental world of the time in question.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2012 17:31:00 GMT -6
"A Knight Without Armor In A Savage Land."
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Mar 11, 2012 13:17:27 GMT -6
Agree, Hunk, and my contention is that the world that died in 1914 was not much different than the one in 1876, as things simply didn't change fast or much, but was starting to. I'm not the world's greatest fan of poetry per se, but I love good writing, and these kids (they were) could write so well. So can Fussell, and it's a moving book. But I understand it takes work; it did for me, and I was an English major. And, I think the bit that literature's premiere place in the English speaking mental world during those years gave structure to thought and emotion that we do not appreciate today but should is terribly important. It's necessary to interpret their tales. The guys struggling to find words and manner to testify and give accounts, be they participants or reporters or diarists, had common forms of reference that appear. The Last Stand format and motif is but one. Many of these guys heard sermons every Sunday all their lives, and ministers had common forms of reference aside from the Bible, like Pilgrim's Progress and poetry. I was always struck by how Tolkien, Hemingway, Ralph Vaughn Williams and others fought in some of the most god awful battles (or were stretcher bearers, more dangerous) and how little attention was given to their trauma in understanding/appreciating their work. Read in Fussell about how the Germans and English imagined each other in the troglodyte world they inhabited. The imagined underground cities of deserters from both sides who roamed the No Man's Land at night, and how the actual German airplane wings appear as the fell beasts' in Lord of the Rings. And living in the trenches for weeks at a time, with the sky taking on all sorts of meaning. Anyway. I thought clw would enjoy both the poetry and the discussion of how these young men dealt with stuff that nobody - absolutely nobody - had to before, and that combat vets might appreciate the effort Fussell makes here. Because he's one of them. Personally, I would go back as far as the ACW as a comparison with the world of 1914-18. Same senseless killing, same style of trench warfare and same end result. The death of reason. Certainly the impact of war on literature and poetry cannot be denied. You mention some creative men whose experiences in the cauldron of warfare impacted on their work. Again, as a matter of personal choice, I would not include Hemingway, who was inclined to embroider his experiences. I would however, include Ambrose Bierce who, together with John W. DeForest and Sidney Launier wrote so graphically about their experiences in the ACW. It is a great pity that the promise of Theodore Winthrop was so tragically cut short. I have not read Fussell but will do so in due course, though some time ago I did read A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture by Samual Hynes, which gave me an understanding of how to appreciate the importance of the place in English literature of those works.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 11, 2012 14:08:23 GMT -6
You probably can go further back to Crimea, because little changed in the accepted templates. There certainly was trench warfare before the Great War, but nothing like this. About 25k miles of trenches between the Channel and Switzerland, and they were fairly permanent, disgusting, terrifying, and not all that protective.
Atop machine guns, airplanes, tanks, and artillery the size of which was beyond previous imaginations (the effect of the explosion of large naval shells in tight places hadn't been appreciated till the first naval battles where bodies were vaporized and parboiled in seconds and forced out through infintesimal cracks and decayed over time where nobody could clean. That, for example.
I want to emphasize that Fussell is saying that how history and basic memory of the war is constructed is somewhat preordained by the mental world of participants before they go to war, not how war affects literature per se, although it obviously does. His revelation to me is that people went into the horror of the Western Front (and he dwells on that some, horror being an inadequate word) fully equipped to discuss it in early Victorian or rather Romantic terms and phrase as they always had for centuries, and that the reality and the tools to both remember it and record it were way too, too different. THAT was the sundering of the time line, when events forced language, memory, and culture change in four years as if all preceding it were ancient history. This distance between the popularity of William Morris and The Waste Land is huge, but only a few years.
Hemingway noted it right off, and his 'style' emerged from that. He was on the cusp of self made celebrity yet the man could write (some great, some god awful). His short stories are far better than the novels. You would love this small book by Fussell.
Fred and cwl are being polite to me, but I truly think this book is entirely relevant to much we discuss here and the LBH in general. I'm hoping people will agree.
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