Spent too much money in here, May 2005 A little early morning musing on a passage from Pat Barker's Regeneration, one part of her World War I trilogy. . . I have been immersed in the Great War for the last several months because it is a major part of the book I'm writing. (If you're interested in how that's playing out, you can visit my "serious" blog The Wildgoose Chase .)
Anyway, let me set the scene here. One of the characters, a beautiful, healthy young woman, goes to a war hospital and encounters the worst of the war wounded - men who have been horribly disfigured or maimed:
Simply by being there, by being that inconsequential, infinitely powerful creature: a pretty girl, she'd made everything worse. Her sense of her own helplessness, her being forced to play the role of Medusa when she meant no harm, merged with the anger she was beginning to feel at their being hidden away like that. If the country demanded that price, then it should bloody well be prepared to look at the result. she strode on through the heat, not caring where she was going, furious with herself, the war . . . everything.
Seems to ring true today. Will we ever learn to tell the difference between necessary, honorable wars and the superfluous, hubris-filled ones? Pro'ly not.
No comments:
Post a Comment