Novel
The Wars
Timothy Findley · 1977
Synopsis
Toronto, 1915. Robert Ross is nineteen when his elder sister Rowena, an invalid, dies after falling from her chair in the barn where she kept her rabbits; he was supposed to look after her. His mother orders the animals to be killed; Robert refuses, and someone else does it. He enlists in the artillery and crosses the Atlantic in the hold, among the horses, bound for the mud of Flanders. Many years later, a researcher gathers photographs, letters and testimonies to understand what this boy did out there.
Context
The author's third novel and the one that made his name, published in 1977 by Clarke, Irwin in Toronto. The narrative advances in fragments, annotated photographs, letters and transcribed interviews, and the reader is addressed directly by a voice that uses the familiar form of address. The title is in the plural: the war of 1914–18 is only one of the wars in the book. An adaptation by Robin Phillips was made from it in 1983, with a musical score devised by Glenn Gould from Brahms and Strauss.
Who it is for
A short but fragmented novel, with no continuous thread: photographs, interviews, press cuttings. One must accept reconstructing the chronology oneself.
Prizes and reception
Governor General's Award in 1977; Guy Vanderhaeghe called it the best historical novel ever written by a Canadian, and it is studied in secondary schools.
Sources for this page 10
The pages consulted to check this page.