The American War Novel

MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature

THE AMERICAN WAR NOVEL

Supervisor: Author:

PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D Dorian Maršálek

English department April 2006

THE MOTTO: “In war you lose your sense of the definite, hence your sense of truth itself, and therefore it’s safe to say that in a true war story nothing is ever absolutely true.” Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (p 88)

Declaration of Originality:

I declare that I have written this thesis myself using just the sources listed in the enclosed bibliography.

…………………………………………… Dorian Maršálek

Acknowledgement:

I would like to express my thanks to PhDr. Irena Přibylová, Ph.D who kindly assisted my endeavor and brought in many cogent comments and remarks as the supervisor of this thesis.

Table of Contents:

Declaration of originality ……………………………………………….. i Acknowledgement …………………………………………………………………. ii Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………… iii 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………… 1 2. The Second World War 2.1 General information ………………………………………………. 3 2.2 The most important dates and events ……………………… 5 2.3 The novelists’ experience with the war …………………. 7 3. Postmodernism 3.1 The period ……………………………………………………………… 10 3.2 Characteristic features of postmodern literature …. 10 3.3 The war novel’s parameters …………………………………… 13 4. Major parallels and contrasts of war novels 4.1 The characters ……………………………………………………… 15 4.2 The setting …………………………………………………………… 23 4.3 The themes 4.3.1 Friendship …………………………………………………… 26 4.3.2 Love and sex ………………………………………………… 33 4.3.3 Death and cruelty ………………………………………... 40 4.3.4 The absurdity of war …………………………………… 48 5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………… 56 6. Bibliography ………………………………………………………………… 59 7. Appendix ……………………………………………………………………… 62 8. Summary/ Shrnutí ………………………………………………………… 71 Annotation/ Anotace

1. Introduction

I have been told a lot about the Second World War by my grandfather who, as a university student, had spent almost one year in an interment camp in Saxenhausen, East Germany. During his unwanted stay in terrible living conditions, he had experienced inhuman treatment as well as a great deal of hopelessness and injustice. The stories and recollections might have helped me realize partly in what aspects the period had been different from the time in which I have been living now.

However, the idea to pick a topic dealing with warlike environment crossed my mind when reading Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 because it amazed me how the novel, or the author respectively, was able to combine scenes portraying all uneasiness or despair of the major protagonists and passages filled with fun and humorous situations at the same time. This ‘diversity’ seems to be among factors that should prevent readers from getting bored as well as it is to make novels interesting to read.

I was wondering whether all books concerned with the greatest world-wide conflict of the 20th century follow similar patterns or whether there are any exceptions that could be regarded as distinguishing traits and therefore be worth mentioning.

In this sense, my thesis focuses above all on thematic parallels and contrasts in ten selected war novels but it also takes a brief survey of chief characters and setting into account. Its aim is to analyze and compare which particular topics in what amount appear in war novels, what the authors’ individual ways of depicting various historical events are, how they approach them, and how they integrate them into their fictitious stories. Furthermore, it is obvious that each writer concentrates on and describes different battles within

the Second World War, depending on the actual part of the world to which they happened to be drafted.

Finally, it should be stated that the inclusion of Ray Rigby – a novelist of British origin – and Tim O’Brien – a writer who depicts the Vietnam War – into this thesis titled ‘The American War Novel’ was not caused by my ignorance of either of them. The reason is that O’Brien was born in 1946 and his novel The Things They Carried was published some 44 years later, which establishes him as a relatively young American author, as opposed to those bringing their books out in the 1960s or 1970s. Ray Rigby’s Hill of Sand, on the other hand, is to represent the branch of European war novels that were written in English.

2. The Second World War

2.1 General Information

The content of the Second World War seems to be treated differently by different nations. For Britain as well as for most of the European countries it started in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The United States was made to enter the war in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Second World War was practically the first and the only ‘global war’ in which nearly all sovereign states of the world participated. Among the countries that never took part in this conflict and therefore managed to preserve its neutrality were Switzerland as the center of the world finance, Sweden, the neutrality of which had the same economic significance for both warring sides, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, and Portugal together with Afghanistan, Yemen, Nepal, and Mongolia.

Some of the countries that supported Germany at the beginning but get affiliated with the Allies at the end belonged to so- called Axis. It was a metaphoric label for a German-Italian pact stressing common ground of all involved nations – nations circling around one axis. Although Italy stood at the birth of the Axis, it turned against Germany in 1943 after several unsuccessful attempts to seize Greece and some areas in northern Africa. Bulgaria aligned with the Axis in March 1941. It fought Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union but changed sides in 1944.

In spite of playing an important role as far as the invasion in the Soviet Union was concerned, Romania started fighting Germany since August 1944. As Finland lost in the “Winter War” against the Soviets, it joined German policy and did not separate until September 1944. In the Far East Thailand and

Myanmar, which were at that time controlled by the Japanese, went to war with the Allies but consequently gave a helping hand to them.

Two radical reasons are believed to influence the victorious campaign of the allied nations during the war. The first of them was great industrial power of the United States enabling it to produce countless number of guns, warships and aircrafts. The second one, then, was its leaders – particularly the British premier Winston Churchill in company with the president of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both men were more or less successful in making right decisions and they trusted their military commanders, not interfering with authorities of theirs.

Out of all that has been said or written, it is obvious that the whole conflict was full of violent changes, having both positive and negative impacts on all countries in the course of and long after the war itself. “The Second World War recast the entire society and destroyed much more than any other event in the history. It crushed people’s faith to reach higher ideals. Although freedom and democracy won finally, the values of moral and intellectual development heading toward a perfect society were burned and buried under the ruins in Dresden, or erased by a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (O’Neill 15; translated by Dorian Maršálek).

2.2 The most important dates and events

(source: http://ireferaty.wz.cz/go2.php?id=5; translated by Dorian Maršálek)

Year Diplomatic West East South Far East & negotiations Pacific areas 1939 Aug. 23 – Russian- Sep. 3 – Sep. 1 – a Japan attacks German contract Great Britain German Russia and France attack on declared war Poland on Germany

Sep. 17 – the Soviet Union attacks Poland Sep. 28 – the division of Poland has been finished Nov. 30 – the Soviet Union attacks Finland 1940 France has April, 9 – A June – the September – the war in surrendered German attack occupation Italy China on Denmark of the attacks and Norway Baltic Egypt States

Sep. 27 – Japan May, 10 – the Soviet April – a and Italy have Germany Union fights German signed a contract attacks the in a ‘winter invasion in Netherlands, war’ Finland Yugoslavia Belgium, the end on and Greece Luxembourg March, 12 – and France a peace treaty is signed

Germany (a ‘three- power treaty’)

June, 22 – France accepts the armistice from Germany

August – October – the battle over England 1941 April, 13 – Japan June, 22 – April, 13 – and the Soviet Germany vs. Japan and the Union agree not to the Soviet Soviet Union attack other Union (the agree not to countries Barbarossa attack other plan) countries

August – the December – a Atlantic charter battle at Moscow March, 11 – the December, 7 – Lend Lease Plan Pearl Harbor (USA)

1942 Jan. 1 – the August – the Oct. 23 – June 3 – 7 – Great Alliance battle at German and the battle of (Washington Stalingrad has Italian Midway convention) begun troops defeated at Al Alamein November – a November – Soviet landing of offensive at American Stalingrad and British troops in Algeria 1943 January – a February – the July/ a battle at conference defeat of August – Santa Cruz in Casablanca German army at landing of Stalingrad American and British troops at Sicily

May – Stalin dissolves the Communist Internationale

October – an August – a September August - appointment of battle at Kursk – the Guadalcanal the Soviet Union, landing of the USA and Great the allied Britain in Moscow troops in – the Big Three Italy; Italy has signed the armistice and joined the allied countries against Germany December – a conference in Teheran

1944 July – Bretton July 6 – the the Soviet Monte the invasion Woods – formation landing in Union seizes Cassino of the of MMF and SB Normandy Romania, Philippines (operation Bulgaria, Overlord) Yugoslavia, and Hungary

August – December – July – the Churchill and Ardennes Soviets entered Roosevelt (battle of Poland, the negotiate the Bulge Baltic States in Quebec and the Balkans October – Churchill and Stalin in Moscow 1945 February – Yalta March – May 9 – April 1945 – crossing of Czechoslovakia Okinawa the Rhine is liberated August – Postupim April 25 – Aug. 6 – meeting of Hiroshima the allies and the Soviets Oct. 24 – the UN May 2 – the Aug. 9 – charter capture of Nagasaki Berlin

2.3 The novelists’ experience with the war

The literary works of an Australian writer and a scripter James Dumaresq Clavell (1924 – 1994), whose roots are British though, is inspired mainly by his direct participation in the war. After finishing the studies in Birmingham, he entered the Royal Air Force and did his military service in the Far East. In 1942 he was taken prisoner in an ill-famed concentration camp near Singapore. This experience can be considered the basis for his historical and adventurous stories taking place in exotic Asia.

William Eastlake (1917 – 1997) – an American novelist and journalist – studied two years in Paris, where he came during the Second World War as a member of the allied troops. In his best-selling novel Castle Keep, which waited some twenty years for it to be written, Eastlake paints his firsthand experience from the invasion in France.

Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999) served as an Air Force bombardier in the World War II. He, as well as other war novelists, concentrates on the insanity of the war, in which he got involved and tries to “present the horrible meaninglessness of armed conflicts through a kind of desperate absurdity rather than through graphic depictions of suffering and violence” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/) December, 2005.

Novels by Norman Kingsleay Mailer (*1923) are believed to “make its readers realize that people keep on losing faith in their ability to understand and change the world around themselves” (http://www.iliteratura.cz/) December, 2005. Mailer himself took part in military operations in the Pacific and this experience became a source upon which he drew when writing The Naked and the Dead.

Anton Myrer (1922 – 1996) was a member of the US navy for three years. His novels show attempts to picture not only the war and senseless fighting but also “the American life style

of the 30s together with its swing big bands, fancy environments of renowned universities and pervasive desire to enjoy the life at all costs” (http://ld.johanesville.net/myrer/) December, 2005.

The author of the novel The Things They Carried William Timothy O’Brien (*1946) does not belong to the group of writers who focus just on the Second World War, although he deals with the topic of the war as well. His main concern is the Vietnam War where he served as a foot soldier. In this particular novel O’Brien “aggressively works the border between fiction and nonfiction” (McQuade et al. 2323) and places the reader into the positions of an observer or even an eyewitness.

Ray Rigby’s inspiration and material for majority of his novels come from his personal experience. As far as the Hill of Sand is concerned, it is believed to “tell a story from the war’s periphery, in which individuals, sinking to the ‘human’ bottom under ‘inhuman’ conditions, keep fighting for last remains of their self-respect. It is an episode that goes deep into a man’s mind and in this way tries to give evidence about some key aspects of the British social situation” (the book’s epilogue written by Miroslav Jindra; shortened and translated by Dorian Maršálek).

Irwin Shaw (1913 – 1984), an American author of Jewish origin, who also made his name as a playwright and screenwriter, reached the warrant officer’s rank in the US army. Taking part in several operations as a member of a documentary film unit in North Africa and Europe gave basis for many of his novels. “The Young Lions is written in the grand manner. It draws its varied gallery of characters from our familiar world and takes them, step by step, with accumulating tension through the changes and uncertainties of civilian life as we remember it from 1938, through training and battle, through love and

comradeship and antagonism to the individual and mass ordeal of warfare” (Shaw, the blurb of the novel).

The American novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (*1922) was a member of the US infantry during the World War II. “He was captured by the Germans and his subsequent experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden were to influence much of his work” (Ousby 1035). His most famous novel Slaughterhouse Five “offers ironic commentary on both our inhumanity and the appalling opportunity for destruction provided by 20th-century technology” (Ousby 1035).

Herman Wouk (*1915) was born to a couple of Jewish Russian immigrants who had escaped from Minsk to America. He did not avoid the active duty at naval forces during the war either. Based on his memories, Wouk began to write The Winds of War in 1964 but did not finish it until 1971. This ‘saga of the World War II’, as it is often labeled, is followed by another novel called War and Remembrance (1978). The former concentrates mainly on the Pacific operations but takes the issue of Holocaust into account too. The latter complements it and brings up the rear, so to speak. “Morally serious and documented by thorough research, these novels are also popular presentations of fictive characters mingling with great historic figures and situations” (Hart 848).

3. Postmodernism

3.1 The period

Novels depicting the Second World War come under the postmodern period, which started in the 1940s and lasted practically till the late 1980s. The years brought about a number of changes in economics, politics, technology and even in society. The focus on consumption, growing importance of advertizing, business, or media, introduction of computers and world-wide communications, various types of movements, pace of life speeding up and lack of time – all these attributes characterize the postmodern world on which postmodernism tries to react.

As far as writers of this period are concerned, they “no longer believed that the old cultural values were recoverable after the Holocaust. They simply gave up the struggle and delighted in delirium. The alienation effects of their fictions express the effects of alienation upon themselves” (Lewis 133).

3.2 Characteristic features of postmodern literature

Postmodernism, from the literary point of view, is believed to reflect such people’s attitudes toward the war as skepticism, black humor, or irony as well as it takes the development of literature itself back to realism. New features of postmodern writing emerge. Barry Lewis in The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism distinguishes among the following: • temporal disorder, disrupting the chronology of the novel, retelling the past and providing deep details from different perspectives; • pastiche, which arises from the feeling that everything has been done before, so writers can do nothing but paraphrase;

• fragmentation, suggesting that the wholeness and completion associated with traditional stories is not preferred any more; • looseness of association, carrying the meaning of ‘no logic’. The text is usually put together in a loose order; • paranoia, stressing the climate of anxiety, fear of losing our identity or being manipulated; • schizophrenia, due to which a character’s mind is split into several pieces or segments; • vicious circles, appearing in fiction when both the text and the outer world blend, so that we can not separate one from the other; • language disorder, which involves experiments with language.

“Postmodernism is, of course, only part of the total landscape, but like a mountain-range it looms over everything else, and plodding over its peaks and valleys is no easy task” (Lewis 122).

Books in general and war novels in particular actually contain much more features than just those mentioned above. According to Barry Lewis’ division, the reader might get a feeling that postmodern literature, reflecting the postmodern world as such, is based on nothing but disruptions and disorders, which results in illogical or even insane behavior of the characters. Entire society is falling apart, fast pace of technological development together with great discoveries in science and its frequent instances of misuse cause serious problems and these make the future uncertain for mankind.

“Because the years immediately following World War I had produced a literary revival, many critics in 1945 confidently assumed that history would repeat its pattern and immediately offer a new generation of Fitzgeralds, Hemingways, and Eliots. What these critics did not seem to realize was that the temper of the young men who went into the second war was almost

exactly the reverse of that of the young men of 1917. The crusade of 1914 – 1918 to make the world safe for Democracy had not been repeated in 1939 – 1945, and an era of disillusionment and reevaluation was not to be expected” (Spiller et al. 1393).

Although postmodernism as a literary movement does portray the world this way, it seems to be only one side of the coin. Books, or rather authors are able to ‘offer’ also the other and not so negative side, containing such motifs and symbols as friendship and trustworthiness, faith in skills and determination of an individual, importance of family representing the basic social unit, love and fellow-feelings, humanity, etc. These topics are believed to be characteristic for popular literature which – as the opposition to high literature – is simpler and more direct, as far as the story, the language, and the book’s structure are concerned. However, it is the exception that proves the rule.

Most books tend to mix the vision of brighter and unspoiled future with worries concerning the opposite and from time to time these two ideas get in confrontation, depending on the author’s wish to change the plot of the book and develop it even further. By strengthening one, weakening the other and vice versa, the author usually leads the reader into a state of doubt and expectation. In addition, by introducing some new characters as well as placing extra information, the plot becomes even more complicated. This makes the reader search for hints and details hidden somewhere in the text so that he could clearly understand the author’s intentions.

What unites all war novels is portraying the war as such with all actions that went along this global conflict. However, the way of depicting particular events taking place between the years 1939 and 1945, can make the novels similar on one hand, but different on the other. There are certain aspects which

help the reader recognize the parallels and contrasts. These may be considered the major focus of my thesis.

3.3 The war novel’s parameters

War novels have a common tendency to record all events and affairs straight, using the realistic or naturalistic mode. They are generally written as a direct result of the war. Not only is their aim to narrate, document, and make comments but also to assess. In order to do so properly, there needs to be a certain time distance.

“I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big” (Vonnegut 2).

The language of war novels often follows the way real soldiers usually speak for the purpose of giving a true picture of a harsh military setting. This is described by Joseph J. Waldmeir as the writers’ ability to report “the speech of servicemen, from its monotonous obscenity through its cluttered inarticulateness” (p 15). Waldmeir also assumes that in this sense it is conceivable to notice the influence of Hemingway, whose style is based on short sentences and quick- flowing dialogues, providing a lot of details. At the same time, however, certain passages may look unclear and clues hidden so that the reader is forced to guess now and then.

“One may just wonder whether the novels might not have been equally detailed without the example of A Farewell to Arms, whether the novelists might not have decided independently that the most efficient way of communicating the emotions attendant upon combat to the reader is to present him with as objective and complete a portrait as possible of the ground upon which the action takes place. Even without Hemingway, it

is likely that verisimilitude would be the war novelist’s intent and detailed completeness his means of achieving it” (Waldmeir 15).

On the other hand, “the real war will never get in the books” as Walt Whitman stated at the end of the Civil War. He was particularly thinking of the “unspeakable side of the war, no longer so considered by the modern mind.” […] “It is true that war’s horrors, and their obvious counterparts in ‘normal’ civilian life, can still dismay us profoundly for a moment of clarifying awareness. But then they are quickly taken for granted, as though each separate instance were not a cry to us to set all other concerns aside and put things right” (Rosenthal vii).

In conclusion to this part, it could be said that the authors’ major aim is to make use of such writing techniques, which help them portray true-to-life characters and events in order to present an ‘authentic’ setting, capable of dragging readers into the story. Concurrently, there is usually some space left for each reader to use his own imagination and thus ‘flesh out’ the line of the book accordingly.

4. Major parallels and contrasts of war novels

4.1 The characters

The novels that are listed in the bibliography-section of this thesis as primary literature can be viewed as authors’ diaries containing their experiences from the Second World War (or the Vietnam War, which is the case of Tim O’Brien). Their notes are very detailed and the stories always seem to tell about one or more leading characters, who, despite mismatching the military environment for some reason, serve their country and fight for it. These major heroes usually represent hubs around which everything spins.

Joseph Heller in his Catch-22 ‘gives birth’ to a private Yossarian, trying to get away from the war. Yossarian can not stand the job he was unwillingly given and wants to escape the army but a senseless rule makes him stay where he is. “The lives and deaths of the men in Yossarian’s squadron are governed not by their own decisions concerning dangerous risks but by the decisions of an impersonal, frightening bureaucracy. The men must risk their lives even when they know that their missions are useless, as when they are forced to keep flying combat missions late in the novel even after they learn that the Allies have essentially won the war” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/) January, 2006.

“Yossarian sprang forward to see where they were and remained in the same place. He was unable to move. Then he realized he was sopping wet. He looked down at his crotch with a sinking, sick sensation. A wild crimson blot was crawling upward rapidly along his shirt front like an enormous sea monster rising to devour him. He was hit! Separate trickles of blood spilled to a puddle on the floor through one saturated trouser leg like countless unstoppable swarms of wriggling red worms. His heart stopped. A second solid jolt struck the plane. Yossarian shuddered with revulsion at the queer sight of his wound and screamed at Aarfy for help” (Heller 366).

King Rat by James Clavell presents a story of a group of servicemen being held in a camp called Changi, located near

Singapore. Among all, the novel targets at two chief characters – a British soldier Peter Marlowe and another prisoner nicknamed the King. Whilst Peter resembles Heller’s Yossarian in a way because his stay is not voluntary either, the King symbolizes a man who accepts things as they pass and, moreover, tries to profit from each situation, no matter how bad it looks.

“I want it [the rat] alive,” the King snapped.” […] “What’s the idea?” Peter Marlowe asked.” “It’s too good to let out, just like that. We’ll have the coffee first.” While they were drinking their coffee, the King stood up. “All right, you guys. Now listen. We’ve got a rat, right?” “So?” Miller was perplexed as they all were. “We’ve no food, right?” “Sure, but——” “Oh my God,” Peter Marlowe said aghast. “You don’t mean you’re suggesting we eat it?” “Of course not,” the King said. Then he beamed seraphically. “We’re not going to. But there’re plenty who’d like to buy some meat——” (Clavell pp 131-134; complete citation in the appendix on p 62).

Despite inceptive differences, these two become friends basically thanks to their abilities or skills with which they complement each other and therefore maximize their chances to survive dreadful conditions reigning Changi.

The following quote catches the King and Peter Marlowe in a discussion over a procedure of making tobacco, during which the King senses Peter’s competence that, he knows for sure, should not be wasted.

“The King took a careful puff, then another. Then a deep inhale. “But it’s great,” he said astonished. “Not as good as Kooa——but this’s——” He stopped and corrected himself. “I mean it’s not bad.” “It’s not bad at all.” Peter Marlowe laughed. “How the hell do you do it?” “Trade secret.” The King knew he had a gold mine in his hands. “I guess it’s a long and involved process,” he said delicately. “Oh, actually it’s quite easy. You just soak the raw weed in tea, then squeeze it out. Then you sprinkle a little white

sugar over it and knead it in, and when it’s all absorbed, cook it gently in a frying pan over a low heat. Keep turning it over or it’ll spoil. You’ve got to get it just right. Not too dry and not too moist.” […] “Just like that?” the King said smiling. “Yes. Nothing to it really.” The King could see a thriving business. Legitimate too” (Clavell 56; complete version in the appendix on p 63).

Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead involves the whole platoon into the story. Although generally they are of different ranks, soldiers Wilson, Gallagher, Roth, Minetta, Martinez, Valsen, Hearn, Goldstein, and Brown more or less stick together. The exception seems to be Sergeant Sam Croft whose cruel and merciless behavior is to change his team into equally cruel and merciless killing machines. In spite of being officially a part of the platoon, his actions convince the reader to see him rather outside. Moreover, the book provides clear evidence that the Croft’s behavior is not just a pose but a true illustration of his malicious, insensitive nature, which will be dealt with later on.

Ray Rigby, like James Clavell, focuses in a similar way on a group of servicemen being kept in an Internment and Disciplinary Camp near Tripoli during the Second World War. The cell eight dwellers are believed to be responsible for the death of a staff sergeant whose peculiar, sadistic methods, not considered unusual though, ended life of one of the imprisoned.

However, it is also the sand hill itself that denotes the mid- point of the novel together with the captives because just a simple imagination of climbing it up and down in unbearable heat or blinding sunshine ‘gives all prisoners the creeps’.

“Bylo jim vedro a měli žízeň. Horko dosáhlo pětačtyřiceti stupňů ve stínu, žádný stín tam nebyl a nikdo z vězňů se netěšil na zasypávání hrobu. Ten mrtvý v dece nebyl nikdy jejich kámoš. Byl to ufňukaný, nanicovatý nekňuba, jak se o něm rozneslo. Nevydržel to na pahorku, nevydržel, když

dostával do těla. Vídali ho na tom pahorku, jak se tam vždycky sesypal. Ani se to nepokoušel zakamuflovat” (Rigby 5).

William Eastlake’s Castle Keep resembles Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead in a certain sense. At least it concentrates on a group of soldiers, namely Rossi, Clearboy, Amberjack, Elk, de Vaca, Frank, Beckman, Falconer, and Alistair Benjamin who were left to guard an old middle-aged castle during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Like in Mailer’s novel, their number reduces as they are attacked and can not avoid several wounds, some of them being fatal. A common feature is the way both authors let these people realize that the team is again one soldier shorter. Such ‘discoveries’ are always unexpected and unanticipated with the exception that Eastlake, as opposed to Mailer, treats death in a more romantic manner.

When the Germans came at us again, I thought they were going to push us in the moat, but we poured it on with our backs to the water, we poured it on and we stopped them. They would regroup again there in the line we had held until more men came up, and then they would push us into the moat. I wanted to know how we were doing, so I sent Alistair out to make a count, and he came back in a big awful silence that precedes——almost seems to precipitate——an attack, and said “They’re dead. Sergeant Rossi, Lieutenant Amberjack and Clearboy. All dead in the rose garden” (Eastlake 300).

The novel The Last Convertible by Anton Myrer appears to be written as an autobiography, having a form of a diary. It portrays lives of three undergraduates – Ron Dalrymple, Russ Currier, and George Virdon who is the one writing everything down. These protagonists enjoy every single moment that is offered by the university environment, which means throwing as well as visiting wild parties, dating girls, or driving fancy vehicles until the war is declared and they are swept to different troops. Despite this, all of them keep in contact, which is apparent from a number of letters they sent one another, and the author continues to concentrate more on the people, leaving the war aside. As the years pass, the characters grow older, get married, have children and the war is just an episode that became a part of their history.

“„Ovšem jestli došli až k Černému moři, jestli opravdu přerušili železniční spojení mezi Oděsou a Kyjevem—— ” „O válce už ani slovo,” okřikl je Russ. „Hele, nechte toho aspoň pro dnešek. Tak jsme si to přece domluvili. Já vím, je to hrozný, Němci se chystaj schramstnout celej svět, za chvíli nás všechny odvedou a ostříhaj dohola. Ale dnes, prosím vás, toho nechte!” Jean-Jean se na něho usmál svým okouzlujícím a přitom shovívavým úsměvem a řekl: „Jak račte, veličenstvo, králi jitterburgu. Co poroučíte dál?” Russ pokrčil rameny a zamyslel se: „Přece se nerozejdeme v nejlepším. Kam teď?” (Myrer 89).

In The Young Lions, Irwin Shaw introduces three major characters; “three soldiers——two Americans and one German——who dominate his mighty and moving panorama of war. In telling their story, Shaw tells the story of all soldiers, of armies scarred in body and transformed in soul, of war that brings men by devious means face to face in the ultimate act of violence. His soldiers fulfill their separate and intertwined destinies against a background of world conflict” (Shaw, the blurb of the book).

“One by one the men who were not handling the guns stood up on the crest of the ridge, watching the bullets skip along the ground, tear at the already dead and the wounded near the trucks, making them jump with eccentric spasms on the windswept sand” (Shaw 205).

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five represents a place where Germans keep their prisoners during the World War II. Billy Pilgrim, the main character, is taken there shortly after he is drafted into the army. He manages to survive but he suffers from mental breakdowns, caused by his appalling experiences from the war. Here, the reader can spot a high involvement of psychology, through which various processes in Pilgrim’s mind are described and explained.

Another interesting point is the direct insertion of a minor character, named Kurt Vonnegut. “His commentary as both a character and an author enables a more factual interpretation of a story that seems almost preternaturally fictional, adding

support to the idea that such fantastical elements may be the reality of a traumatized mind” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/) February, 2006.

Although it is seen and perceived as a war novel, this book apparently contains features from other genres, such as science fiction or even fantasy.

“It described the creatures from Tralfamadore. The letter said that they were two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber’s friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts, which were extremely flexible, usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm. The creatures were friendly, and they could see in four dimensions. They pitied Earthlings for being able to see only three. They had many wonderful things to teach Earthlings, especially about time” (Vonnegut 19).

The idea of using authors as witnesses and observers who participated in the greatest world-wide conflict ever is generally not surprising, as many of them experienced it personally. Furthermore, this particular idea suggests a certain similarity between Vonnegut’s and O’Brien’s book. “In The Things They Carried, a collection of interrelated stories about a platoon of foot soldiers in Vietnam, O’Brien aggressively works the border between fiction and nonfiction. In several of his stories, one of his characters is a soldier Tim O’Brien. But even in those in which his namesake makes no appearance, we feel ourselves in the presence of an eyewitness, a fortunate but troubled survivor, who seeks against great odds to make fiction a form of testimony and an act of loyalty” (McQuade et al. 2323).

“In June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College, I was drafted to fight a war I hated. I was twenty- one years old. Young, yes, and politically naive, but even so the American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong. Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty.” […] “It was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always

imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can’t fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can’t make them undead” (O’Brien 44).

In order to provide the reader with a complete picture of a particular scene, Tim O’Brien pays great attention to detailed description of his protagonists, although they may not represent the chief characters of the novel. As a matter of fact, this tendency seems to be followed also by other war novelists.

“Even after two decades I can close my eyes and return to that porch at the Tip Top Lodge. I can see the old guy staring at me. Elroy Berdahl: eighty-one years old, skinny and shrunken and mostly bald. He wore a flannel shirt and brown work pants. In one hand, I remember, he carried a green apple, a small paring knife in the other. His eyes had the bluish grey color of a razor blade, the same polished shine, and as he peered up at me I felt a strange sharpness, almost painful a cutting sensation, as if his gaze were somehow slicing me open. In part, no doubt, it was my own sense of guilt, but even so I’m absolutely certain that the old man took one look and went right to the heart of things——a kid in trouble” (O’Brien 5O).

Herman Wouk, seems to treat the novel-writing in a different way, especially when compared to the rest of the novelists, mentioned above. Whilst narrating a fictional story of a family of a lieutenant commander Victor “Pug” Henry, a distrait Jewish doctor Aaron Jastrow, his niece Natalie, and others, he tends to look at the war more politically, making all of these people face various historical events that really happened as well as meet world-famous presidents and politicians that really existed. Even such situations, in which respectable statesmen play important roles and the reader thus expects certain solemnity, are made humorous from time to time by Wouk. In this sense, a resemblance with William Eastlake opens with the exception that Eastlake tends to connect his humor with absurdity of the war. This issue will be dealt with later on.

“He [Pug Henry] was wandering whether the President would remember him, and hoping he wouldn’t. In 1918, as a very cocky Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt had crossed to Europe on a destroyer.” […] “One morning Ensign Henry had done his usual workout on the forecastle, churning up a good sweat. Because there was a water shortage, he had hosed himself down from a saltwater riser on the well deck. Unfortunately the ship was pitching steeply. The hose had gotten away from him and spouted down into the hatchway to the wardroom, just as Roosevelt was coming topside in a gold-buttoned blazer, white flannel trousers, and straw hat. The costume had been wrecked, and Pug had endured a fierce chewing out by his captain and the dripping Assistant Secretary of the Navy” (Wouk pp 172-173).

Moreover, there are several chapters throughout the book that are written by a fictitious German general, who critically comments on and complements all events from the viewpoint of Germans so that the reader is given a complete set of information helping him orientate not only in the stories of the major characters but also in the background of the Second World War as such.

Although the norm dictates quotations of such length as is the following one to be placed in the appendix, it seems advisable that it be displayed in this chapter fully because of the context and for the purpose of clarity.

“If one asks, “How did Germany permit such a catastrophe to occur?” the answer is that we were not consulted. We found out that Pearl Harbor was the target when the Americans did——when the torpedoes and bombs exploded. The ”Axis” of Germany, Japan, and Italy never existed as a military reality. It was a ferocious-looking rubber balloon blown up by propaganda. Its purpose was bluff. The three nations went their own ways throughout the war, and usually did not even inform their partners in advance about attacks, invasions, and strategic decisions. Thus, when Hitler attacked Poland, Mussolini suddenly declined to fight and did not jump in until France was toppling. The Italian dictator invaded Greece without notifying Hitler. Hitler did not infrom Il Duce of the attack on Russia until just before the event. But for this he had good reason. Our intelligence had advised us that anything Mussolini knew went straight to the British via the Italian royal family. Not once did real staff talks take place among the ”Axis” armed forces. England and America were having such conferences

a year before Pearl Harbor! They followed a combined strategy throughout in close cooperation with the Bolsheviks. Now they can reflect at leisure on the wisdom of helping Stalin destroy us, and loosing the Slav flood to the Elbe. But Allied operations were a model of combined strategy, while ”Axis” strategy was a nullity. It was every man for himself, and unhappy Germany was tied to second-rate partners who made rash wild plunges that ruined her” (Wouk 935).

From what has been written in this part, it is evident that majority of the characters are young men who have to display their courage and self-denial instead of enjoying life’s pleasant moments. The authors mix their personal experiences from battlefronts with made-up stories and figures which perfectly fit real events that occurred during the Second World War. Although the books are filled with violence, dying scenes and suffering, there is still plenty of space for fun and humor.

“Don’t think for a minute, Tommy, that I’m complaining,” Arney said in a loud, pugnacious voice. “I’m an old drunk, and everybody makes fun of me. I disappointed everybody I ever knew. But I’m not complaining. If I had it to do all over again, Tommy, I’d do it just the way I did,” He waved his arms and the cup and the saucer fell to the carpet, breaking there. But Arney didn’t seem to notice.” […] “Whitacre,” he said, “Whitacre, old boy, how would you like to do an old man a favor? Go into the kitchen, Whitacre, old man, and get a cup and saucer and bring it here. Some son of a bitch broke mine” (Shaw pp 38–39).

4.2 The setting

All war novels seem to be highly descriptive with a great emphasis on detail in order to make the reader feel as if he were present in the war himself. A perfect portrayal of the environment can be regarded as one of the writers’ major goals. In this sense, everything looks very vivid and close to reality. It is often whole paragraphs that contain information serving to depict the concrete situation fully and with all nuances.

However, the precise description does not relate only to the setting itself. For a complete picture authors need to include also the actions, the chief characters and quite frequently the inner feelings of theirs to be characterized accurately as well. This is evident from the following excerpts.

“He had never felt so numb in all his life. Behind it all was a confused bitterness toward the knife, an almost paralyzing fear, and the moonlight tantalizing him. He searched for a pebble, found one, and before he was quite willing fingers had flipped it away to the other side of the machine-gun emplacement. The Jap soldier turned at the sound, put his back to him. Martinez took a step forward silently, halted, and then lashed his free forearm around the soldier’s neck. Dumbly, almost leisurely, he placed the point of his knife in the angle between the man’s throat and shoulder, and pushed it with all his force. The Jap thrashed in his arms like an unwilling animal being picked up by its master, and Martinez felt only a detached irritation. […] Had anyone heard them? Martinez’s ears were recalling the noise of their struggle as if it had been an explosion he had seen from some distance away whose report he was waiting for now. Was anyone moving? He could hear nothing, and realized that they had made very little sound” (Mailer 595).

“For a while I just drove, not aiming at anything, then in the late morning I began looking for a place to lie low for a day or two. I was exhausted, and scared sick, and around noon I pulled into an old fishing resort called the Tip Top Lodge. Actually it was not a lodge at all, just eight or nine tiny yellow cabins clustered on a peninsula that jutted northward into the Rainy River. The place was in sorry shape. There was a dangerous wooden dock, an old minnow tank, a flimsy tar paper boathouse along the shore. The main building, which stood in a cluster of pines on high ground, seemed to lean heavily to one side, like a cripple, the roof sagging toward Canada. Briefly, I thought about turning around, just giving up, but then I got out of the car and walked up to the front porch” (O’Brien 50).

“Yoshima waited five minutes for someone to speak. He lit a cigarette and the sound of the match was a thundercap.” […] “Lieutenant Colonel Sellars was in nominal charge of the hut, and his pants were slimed with fear as he entered the hut with his adjutant, Captain Forest. He saluted, his dewlapped face flushed and sweating. “Good morning, captain Yoshima …”

“It’s not a good morning. There is a radio here. A radio is against orders of the Imperial Nipponese Army.” […] “I don’t know anything about it. No. Nothing,” Sellars blustered. “You!” A palsied finger pointed at Daven. “Do you know anything about it?” “No, sir.” Sellars turned around and faced the hut. “Where’s the wireless?” Silence. “Where’s the wireless?” He was almost hysterical. “Where is the wireless? I order you to hand it over instantly. You know we’re all responsible for the orders of the Imperial Army.” Silence. “I’ll have the lot of you court-martialed,” he screamed, his jowls shaking. “You’ll all get what you deserve” (Clavell 119).

These three examples demonstrate that writing war novels can be virtually compared to writing scripts for movies as far as the need for detailed description is concerned. The first one is supposed to show the way a character’s feelings are depicted, the second focuses on the portrayal of setting, and the third characterizes the plot.

Mentioning the term ‘plot’, Barry Lewis speaks about three different meanings of this expression. “The first meaning is that of a piece of ground of small or moderate size sequestered for some special purpose, such as a plot for growing vegetables or building a house. A stationary space, in other words, intimidating to the postmodern hero.” […] “A second meaning of ‘plot’ is that of a secret plan or conspiracy to accomplish a criminal or illegal purpose. The protagonist of the postmodernist novel sometimes suspects that that he or she is trapped at the centre of an intrigue, often with some justification.” […] “The third, more mundane, meaning of plot is, of course, that of a plan of a literary work. … Plot is shape, and shape is control. Several postmodernist writers proliferate plot, as if to prove through zealous mastery that they are free of the

straitjackets of control by outside forces” (Lewis pp 130- 131).

Basically, everything the authors want to say or express in their novels is done so clearly – each picture, each scene, even the way each character moves and talks. In this sense, the words of Tim O’Brien “I want you to feel what I felt” (The Things They Carried 203) seem to be perfectly fitting.

4.3 The themes

One may object that there is no point in discussing this feature since all war novels logically make use of various war events and the war in general becomes the primary theme. However, it is possible to find instances of books in which this particular topic represents only one type among others, equally important. Although Waldmeir finds it unfortunate to categorize war novels because “they refuse to hold still, and they tend to flow into and through one another” (p 10), he learns from John T. Fredericks’ and Chester Eisinger’s divisions so as to make an organization of his own, which is as follows: “1) novels concerned primarily with a realistic portrayal of combat; 2) those which are principally studies of the effects of war upon an individual psyche; and 3) those which are above all else ideological” (p 10).

The idea of war, seen as the major focus, is what all militarily-oriented novels apparently have in common but the way it is integrated into the story can be understood as a distinguishing trait.

4.3.1 Friendship

The war conditions, which a great number of soldiers was forced to go through, would be completely unbearable unless

there happened to be someone capable of giving a helping hand; someone, who could be trusted and relied on. Strong bonds called ‘friendship’ were usually created among soldiers this way and the idea that they were not left just on their own made a lot of things easier for them. In the war novels, it is possible to find couples or small groups of people who stick together throughout the story at all costs in order to survive.

Focusing on the whole troop of servicemen placed on the Pianosa island, Joseph Heller directly teams up private Yossarian and a soldier named Orr. Despite different personalities, frequent disputes and making fun of each other, their friendliness is quite explicit. Whenever they are together, they argue and quarrel but whenever one of them is somewhere on-duty, the other speculates what it would look like, if he did not manage to come back.

King Rat and Peter Marlowe represent the chief characters of the James Clavell’s novel. Although their friendly relationship is not clear right from the beginning of the book, the author indicates a certain development, which is noticeable from the citation on pp 16-17. Thus, it appears to be unnecessary to mention it again.

In the novel by Norman Mailer there is not so much space for relationships in general. Thanks to their jagged personalities, the characters behave more like ruthless machines determined to kill in order to stay alive themselves. The soldiers are able to help and to encourage but the way they do so is rather curt and there is no sense of a real bond among them either. The following example shows what various and often vicious means Mailer makes his characters use.

The motif of ‘friendship’ in Ray Rigby’s novel can be seen in the figures of two cell-mates Baldock and Drummond, who are described in terms of spirited but fairly stubborn people. Thanks to such nature, both of them have problems with obeying the guards’ orders and therefore have to face various attempts to be punished. However, watching each other’s back helps them handle and consequently cope with uneasy situations, being quite frequent in the camp.

“Štábní Gorman zaklel a se zdviženýma pažema skočil po Baldockovi. Drummond ho praštil do břicha, a když se Gorman začal sklapovat jako kudla, Baldock mu zasadil ránu, nepředstavitelnou při jeho váze, ránu přímo do obličeje, která Gormana poslala vrávoravě zpátky proti ostatním dvěma štábním, kteří se za Gormanem drali do cely, a sklátila je všechny na hromadu. Museli se rozmotat, a když se ti druzí dva štábní

postavili na nohy, Gorman ležel v bezvědomí poblíž Saunderse” (Rigby 70).

William Eastlake also tries to stress the importance of friendliness in the Castle Keep by showing the reader how the necessity to hold together and fight back as a team grows with an increasing number of German attacks aimed to seize the castle. Because of constant strain the soldiers are submitted to, the atmosphere is very often tense and in order to ease it they use many different ways.

“You shouldn’t be bitter, sir. After all, here we are in this perfect tenth-century castle surrounded by all these beautiful objects, rare authentic treasures. If a man did not appreciate them he would not be much of a man. If a soldier did not value them he would not be much of a soldier. Napoleon before Venice said, If my cannon destroy one statue, then I would rather not take Venice. That was a great soldier speaking, Captain.” “Did Napoleon say that, Alistair? It doesn’t sound like Napoleon.” “No, Napoleon really didn’t say that, sir. But I thought it would cheer you up” (Eastlake 127).

The Last Convertible by Anton Myrer can be viewed as a war novel based on the theme of long-lasting relationships among people. It seems to be the past as well as all kinds of experiences that bind the chief characters together. In the university environment they are taught what it means to care about or support one another and Myrer shows that his characters do not lose anything of what they have learned although they are each sent to different troops placed in different parts of the world.

„To máme——stejně tě vyhodí. Anebo to možná uděláš, co já vím, ale Dale, Russ je na tom hrozně zle.” […] „Tak jo,” zavrčel a palcem si posunul brýle. „Když ty jsi takovej vůl, že ho chceš honit na Codu, projevím se jako kardinální pitomec a zavezu tě tam” (Myrer 156; the complete quotation in the appendix on p 66). Irwin Shaw generally does not diverge from the way other war novelists approach the theme of friendliness in their books either. He is obviously interested in social minorities who got involved in the fights and pays great attention to the question of prejudices. By making a character of Jewish origin enter the army, which may be perceived as partially reflecting Shaw’s own military experience, he directly points at the complexity of building such relationships even among people who fight for one nation and therefore stand on the same side of a barricade.

The extract should stress what means soldiers choose to humiliate and humble a man who does not match their unit for whatever reason. This constant abasement connected with Noah’s origin makes him take part in a number of fistfights, which, he thinks, might enhance his merit. Finally, with one of his friends’ help, he realizes that “the best equipment a Jew can have is one deaf ear. When some of these bastards start to shoot their mouths off about the Jews that’s the ear you turn that way, the deaf one . . . You let them live and maybe they’ll let you live” (Shaw 329).

Kurt Vonnegut’s main protagonist Billy Pilgrim encounters various figures throughout the novel and so friends he makes are of various types as well. Some of them are able to understand Billy’s frame of mind thanks to similar experiences all of them have gone through, which is the case of a war

veteran Eliot Rosewater who helps Billy handle his disorganized mental states by reading science fiction literature.

“Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen- year-old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier.So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes. So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help” (Vonnegut 73).

On the other hand, the character of Roland Weary is portrayed as a person whose actions have become calculating and the whole nature dishonest due to qualities that made other people mock him in the past. In spite of such description, the book clearly finds him to represent the opposite to what the term ‘real friend’ means.

“Roland Weary was only eighteen, was at the end of an unhappy childhood spent mostly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had been unpopular in Pittsburgh. He had been unpopular because he was stupid and fat and mean, and smelled like bacon no matter how much he washed. He was always being ditched in Pittsburgh by people who did not want him with them. It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was ditched, he would find somebody who was even more unpopular than himself, and he would horse around with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. And then he would find some pretext for beating the shit out of him” (Vonnegut 25).

In the novel of his, Tim O’Brien also pays a great attention to a phenomenon called ‘friendship’. Treating it as something a man can not do without, O’Brien’s characters need their ‘pals and buddies’ because a soldier left just on his own on a battlefield has much less self-confidence and courage than the one who knows that there is always someone covering his back, so to speak. Moreover, making fun of serious situations helps the protagonists endure the hardships of the war, which is a feature common for nearly all war novels, and thus ironical remarks of various kinds are not exceptions in this book either.

“I WAS SHOT twice. The first time, out by Tri Binh, it knocked me against the pagoda wall, and I bounced and spun around and ended up on Rat Kiley’s lap. A lucky thing, because Rat was the medic. He tied on a compress and told me to ease back, then he ran off toward the fighting.” […] “Every so often, maybe four times altogether, he trotted back to check me out. Which took courage. It was a wild fight, guys running and laying down fire and regrouping and running again, lots of noise, but Rat Kiley took the risks. “Easy does it,” he told me, “just a side wound, no problem unless you’re pregnant.” He ripped off the compress, applied a fresh one, and told me to clamp it in place with my fingers. “Press hard,” he said. “Don’t worry about the baby.” Then he took off” (O’Brien 217).

Herman Wouk uses the idea of friendliness in connection with family and tries to show how fragile this social unit may become, especially when one of the chief characters can not make up her mind because one decision would jeopardize the life of her relative and another might put at risk the life of her newly-born child as well as the life of herself. Wouk, however, does not stop at this moment and goes even farther. The whole incident actually takes place in a part of Italy which is governed by the Nazis and the characters being in trouble are of Jewish origin.

On the following examples it could be demonstrated what values Herman Wouk considers the most important in life and how he is skilled in developing the plots. Although the author lets his chief characters meet several people – friends – capable of helping out, there is always a catch that complicates the whole situation as well as forces the protagonists to take a certain attitude and make a concrete decision.

“I’m Avram Rabinovitz. Mrs. Henry, how do you do?” He spoke clear English now, in an unfamiliar, somewhat harsh accent. Natalie nervously nodded at him. He went on, “I’m glad you’ve come. I asked Mr. Rose what other American Jews were left in Rome. It was a great surprise to learn that Dr. Aaron Jastrow was here.” […] “I’m sailing from Naples on the flood tide tomorrow at four. Are you coming?”

“You’re sailing? Are you a ship’s captain?” Natalie asked. […] “Not exactly. I have chartered the vessel. This won’t be a Cunard voyage. The ship is an old one, and it’s small, and it’s been transporting hides, fats, horses, and such things along the Mediterranean coast. So the smell is interesting. But it’ll take us there” (Wouk pp 966–967).

“At the hotel, Natalie found the baby awake and fretful. He seemed a frail small creature indeed to expose to a sea voyage uncertain even in its destination, let alone its legalities; a voyage in a crowded old tub——no doubt with marginal food, water, sanitation, and medical service——that might lead to a rough trip through mountains; the goal, a primitive and unstable land. One look at her baby, in fact, settled Natalie’s mind” (Wouk 970).

All quotations in this chapter show that the motif of ‘friendship’ is fairly common to all war novels. There are several ways which the authors use to make the reader aware of it, but the basis remains the same – a couple or a group of people whom the environment forces to trust one another no matter how many ironic, mocking and sarcastic comments on one another there are.

4.3.2 Love and sex

‘Love’ is another theme frequently appearing in war novels and there seems to be certain balance between violent and love scenes as well. Letters or various talismans carried in soldiers’ breast pockets, snaps hidden in helmets, thoughts on spending night with their girlfriends and wives or even the imagination of their darlings’ perfume scents – these are some of the forms of how the motif of ‘love’ is usually integrated into the storyline. Moreover, nearly all war novels connect the idea of love to whorehouses and sex, about which characters talk explicitly and their dialogues clearly reflect the way a man starts to perceive such issue when nothing but guns, explosives, wound-dressing, and polishing boots keeps occupying him for a long time.

Talking about Heller’s Yossarian and his ‘pal’ Orr, these two characters discuss the matter of treating females quite often because they are room-mates and find it a nice time killer while being off-duty. On top of it, they visit a number of brothels during their service so that both of them feel like experts on the given subject and the dialogues they hold point at competitiveness in who is more popular with the girls.

This quotation is to demonstrate what their conversations are usually made of. They irritate each other with asking impertinent questions about girls or various affairs and answering in ambiguities so that when the situation happens to get too far, both of them start to divert the talk toward totally different issues just in order to make the other one look like a fool in the end.

“ ‘I’ll make a deal with you about that girl. I’ll tell you why that girl was hitting me on the head with her shoe that day if you answer one question.’ ‘What’s the question?’ ‘Did you ever screw Nately’s girl?’ Yossarian laughed with surprise. ‘Me? No. Now tell me why that girl hit you with her shoe.’ ‘That wasn’t the question,’ Orr informed him with victorious delight. ‘That was just conversation. She acts like you screwed her.’ ‘Well, I didn’t. How does she act?’ ‘She acts like she don’t like you.’ ‘She doesn’t like anyone.’ ‘She likes Captain Black,’ Orr reminded. ‘That’s because he treats her like dirt. Anyone can get a girl that way” (Heller pp 398-400; complete citation in the appendix on p 68)

A similar pattern, concerning the motif of ‘love’ in connection with so-called houses of ill repute, appears in the novels by Ray Rigby and William Eastlake as well. However, whilst Rigby obviously makes some of his characters lack sufficient experience, which results in a plenty of ridiculous situations and the only means of handling it well is alcohol, Eastlake depicts his troop as a group of worldly-wise people to whom Mailer’s soldiers’ sense of humor does not sound unfamiliar.

“Přinesl s sebou láhev brandy a nalil drinky, pořád moc řečnil, ale lámal si hlavu, co udělají s tím dědou. Ona mu řekla, že ten spí na lehátku v obýváku. Děda drink odmítl a pokračoval ve čtení.” […] “Lulu zašla do ložnice a plně na očích Markhamovi i svému dědovi se svlékla, nahá vlezla do postele a Markhamovi pokynula. On vešel do ložnice nejistýma nohama se dvěma sklenkami v rukou a s lahví v podpaždí, a ona mu řekla: „Dej mu tři libry!” Položil tedy tápavě tři libry na Encyklopedii a stařík, aniž vzhlédl, strčil peníze do kapsy a pokračoval ve čtení, ale jeho židle byla postavená tak, že se nedaly zavřít dveře. Markham tedy očima a posunky dal najevo, že chce, aby ten blázen stará nepřekážel. Lulu lhostejně pokrčila rameny a vyzvala ho, aby se svlékl a lehl si k ní. Jenže v místnosti nebyl kout, kde by se mohl svléknout tak, aby nebyl staříkovi na očích, a Markhamovi to vadilo, třebaže si ho děda nevšímal. Konečně se s pocitem studu svlékl, vlezl do postele a zhasl světlo, jenže do ložnice padalo světlo od obýváku. Lulu se k němu otočila a on ji rozpačitě políbil.” […] “Otevřel oči. Ten stařík pořád ještě četl. Markham sáhl po láhvi brandy, dlouze si lokl a nepříčetně se zazubil na dívku” (Rigby pp 141–143).

“After chow we were going to have a drill––drilling the girls. I mean we all went into Saint-Croix to the whorehouse. “There’s no challenge,” Clearboy said, “to lay our money on the line and screw them. Sometimes I think even the Red Queen doesn’t love me.” “You shouldn’t feel that way,” I said. “I’m sure when the girls go to bed with you they don’t take it too hard.” “Oh, we’re all funny as hell,” Clearboy said. “I just want to get my licks before I get my balls blown off” (Eastlake 21).

James Clavell seems to leave the theme of ‘love and sex’ partly aside, as his characters are too busy breeding rats, hiding a wireless, and planning escapes from Changi. He touches the issue of sexuality only in private Rodrick’s memories recalling a story of a soldier whose male mind changed into a female one due to performing a woman’s part on a stage, which the superiors wanted to be convincing for the audience.

“But little by little, the woman began to dominate him off stage too, only we didn’t notice it. By this time, Sean had grown his hair quite long——the wigs we had were no damn good. Then Sean started to wear a woman’s clothes all the time. One night someone tried to rape him.

“After that Sean nearly went out of his mind. He tried to crush the woman in him but couldn’t. The he tried to commit suicide. Of course it was hushed up. But that didn’t help Sean, it made things worse and he cursed us for saving him. “A few months later there was another rape attempt. After that Sean buried his male self completely. ‘I’m not fighting it any more,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to be a woman, now they believe I am one. All right. I’ll be one. Inside I feel I am one, so there’s no need to pretend any more. I am a woman, and I’m going to be treated like one’ ” (Clavell 349).

Having portrayed the group of soldiers as people who are almost unable to express any emotions whatsoever because it is viewed as weakness, Norman Mailer describes their raw sense of humor in a similar way. Although they spend some time talking about love, experiences with the opposite sex and the number of one-night stands, it is perhaps the ‘factor of violence’ that still prevails throughout the book.

“Let’s cut it out,” Croft told them. “If you know what’s going on better than I do, you can stand up here and talk.” He frowned and then continued. “We’re on boat-deck-station twenty-eight. You all know where it is, but we’re goin’ up together just the same. If they’s a man here suddenly discovers he’s left anythin’ behind, that’ll be just t.s. We ain’t gonna come back.” “Yeah, boys, don’t forget to take your rubbers,” Red suggested, and that drew a laugh. Croft looked angry for a second, but then he drawled, “I know Wilson ain’t gonna forget his,” and they laughed again. “You’re fuggin ay,” Gallagher snorted. Wilson giggled infectiously, “Ah tell ya,” he said, “Ah’d sooner leave my M-one behind, ‘cause if they was to be a piece of pussy settin’ up on that beach, and Ah didn’t have a rubber, Ah’d just shoot myself anyway” (Mailer 21).

Anton Myrer’s novel follows the life of three major characters from the university years through the military service up to the time when all of them have grown-up children, which suggests a simultaneous change in the value of love as such. At the beginning, it represents passionate moments spent for instance on the back seat of a car. Later, during warfare, it turns into soldiers’ moving spirit, and toward the end it stands for awareness of wife, kids and the whole family.

“Asi po dvaceti minutách se mi podařilo na širokém sedadle ze zelené kůže vmanévrovat Nancy do nakloněné polohy. Levá ruka mi definitivně zdřevěněla, ale nedokázal jsem ji vytáhnout bez ztráty těžce dobytých pozic. Druhá ruka pozvolna odstranila nánosy tkanin a po stehnu postoupila k místu, kde se začíná měkce svažovat. Nancy mi ruku pomalu odstrčila. Vrátil jsem ji zpátky, Nancy šeptala: „Ne, Georgi,” ale tentokrát ruku nechala, kde byla. A tak jsme se proplétali a hledali k sobě cestu jako nafetovaní podmořští živočichové, zachumlaní já v kabátě a ona v kožíšku, a lapali po dechu ve vydýchaném dusnu z topení. „… mám tě rád,” šeptal jsem do jejího malého ouška. „Ty jsi milej.” „Já tě tolik chci.” Na to neodpověděla, jen se pode mnou zavrtěla. Za nic na světě jsem nedovedl odhadnout, jestli to mělo naznačit protest nebo odevzdání” (Myrer pp 54–55).

“Dělal jsem, co jsem moh… jenže to nakonec nebylo k ničemu, nic se tím nezachránilo. Prorazili naše línie, rozsekali nás na hadry a teď nás štvou jako zvěř. Zimou a hladem jsem už skoro neviděl. Zkoušel jsem si vybavovat vzpomínky na první dny v koleji, na Russe ve špitále někde v Pearl Harboru, na Nancy, Giulii, a hlavně na Chris… ale zas mi to nevyšlo” (Myrer 303).

“Objel jsem Memorial Hall a Harvardovo náměstí, hodně pomalu, protože jsem věděl, že je to naposled. Pak teprve jsem vyrazil k domovu. Amanda byla unavená a protivná, Peg v sobě tajila své čerstvé city, trošku vyjukaná, ale velice pyšná. Jedině Nancy byla veselá. „To jsme se měli!” Žuchla sebou na sedadlo, ruce si založila za hlavu jako vždycky, když byla na vrcholu blaha. „Byla to vítaná změna pro nás pro všechny.” „Vidíš, a ty jsi nechtěla jet,” připomněl jsem jí. „Já vím——nechápu, co to do mě vjelo.” Usmála se na mě, nakrčila nos jako zajíček a pak se vážně zahleděla na opeřený baldachýn Chestnut Hillu” (Myrer 594).

The novel by Herman Wouk also touches feelings of young people whom the war forced to separate from each other. However, it is family again and marriage that the motif of ‘love’ is primarily associated with. Wouk intentionally mentions these two institutions in direct reference to war so as to indicate how important human emotions become in a warring environment full of blood, killing and death, and how preposterous the whole conflict in this sense is.

“… Wine, lilies, and roses; the dark sea rolling beyond the windows under a round moon; young lovers separated for half a year, joined on a kinfe-edge of geography between war and

peace, suddenly married, far from home; isolated, making love on a broad hospitable bed, performing secret rites as old as time, but forever fresh and sweet between young lovers, the best moments human existence offers——such was their wedding night.” […] “The Bible starts with this centerpiece. Most of the old stories and with the lovers married, retiring to their sacred nakedness. But for Byron and Natalie, their story was just beginning. The lavish pulses and streams of love died into the warm deep sleep of exhausted lovers; Mr. and Mrs. Byron Henry, Americans, slumbering in wedlock in the Palace Hotel outside Lisbon, on a January night of 1941, one of the more than two thousand nights of the Second World War, when so much of mankind slept so badly” (Wouk 599).

Kurt Vonnegut lets his character Billy Pilgrim perceive the idea of ‘love’ between two individuals as an eternal matter which, on the other hand, asks for its sacrifice from time to time. He seems to hover on the edge of perfect happiness and total despair, where one disposition can all of a sudden replace the other. By the phrase ‘So it goes’ the author expresses his resignation to fate that is impossible to change by any means.

The following extract depicts Billy Pilgrim’s wife Valencia who, despite having a minor car accident, reaches a hospital where Billy was taken after his plane crashed and he happened to be among the lucky survivors. This moment points out exactly Eastlake’s ability to change joy into tragedy, which is often connected with a loss of a beloved person.

“When she [Valencia] arrived at the hospital, people rushed to the windows to see what all the noise was. The Cadillac, with both mufflers gone, sounded like a heavy bomber coming in on a wing and a prayer. Valencia turned off the engine, but then she slumped against the steering wheel, and the horn brayed steadily. A doctor and a nurse ran out to find out what the trouble was. Poor Valencia was unconscious, overcome by carbon monoxide. She was a heavenly azure. Only hour later she was dead. So it goes” (Vonnegut pp 133– 134; the complete quotation in the appendix on p 69).

Some protagonists in The Things They Carried are described in terms of fairly superstitious people. This shows how O’Brien

deals with the theme of ‘love’ in his books. Various objects, pieces of clothes, lockets, and letters from women they fall for can be found among things the soldiers usually carry. Not only are they protected by such talismans but also they are reminded of their beloved wives and girlfriends this way.

“H ENRY D OBBINS WAS a good man, and a superb soldier, but sophistication was not his strong suit. The ironies went beyond him. In many ways he was like America itself, big and strong, full of good intentions, a roll of fat jiggling at his belly, slow of foot but always plodding along, always there when you needed him, a believer in the virtues of simplicity and directness and hard labor. Like his country, too, Dobbins was drawn toward sentimentality. Even now, twenty years later, I can see him wrapping his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck before heading out on ambush. It was his eccentricity. The pantyhose, he said, had the properties of a good-luck charm. He liked putting his nose into the nylon and breathing in the scent of his girlfriend’s body;” […] “he sometimes slept with the stockings up against his face, the way an infant sleeps with a flannel blanket, secure and peaceful. More than anything, though, the stockings were a talisman for him. They kept him safe” (O’Brien 129).

Irwin Shaw’s figures appear to come under two different groups as far as human emotions in The Young Lions are concerned. The first one consists of young inexperienced rookies who, trying to show their romantic nature, express their feelings toward the opposite sex clumsily, which results in a number of humorous situations. In spite of all the embarrassing moments, they find themselves victorious finally.

“I . . . I want to say . . .” he said, whispering, “that I do not object . . . I mean I am pleased . . . pleased, I mean, to have brought you home.” “Thank you,” she said. She was whispering, too, but her voice was noncommittal. “Complex,” he said. He waived his hands vaguely. “If you only knew how complex. I mean, I am very pleased, really . . .” She was so close, so poor, so young, so frail, deserted, courageous, lonely . . . He put out his hands in groping blind gesture and took her head delicately in his hands and kissed her.

Her lips were soft and firm and a little damp from the mist. Then she slapped him. The noise echoed meanly under the stone steps. His cheek felt a little numb. How strong she is, he thought dazedly, for such a frail-looking girl. “What made you think,” she said coldly, “that you could kiss me?” “I . . . I don’t know,” he said, putting his hand to his cheek to assuage the smarting, then pulling it away, ashamed of showing that much weakness at a moment like this. “I . . . I just did” (Shaw 123).

The other group, then, contains adept and self-confident lovers who are successful with women but whose relationships can be often described in terms of ‘transient or passing acquaintance’. This pattern of characters with such contradictory qualities is frequently used by authors in lots of war novels.

“There’s no doubt about it, Christian thought as he slowly followed her, this is better than Corine. The bed was rumpled. There were two glasses on the floor and a ridiculous picture of a naked shepherd making love to a muscular shepherdess on a hillside. But it was better then Corine. It was better than any other woman Christian had ever had anything to do with, better than the American schoolgirls who used to come to Austria for the skiing, better than the English ladies who used to slip out of their hotels at night after their husbands were asleep, better than the buxom virgins of his youth, better than the night-prowling ladies of the Paris cafés, better than he had known women could be” (Shaw pp 153–154).

Love and friendship versus cruelty and violence – these couples seem to represent the main motifs of all war stories. Besides this contrary relation, authors try to keep the two pairs balanced, although this is not always possible. The idea of love is apparently treated from the viewpoint of soldiers, i.e. people who went through war and thus had to be affected by it. At this moment the reader is invited to make a comparison concerning human values, which may be seen as one of the authors’ intentions.

4.3.3 Death and cruelty

It is generally estimated that more than fifty million people lost their lives in the Second World War. Gruesome acts, in which both soldiers and civilians were dying because of absurd desire of some individuals to gain control over the whole world, are not rare in the novels and the way such deeds are depicted is almost breath-taking. This feature seems to be common for many authors whose books deal with the topic of war.

Moreover, the idea of absurdity, which will be discussed in the following chapter, suggests in connection with the themes of ‘death’ and ‘cruelty’ a potential division of characters into two groups. In the first one, there are figures of weak minds, unable to face the war’s senseless atrocities, which results in a number of silly attempts to injure themselves or pretend insanity just in order to get away from the front. In the other group, there are figures with opposite qualities. They manage to control their behavior, although they can not avoid suffering mental conflicts now and then. At this phase the author’s great tendency toward a deep psychological analysis of a character is recognizable. “The novelists tend to agonize, often embarrassingly, over the painful psychological reactions of their characters to war, romanticizing, sometimes sentimentalizing their desperation” (Waldmeir 20).

When reading war novels, it is nearly impossible not to come across passages where death and cruel actions are being talked about. The intention of the author to present stories and events acting as true to life is achieved by means of high descriptiveness and naturalistic mode of narration, which, on the other hand, the reader may find macabre or even disgusting from time to time.

“Even people who were not there remembered vividly exactly what happened next. There was the briefest, softest tsst!

Filtering audibly through the shattering, overwhelming howl of the plane’s engines, and then there was just Kid Sampson’s two pale, skinny legs, still joined by strings somehow at the bloody truncated hips, standing stock-still on the raft for what seemed a full minute or two before they toppled over backward into the water finally with a faint, echoing splash and turned completely upside down so that only the grotesque toes and the plaster-white soles of Kid Sampson remained in view” (Heller 428). However, none of the war novelists mentioned in this thesis goes as far in depicting death and cruelty as Norman Mailer does. The chief representative of ‘viciousness’ in Mailer’s novel is Sergeant Croft. His insidious nature affects other soldiers in the platoon and the reader can watch the mental conflict between the ruthlessness, to which all privates are led, and humanity, which is believed to form part of a man’s personality since acquiring basic social principles. In a word, Sam Croft perfectly fits one of Joseph Waldmeir’s definitions of soldiers who, despite the end of the fighting, still “thrive on the danger of battle, on the killing and the treat of death, finding war stimulating, even sexually exciting” (30).

“The prisoner had taken a deep puff and was leaning back now against the trunk of the tree. His eyes had closed, and for the first time there was a dreamy expression on his face. Croft felt a tension work itself into his throat and leave his mouth dry and bitter and demanding. His mind had been entirely empty until now, but abruptly he brought up his rifle and pointed it at the prisoner’s head. Gallagher started to protest as the Jap opened his eyes. The prisoner did not have time to change his expression before the shot crashed into his skull. He slumped forward, and then rolled on his side. He was still smiling but he looked silly now” (Mailer 195; the complete citation in the appendix on p 70).

This passage is preceded by a scene in which the captured Japanese soldier smokes a cigarette offered by Sergeant Croft and private Gallagher attempts to make conversation with him, clumsily copying some of the words the Japanese says. Although they do not know each other’s language, it seems that both of them understand. This friendly mood starts to perturb Croft, whose feelings toward the captive balance somewhere on the edge between friendliness and hatred. At this point, Norman

Mailer allows the reader to take a look into Croft’s malevolent nature.

The rest of the writers seem to treat the motif of ‘death’ as something that appears all of a sudden and is hard to cope with because of its irreversibility and absurdity. It may be related to a loss of close friends who are nostalgically brought to life in letters they have once written to the chief characters, or in recalled stories they have experienced together during the war. It may be related to figures, the author might have met along the way, or events that might have happened some time in the past. At all such instances, writers usually go into the characters’ minds and – with the use of psychology again – they describe the inner processes.

“In the months after Ted Lavender died, there were many other bodies. I never shook hands——not that——but one afternoon I climbed a tree and threw down what was left of Curt Lemon. I watched my friend Kiowa sink into the muck along the Song Tra Bong. And in early July, after a battle in the mountains, I was assigned to a six-man detail to police up the enemy KIAs. There were twenty-seven bodies altogether, and parts of several others. The dead were everywhere. Some lay in piles. Some lay alone. One, I remember, seemed to kneel. Another was bent from the waist over a small boulder, the top of his head on the ground, his arms rigid, the eyes squinting in concentration as if he were about to perform a handstand or somersault. It was my worst day at the war” (O’Brien 271).

“‘Get out of here! I want to sleep!’ ‘Shut up,’ said somebody else. ‘I’ll shut up when Pilgrim gets away from here.’ So Billy stood up again, clung to the cross-brace. ‘Where can I sleep?’ he asked quietly. ‘Not with me.’ ‘Not with me, you son of a bitch,’ said somebody else. ‘You yell, you kick.’ ‘I do?’ ‘You’re God damn right you do. And whimper.’ ‘I do?’ ‘Keep the hell away from here, Pilgrim.’” […] “On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy, ‘This ain’t bad. I can be comfortable anywhere.’ ‘You can?’ said Billy. On the ninth day, the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were, ‘You think this is bad? This ain’t bad’” (Vonnegut pp 56–57).

“One day the Japs gave out an order that anyone caught outside the camp would be shot. Of course the Javanese thought it applied to everyone except them——they had been told that in a couple of weeks they were all to go free anyway. One morning seven of them got caught. We were paraded the next day. The whole camp. The Javanese were put up against a wall and shot. Just like that, in front of us. The seven bodies were buried—— with military honors——where they fell. Then the Japs made a little garden around the graves. They planted flowers and put a tiny white rope fence around the whole area and put up a sign in Malay, Japanese and English. It said, These men died for their country” (Clavell 101).

These extracts illustrate that death in war was an inevitable matter and soldiers were forced to get accustomed to it. Authors also stress that there were things a man had to ‘cold- shoulder’ in order to stay ‘clear-headed’. The incidents described are undoubtedly no less butcherly than the ones of Mailer for example, but the viciousness and inhuman nature with which a few Mailer’s characters act, make the reader find some particular passages, especially in The Naked and the Dead, even more gory and barbarous than in other war novels.

Anton Myrer mentions the themes of ‘death’ or ‘cruelty’ rarely and if he does, he avoids going into deep details, making use of metaphors instead. He talks about people’s distress during the war but it is to document what battles in general are capable of. His approach to depicting the protagonists’ misfortunes is not that direct and therefore the scenes where death and cruelty dominate do not seem that appalling because of the background of the war everybody is more or less familiar with.

“U nablyštěných tanků začal velitel na civilisty řvát. Na chvíli zmizel z dohledu a pak se obořil na mladou ženu v modrém šátku. Řval, až se prohýbal v pase, rukou ukazoval směrem k nám na kopec za řekou, ale zároveň na dva samopalníky. Okamžitě jsem pochopil smysl té pantomimy.” […] “V tom mu ta žena plivla do obličeje. Dal jí facku a pak další a další; bylo slyšet krátké tvrdé údery. Upadla na kolena a pak na všechny čtyři a on do ní kopal, jak se snažila znova a znova zvednout ze sněhu. „… teď ji voddělá,” uslyšel jsem svůj hlas, „kope do ní a pak…”

Velitel se prudce otočil a naznačoval něco dvěma strážným. Odkráčel stranou a místo jeho křiku se ozvaly samopaly v práskavém, vlnivém rytmu, jako když se tříští sklo. Skupinka lidí se složila, jako když traktor projede křovím, ohne je, srazí k zemi, rozpráší, až úplně zmizí ze zorného pole. Výstřely však neutichly a kromě nich se k nám donesly dětské výkřiky a vytí psů” (Myrer pp 308–309). It has been already said that William Eastlake tends to treat death in a romantic style in the Castle Keep. This is to reflect the environment of the old medieval castle and at the same time it may be viewed as a contrast to roughness of the battlefield surrounding the building. On the other hand, Eastlake’s ability to use humor in an adequate amount and at places, where the reader would not normally expect it in the novel, is also worth mentioning.

Particular seriously-looking situations do not lose anything of its gravity, although they are described with humor, which in addition should not be called ‘black’. Finally, all themes, William Eastlake includes in his book, seem to be well- balanced, keeping the novel’s line compact and smooth.

“The Red Queen came around from the back of the cash register. “That’s all you want to find out, whether or not they are Germans?” “Yes. How?” Captain Frank asked. The Red Queen raised her hand. “C’est très simple,” she said quietly. “I run upstairs and and in each door shout ‘Fire!’ in German. When they run through here naked, you them shoot.” “How do you say fire in German?” Captain Frank asked. “Feuer.” “I don’t know if I can shoot any sonofabitch naked,” Clearboy said. “You won’t have to,” I said. “You’ll be fully dressed, Clearboy,” I said. “I mean any naked sonofabitch,” Clearboy said. “I’ll get ’em,” Elk said quietly, almost confidentially, as though he wanted them, was willing to buy them all” (Eastlake 173).

On the contrary, several instances of black humor in its raw form can be found in Ray Rigby’s Hill of Sand. The book does not contain as much ruffianism as Mailer’s novel but the topics of ‘death’ and ‘cruelty’ are still present, wrapped in irony and sarcasm, so to speak. By the inclination to mock

everyone and everything under all circumstances, the author tries to indicate the way real prisoners usually coped with cold-blooded treatment of some captives and harshness of disciplinary camps, death being no exception. “Blízko nich v pozadí řvali zpocení vojáci. Někteří z nich neměli daleko k pranici, ale ti kolem Higginse měli uši vytrénované, aby neslyšeli cizí hlasy. Slovo měl Dusty. „Zahynul. Spad tam a zahynul.” „Kdo?” „Jak?” „Z čeho?” “Můj švára. Dělal v pivovaru.” Všichni se na to napili. „No tak, Dusty!” „Jak?” „No víte, šéf se osobně sebral a šel to říct jeho paničce. Mojí sestře Glad. ‚Paní,’ povídá jí, ‚mám pro vás smutnou zprávu. Váš manžel zahynul v aktivní službě. Spadnul do kádě piva, drahá.’” Smích přerostl v bouři” (Rigby pp 192–193).

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk displays violence and pitiless behavior as well. However, when compared to other war novelists, even such issues are approached from different direction by Wouk. Now and then, his narration places passages delineating ruined towns or wounded people struggling in the war’s hardships, next to scenes where life and humanity are thematically prevailing. This feature is frequent throughout the novel and is bound to stress the absurdity of warfare. Otherwise, despite a number of highly atrocious moments he depicts, Wouk still prefers being a writer – observer who portrays events in a realistic or naturalistic mood without any coloring.

“He looked around at the noisy, crowded, evil-smelling ward, where the Polish women were helplessly bringing new life into a city which was being dynamited to death by the Germans, going through unpostponable birth pangs with the best care the dying city could give them” (Wouk 213).

“Then one night gray trucks had swarmed into the ghetto, and squads of Germans in unfamiliar dark uniforms had cleared out the dwellers along two main streets, house by house, loading the people into the vans——for resettlement, they announced. Some of the Germans were brutal, some polite, as they pushed and urged the people into the trucks. In other

streets, behind barred doors, other Jews wondered and shivered. What had happened afterward——according to reports brought by partisans who haunted the woods——was hideous and unbelievable.” […] “The gray vans had driven five miles away, to the woods outside a village. There in a moonlit ravine the Germans had ordered the people out of the trucks, had lined them up in groups, and had shot every last one——including the babies and the old people——and then had thrown them in a big hole already dug, and shovelled them over with sand” (Wouk 793).

Regarding the topics this chapter is concerned with, it is possible to discover certain similarities between Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions and Wouk’s The Winds of War, mentioned above. Death, pain, misery, and despair – the war’s misfortunes, all of which people had to face, are thoroughly described in both novels, referring to senselessness of the war as well as the man’s inability to see and rationally understand its cause. On top of it, Shaw’s descriptive style together with his sense of detail makes some particular scenes look almost tragicomic.

“Then he saw a uniform and a bandage and he realized that it must be Lieutenant Hardenburg, and Lieutenant Hardenburg was saying calmly, “Get me to a doctor.” But only the voice and the tabs and the bandage was Lieutenant Hardenburg because there was no face there at all. There was just a red and white pulpy mass, with the calm voice coming somehow through the red bubbles and the white strips of whatever it had been that held the inside of Lieutenant Hardenburg’s face together.” […] “The case in the other bed was a Burn, an armored-division burn, very bad, and the Burn merely lay still under his ten meters of bandage, filling the high-ceilinged cool room with the usual smell, which was worse than the aroma of the dead, but which Hardenburg could not smell, because he had nothing left to smell with” (Shaw pp 283-285).

The Second World War is considered the worst and most ferocious conflict of the 20th century. Millions of people felt its effect a long time after it was over, hundreds of thousands of them for the rest of their lives. Terrible crimes against humanity, such as holocaust or genocide, were committed, not speaking about the way POWs were treated. These cruel facts, without any exception, appear in all war novels as historical complements to the authors’ fictitious lines and

make the reader realize what the period covering the years from 1939 to 1945 was like. “In our century, more than the horror of war gets into the books. Compassion does so as well, for all the victims: the killed and maimed and shattered, but the physically destroyed and the incredibly humiliated too” (Rosenthal vii).

4.3.4 The absurdity of war

The topic of absurdity of war is employed in war novels usually in connection with other topics, some of them being touched upon in this thesis and its purpose is to suggest that “the Army does things its own peculiar way” (Shaw 345). Military conditions gave soldiers basically two options to choose from – acceptance or rejection of the rules. According to the authors, either decision could have meant trouble because of the exceptions to other exceptions, which consequently started to puzzle everyone but the high-ranked officers who were in charge of making up the strange and hard- to-understand regulations. Although it may sound a little exaggerated, it could be said that besides surviving the war itself, the soldiers were struggling to survive mostly its absurdity.

Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead reflects senselessness of war primarily via scenes depicting death – usually in its absurd form – or a man’s mind disturbed from severe military conditions. In the novel he places passages in which soldiers feel relative happiness and safety next to those that are filled with blood and killing. This narration style, based on contrasts, is supposed to stress transience of the particular pleasant instants as well as foolery such moments may accidentally turn into.

“Hearn buckled his pack and hefted it to his shoulders. It was seven rations lighter now then it had been when they started, and it felt almost comfortable. The sun was beginning to give some warmth, which made him cheerful. As they moved

along out of the hollow he felt good; it was a new morning and it was impossible not to feel hopeful.” […] “A half an hour later, Lieutenant Hearn was killed by a machine-gun bullet which passed through his chest” (Mailer 602). Not only does Joseph Heller make use of the above-mentioned themes in his novels but also he wants the reader to perceive his personal attitude toward the war. Metaphorically speaking, the term ‘absurdity’ keeps on emerging from each line of the book. It is apparent from the plots and situations in which Heller’s characters occur. Some of them are mentally too weak to stand it and try to search for all possible ways of escaping it by means of logic. However, later on they realize that the worst thing they can do is start seeking sense.

“‘Who is it?’ Yossarian shouted anxiously at Doc Daneeka as he ran up, breathless and limp, his somber eyes burning with a misty, hectic anguish. ‘Who’s in the plane?’ ‘McWatt,’ said Sergeant Knight. ‘He’s got the two new pilots with him on a training flight. Doc Daneeka’s up there, too.’ ‘I’m right here,’ contended Doc Daneeka, in a strange and troubled voice, darting an anxious look at Sergeant Knight. ‘Why doesn’t he come down?’ Yossarian exclaimed in despair. ‘Why does he keep going up?’ ‘He’s probably afraid to come down,’ Sergeant Knight answered, without moving his solemn gaze from McWatt’s solitary climbing airplane. ‘He knows what kind of trouble he’s in.’ […] ‘I’m right here, Sergeant Knight,’ Doc Daneeka told him plaintively. ‘I’m not in the plane.’ ‘Why don’t they jump?’ Sergeant Knight asked, pleading aloud to himself. ‘Why don’t they jump?’ ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ grieved Doc Daneeka biting his lip. ‘It just doesn’t make sense’” (Heller pp 429–430).

The idea of meaninglessness of some of the army’s rules or regulations, on which Joseph Heller built his novel Catch-22, is to a certain extent used by Ray Rigby in the Hill of Sand too. It is to point at the characters’ desperation to grasp the military ‘logic’ as well as their determination to get through the war, although they know about the bizarre methods that are used very often by a number of crafty members of a court-martial.

“Wilson se na své židli opřel dozadu a zadíval se s unuděnou lhostejností na Robertse, který stál v pozoru, sádru z nohy měl sundanou. Zase ve formě, jenom lehce kulhal. „Vojenskej soud máte příští úterý. To vám dává pět dní na přípravu vaší obhajoby. Ledaže byste měl dost filipa, abyste požádal o důstojníka obhajoby.” Roberts zavrtěl hlavou. „Dělejte, jak myslíte, vy idiote.” Tohle se Wilsonovi hodilo a jeho výraz to dával najevo. „Tu hru přece znáte.” Roberts přikývl. „Vězeň se chce hájit sám. Proč zrovna vy?” „Nepotřebuju, aby za mě řečnil nějakej zatracenej blbec.” „Ne. Na blbosti stačíte sám. Víte, že mně je to vhod. Proč teda?” Prchavý Robertsův úsměv, Wilson se trochu nahrbil, když na něj upřel oči, a pak se znovu opřel dozadu. „Jak myslíte. Měl jste spoustu času s tou knihou. Naučila vás něco?” „Měl jsem s ní dost času už před tím. Potvrdila mi jenom moje dřívější přesvědčení. Jeden paragraf v ní ruší ten další. Hotovej zázrak. Ale to vy víte.” Wilson se zazubil: „Právě proto potřebujete dobrýho právníka (Rigby 256).

By making his main protagonist Billy Pilgrim encounter a lot of preposterous moments that are beyond Billy’s comprehension and tend to refer to war’s absurdity, Kurt Vonnegut stresses a man’s occasional futility to find meaning in particular situations. Moreover, thanks to the introduction of extra- terrestrial creatures capable of looking upon things from more perspectives than a human being can manage, the author suggests that now and then it is useless to look for any signs of logic or rationality because things do not always happen this way.

“There were no peepholes inside the airlock — with yellow eyes pressed to them. There was a speaker on the wall. The Tralfamadorians had no voice boxes. They communicated telepathically. They were able to talk to Billy by means of a computer and a sort of electric organ which made every Earthling speech sound. ‘Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,’ said the loudspeaker. ‘Any questions?’ Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: ‘Why me?’ ‘That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? ‘Yes.’ Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it. ‘Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why’ ” (Vonnegut 55).

Nearly all war novelists, and James Clavell does not seem to be the exception either, seem to toy with the idea of soldiers’ ability or rather inability to get back to normal life after all the fighting is over. Conditions under which they were forced to live and struggle made them forget the way an ordinary life goes so that when there is a chance to leave the army without being accused of desertion they start to realize their fear of doing so.

“Hello, the captain said. “I’m Captain Forsyth. Who’s in charge here?” The words were soft and very gentle. But Peter Marlowe could only see the captain looking at him from head to toe. What’s the matter? What’s wrong with me? Peter Marlowe desperately asked himself. What’s the matter with me? Frightened, he backed another step. “There’s no need to be afraid of me.” The captain’s voice was deep and sympathetic. “The war’s over. I’ve been sent to see that you’re all looked after.” […] “Would you like a cigarette?” The captain stepped forward, and Peter Marlowe ran away, terrified. “Wait a minute!” the captain shouted after him. Then he approached another man, but the man turned tail and fled too. And all the men fled from the captain. The second great fear engulfed Changi. Fear of myself. Am I all right? Am I, after all this time? I mean, am I all right in the head? It is three and a half years. And my God, remember what Van der Zelt said about impotence? Will it work? Will I be able to make love? Will I be all right? I saw the horror in the eyes of the captain when he looked at me. Why? What was wrong? Do you think, dare I ask him, dare I … am I all right?” (Clavell pp 448–449).

A similar approach to the question of war’s absurdity when the characters do not know what their lives are going to be like can be seen in Tim O’Brien’s novel. The soldiers in The Things They Carried are expected to get used to blood, death, or gory looks at their fellows with missing body parts and this is what alters their viewing of the normal human coexistence.

“In the spring of 1975, near the time of Saigon’s final collapse, I received a long, disjointed letter in which Bowker described the problem of finding a meaningful use for his life after the war” (O’Brien 177).

“War is the most fascinating of all pursuits because it most completely fits the final nature of man, which is predatory and egoistic” (Shaw 291). This is how Irwin Shaw sees war and in general the novel The Young Lions supports his claim fully. However, when it comes to the theme of ‘absurdity’ in the book, he attempts to apply it also on the army as well as on its system, which, despite fixed rules and instructions looking reasonable at first sight, appears to be opaque and contradictory in the end. Then, Shaw points out the effect it usually has on soldiers’ minds.

“Go,” they say, “go die a little. We have our reasons.” And not quite trusting them and not quite doubting them, we go. “Go,” they say, “go die a little. Things will not be better when you finish, but perhaps they will not be much worse” (Shaw 380).

In the Castle Keep William Eastlake expresses his opinions on war and makes some comments on its senselessness too. “That’s what war is, not the possibility but the probability of the ridiculous, the impossible” (p 259). Moreover, as opposed to other novelists, he adds a certain amount of mild humor to some serious events and topics, not interfering with magnitude of such issues, though. This, consequently, can be considered the means of maintaining both aspects balanced in the novel.

“I came ashore on D day at Utah Beach and they threw everything they had at us, and they had everything in Europe. The second man in front of me said he was too young to die, and the man behind said he was too old to swim. We were being landed at the wrong beach at the wrong time and in the wrong war” (Eastlake 220).

“It doesn’t make any difference which way the retreat is going or whose retreat it is. What side is doing the retreating doesn’t make any difference; they all want to get in on the flight from death that nobody started, the dance no one started and everybody’s doing. They’re not going toward anything, they’re going away from something because they’ve got no place to go. Nobody wants them. Once you get a uniform you’re on your own” (Eastlake 212).

Except for a few passages, Anton Myrer’s book The Last Convertible does not display a lot of pictures of explicit

violence in order to refer to the war’s absurdity. When trying to point at preposterousness of the fighting, the author rather makes use of absurd humor which, in a way, resembles William Eastlake’s style, and he also presents situations that despite logical cause have often illogical solutions. Nevertheless, primary goals of the Myrer’s novel are to show the reader what the period he experienced was like in general as well as how people who were struck by the whole conflict viewed it themselves.

“„Poslouchej, já ti něco povím. Na mašině se mnou lítal jeden obyčejnej bombometčík, jmenoval se Callender, dobře jsem ho znal. Byl z mojí perutě, sestřelili nás při stejným náletu. Znal se kde s kým a měl konekce na všech stranách. A víš, co ten mi řek? Je to hrozně zajímavý Rado, dávej pozor. Callender mi vypravoval, že v Německu byl nějakej agent, byl to teda Němec, kterej pracoval pro britskou výzvědnou službu, ale přitom byl ve všem tak pravověrnej, až to esesákům začalo bejt nápadný. A tak si představ – to mám od toho Callendera -, že mu naše vláda povolila, aby oznámil Němcům náš nálet a tím setřás podezření. Při týhle akcičce muselo zařvat sedm set našich kluků, aby si jeden skopčák nepošramotil pověst?” (Myrer 365).

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk can be basically considered a novel focusing on political and ideological issues connected with history whilst narrating a fictional story. Thus, the theme of ‘absurdity’ is frequently treated from this perspective too. With his imaginary ‘co-author’ German General Armin von Roon who in some chapters reveals the tactics of Germany, Wouk discusses important moments and events of the war, the policy and strategies of the involved nations, paying attention to actions that with a certain time distance might be labeled irrational or incomprehensible.

“There is no morality in world history. There are only tides of change borne on violence and death. The victors write the history, pass the judgments, and hang or shoot the losers. In truth history is an endless chain of hegemony shifts, based on decay of old political structures and the rise of new ones. Wars are the fever crises of those shifts. Wars are inevitable; there will always be wars; and the one war crime is to lose. That is the reality, and the rest is sentimental nonsense” (Wouk 1016).

Generally speaking, authors give different forms to absurdity. Some of them use the idea of absurd and frequently reasonless death, some prefer adding absurd humor or irony into stories, others mention inconsistent military systems troubling soldiers and there is also a tendency to discuss the absurd effect of the Second World War upon its protagonists. The novels usually contain a mixture of these forms which results in one common notion – to refer to meaninglessness of warfare as well as to express how the authors saw and felt about it themselves.

“In the fiction of [postmodernist writers] … virtually everything and everyone exists in such a radical state of distortion and aberration that there is no way of determining from which conditions in the real world they have been derived or from what standard of sanity they may be said to depart. The conventions of verisimilitude and sanity have been nullified. Characters inhabit a dimension of structureless being in which their behaviour becomes inexplicably arbitrary and unjudgeable because the fiction itself stands as a metaphor of a derangement that is seemingly without provocation and beyond measurement” (Aldridge, J. W. The American Novel and the Way We Live Now (1983) in Lewis 123).

However, the way they write about war’s foolery and all unpleasant moments does not mean that their books should be necessarily regarded anti-war. The authors may reject fighting, they may not agree with particular historical decisions and its consequences, but this is their personal attitude rather than the point of their novels. Kurt Vonnegut is an exception in this sense because his Slaughterhouse-Five is directly aimed against the war, as is obvious from the following citation:

“Over the years, people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, ‘Is it an anti-war book?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I guess’” (Vonnegut pp 2-3).

I would like to summarize this chapter on absurdity of war with an idea that came on my mind when reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which is that wars change the world the same as they change people but it is the people who make wars.

5. Conclusion

“The dominant mode of literature between 1960 and 1990 was postmodernist writing. A few inaugural and closing events can be aligned with these dates.” […] “The killing of John F. Kennedy, and the death threat against Salman Rushdie for writing Satanic Verses (1989) provided two sinister book-ends for a period of history that was rife with terrorism and doubt. The Berlin Wall was the most potent symbol of the Cold War and its accompanying suspicion. This was a world uneasy with rapid technological change and ideological uncertainties.” […] “The daily news was more absurd than anything fiction could render. This gave hundreds of novelists the go-ahead to experiment with fantasy and self-consciousness. On the other hand, there was a rallying-cry for a return to realism” (Lewis 121).

For postmodernist writers, the Second World War became the realistic background on the basis of which they usually built their fictitious stories. The real line mixed up with the fictional one could be seen as components forming the central frame of the book. By the addition of other elements presented in war novels such as the authors’ points of view expressed by means of characters’ own feelings about the war, frequent insights into the protagonists’ minds with the intention to clarify their actions, or the necessity to face and cope with uneasy situations full of pain and suffering, writers tended to make their books demanding as well as they tried to provoke readers to think.

This complexity might lead to the idea that war novels come under the category of high literature but at the same time it is possible to claim that war novels qualify as belonging into the low- or popular-literature type too, because of the themes

they generally depict. In this sense, finding the exact location of war novels across the literary spectrum is obviously not effortless, since they often seem to occupy the very borderline between high and low literature.

As for the characteristic ‘derangements’, which, according to Barry Lewis (see pp 10-11), mark literature of the postmodernist period, each war novel frequently contains a combination of these features. Authors disrupt chronological sequence of stories by characters’ recalls of their past; they directly show the protagonists’ feelings of paranoid fear of death and uncertainty resulting in schizophrenic behavior of some of them; now and then, writers enter the story as minor characters or they let real-life figures do so; and occasionally, they get inspired by other genres, “providing ready-made forms, ideal for postmodernist miscegenation” (Lewis 124).

Concerning the themes themselves, a majority of war novels make use of those being discussed in previous chapters, i.e. friendship, love and sex, death and cruelty, and the absurdity of war. However, it can be stated straight away that this list is not complete because some of the novels are filled with other issues, such as political propaganda, ideology, or various analyses of history.

Following the Fredericks’ and Eisinger’s division of war novels (see p 26), Joseph J. Waldmeir mentions yet another type labeled “pseudo-ideological – not because of an appeal to the sentimental, but because they [the novels] are just badly thought out and wrought out” (p 35). The status of a ‘pseudo- ideological’ novel appears to be appropriate for none of the novels with which this thesis is dealing. There is no passage that would convince the reader of the author’s flaws in form of omissions of particular facts and details playing an important role in further development of the story.

Besides the topics, war novels are also marked out by a high level of descriptiveness, which speaks in favor of the idea placed at the end of the foregoing paragraph. Authors’ goal is, among others, to make their novels look compact and real; as M. L. Rosenthal says, “there’s a kind of despair that casts a cold, true eye over existing reality, … but novelists know what to do: show it [the reality], project it, for what it is and how it feels” (x).

The themes, the setting in a broader sense, or the tendency toward detailed portrayals and explanations are traits that appear to be generally unifying all war novels. On the other hand, the authors’ individual approach to the depiction of various historical events as well as different ways of treating the events and integrating them into made-up story lines, are features that set one war novel apart from another.

The six years, during which the Second World War kept raging, affected millions of men, women, and children. It is said that those who did not experience the war in person can not truly express what it was actually like either. Novelists, having taken part in the conflict, seem to be giving first-hand evidence about the period, the people – both common and famous, and the actions, some of them having had a radical impact on the history. In this sense, there is no wonder that with the use of appropriate writing techniques and skills, their novels have become so gripping.

“The novels are complex entities, motivated by complex social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional forces. They contribute much more valuably to an understanding of the nation, its soldiers, and the war than do the combat adventure, the psychological, or the propaganda novels, and for these reasons they merit the extended attention to be paid them” (Waldmeir 38).

6. Bibliography

Primary sources: Clavell, J. King Rat. New York: Dell Publishing, 1962. Clavell, J. Král krysa. Trans. Jarmila Hanžlová, Praha: Naše vojsko, 1972. Eastlake, W. Castle Keep. New York: Fawcett World Library, 1965. Heller, J. Catch-22. Berkshire: Cox & Wyman Ltd., 1994. Heller, J. Hlava XXII. Trans. Miroslav Jindra, Praha: Odeon, 1979. Mailer, N. The Naked and the Dead. New York: Henry Holt and Company Inc., 1976. Mailer, N. Nazí a mrtví. Trans. Jiří Mucha, Praha: Odeon, 1969. Myrer, A. Poslední kabriolet. Trans. Jarmila Emmerová, Praha: Odeon, 1987. O’Brien, T. The Things They Carried. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1990. Rigby, R. Pahorek z písku. Trans. František Vrba, Praha: Naše vojsko, 1984. Shaw. I. The Young Lions. New York: Random House, Inc., 1948. Vonnegut, K. Slaughterhouse-Five; or the Children’s Crusade. Berkshire: Cox & Wyman Ltd., 1969. Wouk, H. The Winds of War. New York: Pocket Books, 1971. Wouk, H. Vichry války – díl druhý a třetí. Trans. Pavel Drbal and Anna Mištinová, Praha: Magnet-Press, 1996. Wouk, H. Vichry války – díl první. Trans. Pavel Drbal and Anna Mištinová, Praha: Magnet-Press, 1996.

Secondary sources: Hart, J. D. The Oxford Companion to American Literature (5th edition). New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Lewis, B. Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 2001.

McQuade, D., et al. The Harper American Literature Volume 2 (Second Edition). New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 1993. O’Callaghan, B. An Illustrated History of the USA. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 1990. O’Neill, R. 2. světová válka. Trans. Václav Houžvička, Praha: Orbis Pictus, 1993. Ousby, I. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1988. Rosenthal, M. L. Foreword. War and the Novelist. By Peter G. Jones. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1976. Spiller, R. E., Thorp, W., Johnson, T. H., and Canby, H. S. Literary History of the United States (Revised Edition in One Volume). New York: The MacMillan Company, 1953. Waldmeir, J. J. Preface and Introduction. Americans Novels of the Second World War. The Hague: Mouton & Co., Printers, 1969.

Fronek, J. Anglicko-český a česko-anglický slovník. Praha: LEDA, spol. s r. o., 1999. Longman Active Study Dictionary. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1998. Neufeldt, V., and D. B. Guralnik. Webster’s New World Dictionary of American English (Third College Edition). New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1986. Lingea Lexicon 2000, ver. 3.0. CD-ROM. Lingea s r. o. 1999.

The Internet sources: A Writer’s Practical Guide to MLA Documentation. Capital Community College. May 2004. Ctenarsky-denik.cz. Software. 2001 – 2003

Forum.valka.cz. phpBB Group. 2005 Iliteratura. American Books. 2003 Literární doupě. V. J. & B. J. 2001 – 2005 Kirjasto. Pegasos. 1997 - 2005 Kolektiv autorů. Slovník spisovatelů. Libri. 1996 SparkNotes LLC. New York. 2005

7. Appendix

“Again the rat stabbed for freedom. It broke the circle and fled down the hut. Only through luck was it cornered again. Once more the men surrounded it. “We’d better finish it off. Next time we mayn’t be so lucky,” wheezed the King. Then suddenly he had an inspiration. “Wait a minute,” he said as they all began to close on the corner.” […] “I want it alive,” the King snapped.” […] “What’s the idea?” Peter Marlowe asked.” “It’s too good to let out, just like that. We’ll have the coffee first.” While they were drinking their coffee, the King stood up. “All right, you guys. Now listen. We’ve got a rat, right?” “So?” Miller was perplexed as they all were. “We’ve no food, right?” “Sure, but——” “Oh my God,” Peter Marlowe said aghast. “You don’t mean you’re suggesting we eat it?” “Of course not,” the King said. Then he beamed seraphically. “We’re not going to. But there’re plenty who’d like to buy some meat——” “Rat meat?” Byron Jones III’s eye popped majestically. “You’re outta your mind. You think someone’d buy rat meat? Course they wouldn’t,” Miller said impatiently. “Of course no one’ll buy the meat if they know it’s rat. But say they don’t know, huh?” The King let the words settle, then continued benignly, “Say we don’t tell anyone. The meat’ll look like any other meat. We’ll say it’s rabbit——” “There aren’t any rabbits in Malaya, old chap,” Peter Marlowe said. “Well, think of an animal that is, about the same size.” “I suppose,” Peter Marlowe said after a moment’s reflection, “that you could call a squirrel——or, I know,” he brightened. “Deer. That’s it, deer——” “For Chrissake, a deer’s much bigger,” Max said, still holding the squirming blanket with the rat underneath. “I shot one up in the Alleghenies.” “I don’t mean that type of deer. I mean Rusa tikus. They’re tiny, about eight inches high and weigh perhaps a couple of pounds. About the size of the rat. The natives consider them a delicacy.” He laughed. “Rusa tikus translated means ‘mouse deer.’ ” The King rubbed his hands, delighted. “Very good, old chap!” He looked around the room. “We’ll sell Rusa tikus haunches. And that ain’t gonna be a lie either.” They all laughed” (Clavell pp 131–134).

“Godalmighty, thought Peter Marlowe, I said I try it, not take the bloody lot. He knew he should have picked up the shreds of tobacco and put them back in the box, but he did not. Some things a chap can’t do, he thought again. The King snapped the lighter and they grinned together at the sight of it. The King took a careful puff, then another. Then a deep inhale. “But it’s great,” he said astonished. “Not as good as Kooa——but this’s——” He stopped and corrected himself. “I mean it’s not bad.” “It’s not bad at all.” Peter Marlowe laughed. “How the hell do you do it?” “Trade secret.” The King knew he had a gold mine in his hands. “I guess it’s a long and involved process,” he said delicately. “Oh, actually it’s quite easy. You just soak the raw weed in tea, then squeeze it out. Then you sprinkle a little white sugar over it and knead it in, and when it’s all absorbed, cook it gently in a frying pan over a low heat. Keep turning it over or it’ll spoil. You’ve got to get it just right. Not too dry and not too moist.” The King was surprised that Peter Marlowe had told him the process so easily——without making a deal first. Of course, he thought, he’s just whetting my appetite. Can’t be that easy or everyone’d be doing it. And he probably knows I’m the only one who could handle the deal. “Just like that?” the King said smiling. “Yes. Nothing to it really.” The King could see a thriving business. Legitimate too. “I suppose everyone in your hut cures the tobacco the same way.” Peter Marlowe shook his head. “I just do it for my unit. I’ve been teasing them for months, telling them all sorts of stories, but they’ve never worked out the exact way.” The King’s smile was huge. “Then you’re really the only one who knows how to do it!” “Oh no,” Peter Marlowe said and the King’s heart sank. “It’s a native custom. They do it all over Java.” The King brightened. “But no one here knows about it, do they?” “I don’t know. I’ve really never thought about it.” The King let the smoke dribble out of his nostrils and his mind worked rapidly. Oh yes, he told himself, this is my lucky day” (Clavell 56).

“‘Don’t start,’ he begged in a threatening voice, both hands tightening around his beer bottle. ‘Don’t start working on your stove.’ Orr cackled quietly. ‘I’m almost finished.’ ‘No, you’re not. You’re about to begin.’ ‘Here’s the valve. See? It’s almost all together.’ ‘And you’re about to take it apart. I know what you’re doing, you bastard. I’ve seen you do it three hundred times.’ Orr shivered with glee. ‘I want to get the leak in this gasoline line out,’ he explained. ‘I’ve got it down now to where it’s only an ooze.’ ‘I can’t watch you,’ Yossarian confessed tonelessly. ‘If you want to work with something big, that’s okay. But that valve is filled with tiny parts, and I just haven’t got the patience right now to watch you working so hard over things that are so goddam small and unimportant.’ ‘I don’t care.’ ‘Once more?’ ‘When I’m not around. You’re a happy imbecile and you don’t know what it means to feel the way I do. Things happen to me when you work over small things that I can’t even begin to explain. I find out that I can’t stand you. I start to hate you, and I’m soon thinking seriously about busting this bottle down on your head or stabbing you in the neck with that hunting knife there. Do you understand?’ Orr nodded very intelligently. ‘I won’t take the valve apart now,’ he said, and began taking it apart, working with slow, tireless, interminable precision” (Heller 393).

“In the middle of this ascent Roth fell down, started to get up, and then sprawled out again when no one helped him. The rock surface of the ledge was hot but he felt comfortable lying against it. The afternoon rain had just begun and he felt driving it into his flesh, cooling the stone. He wasn’t going to get up. Somewhere through his numbness another resentment had taken hold. What was the point of going on? Someone was tugging at his shoulder, and he flung him off. “I can’t go on,” he gasped, “I can’t go on, I can’t.” He slapped his fist weakly against the stone. It was Gallagher trying to lift him. “Get up, you sonofabitch,” Gallagher shouted. His body ached with the effort of holding Roth. “I can’t. Go ‘way!” Roth heard himself sobbing. He was dimly aware that most of the platoon had gathered around, were looking at him. But this had no effect; it gave him an odd bitter pleasure to have the others see him, an exaltation compounded of shame and fatigue. Nothing more could happen after this. Let them see him weeping, let them know for one more time that he was the poorest man in the platoon. It was the only way he could find recognition. After so much anonymity, so much ridicule, this was almost better. Gallagher was tugging at his shoulder again. “Go ‘way, I can’t get up,” Roth bawled. Gallagher shook him, feeling a compound of disgust and pity. More than that. He was afraid. Every muscle fiber demanded that he lied down beside Roth. Each time he drew a breath the agony and nausea in his chest made him feel like weeping too. If Roth didn’t get up, he knew he also would collapse. “Get up, Roth!” “I can’t.” Gallagher grasped him under the armpits and tried to lift him. The dead resisting weight was enraging. He dropped Roth and clouted him across the back of his head. “Get up, you Jew bastard!” The blow, the word itself, stirred him like an electric charge. Roth felt himself getting to his feet, stumbling forward. It was the first time anyone had ever sworn at him that way, and it opened new vistas of failure and defeat. It wasn’t bad enough that they judged him for his own faults, his own incapacities; now they included him in all the faults of a religion he didn’t believe in, a race which didn’t exist. “Hitlerism, race theories,” he muttered. He was staggering forward dumbly, trying to absorb the shock. Why did they call him that, why didn’t they see it wasn’t his fault” (Mailer 660).

“Dal se namáčkl do okna vedle mě. „Kam se teďka žene? Zítra má dělat zkoušku!” „Nemůžeme ho nechat v tomhle stavu jet. Bůhví, co by mohl provést. Musíme ho dohonit!” „Děláš si blázny? Nejsem jeho chůva… Zatracenej zmetek, nejspíš jede do Bostonu k rodičům.” „Ne. Tam určitě nejede. Teď ne.” Minutku jsem uvažoval. „Ten jede do Woods Hole. Chris je doma, předevčírem udělala poslední zkoušku. Pojď, musíme za ním.” Chytil mě za rameno a odstrčil od okna. „To myslíš vážně? Ty se chceš hnát do Woods Hole, protože je jednoprocentní možnost… Virdone, zejtra máme tu blbou zkoušku!” „To máme——stejně tě vyhodí. Anebo to možná uděláš, co já vím, ale Dale, Russ je na tom hrozně zle.” „Chceš mi tvrdit, že von se opravdu a smrtelně vážně do tý coury zabouch?” „Ne, Russ si vyrazil stodvacetikilometrovou rychlostí na Cape Cod v noci před šíleně důležitou zkouškou v chumelenici jen proto, že touhle dobou bývají silnice prázdné. Kriste na nebi, ty máš vedení!” „Rado, koukni se ven, jak tam chumelí, hlásili, že bude——” „A kdyby měl napadnout metr sněhu——je tvoje povinnost to pro něj udělat.” „Moje——proč moje?” „Protože ty jsi ji přivedl na tu rozlučku s Jean-Jeanem.” „Ona Jean-Jeana znala——přes něho jsem se s ní vlastně seznámil. Pro smilování boží, jak já moh vědět, že se Currier do ní zabouchne. Já neměl tušení, že se zaplete s takovou bezcitnou tygřicí…” „Třeba to bylo silnější než on!” zařval jsem na něj. „Možná, že není v našich silách si naplánovat, s kým se zapleteme! Tobě se to nikdy nestalo?” Zarazil se a spolkl, co zřejmě ještě hodlal říct. Chvíli jsme se po sobě dívali a mysleli jsme si možná totéž. Možná že ne, nedokázal jsem to odhadnout. „Tak jo,” zavrčel a palcem si posunul brýle. „Když ty jsi takovej vůl, že ho chceš honit na Codu, projevím se jako kardinální pitomec a zavezu tě tam” (Myrer 156).

“The Jews have large investments in France and Germany,” another voice said from the poker game. “They run all the banks and whorehouses in Berlin and Paris, and Roosevelt decided we had to go protect their money. So he declared war.” The voice was loud and artificial, and aimed like a weapon at Noah’s head, but he refused to look up.” […] “Ackerman,” another voice said, “did you hear that?” Noah finally looked across the bunks at the poker players. They were twisted around, facing him, their faces pulled by grins, their eyes marble-like and derisive. “No,” said Noah, “I didn’t hear anything.” “Why don’t you join us?” Silichner said with elaborate politeness. “It’s a friendly little game and we’re involved in an interesting discussion.” “No, thank you,” Noah said, “I’m busy,” “What we’d like to know,” said Silichner, who was from Milwaukee and had a trace of a German accent in his speech, as though he had spoken it as a child and never fully recovered from it, “is how you happened to be drafted. What happened—— weren’t there any fellow-members of the lodge on the board?” Noah looked down at the paper in his hand. It isn’t shaking, he thought, looking at it in surprise, it’s as steady as can be. “I actually heard,” another voice said, “of a Jew who volunteered.” “No,” said Silichner, wonderingly. “I swear to God. They stuffed him and put him in the Museum.” The other poker players laughed loudly, in artificial, rehearsed amusement” (Shaw pp 303-304).

“Orr rolled over sideways to the floor and came up on one knee, facing toward Yossarian. ‘Do you remember,’ he drawled reflectively, with an air of labored recollection, ‘that girl who was hitting me on the head that day in Rome?’ He chuckled at Yossarian’s involuntary exclamation of tricked annoyance. ‘I’ll make a deal with you about that girl. I’ll tell you why that girl was hitting me on the head with her shoe that day if you answer one question.’ ‘What’s the question?’ ‘Did you ever screw Nately’s girl?’ Yossarian laughed with surprise. ‘Me? No. Now tell me why that girl hit you with her shoe.’ ‘That wasn’t the question,’ Orr informed him with victorious delight. ‘That was just conversation. She acts like you screwed her.’ ‘Well, I didn’t. How does she act?’ ‘She acts like she don’t like you.’ ‘She doesn’t like anyone.’ ‘She likes Captain Black,’ Orr reminded. ‘That’s because he treats her like dirt. Anyone can get a girl that way.” […] “‘And did you ever screw my girl?’ ‘Your girl? Who the hell is your girl?’ ‘The one who hit me over the head with her shoe.’ ‘I’ve been with her a couple of times,’ Yossarian admitted. ‘Since when is she your girl? What are you getting at?’ ‘She don’t like you either.’” […] “‘Women are crazy,’ Yossarian answered, and waited grimly for what he knew was coming next. ‘How about that other girl of yours?’ Orr asked with a pretense of pensive curiosity. ‘The fat one? The bald one? You know, that fat bald one in Sicily with the turban who kept sweating all over us all night long? Is she crazy too?’ ‘Didn’t she like me either?’ ‘How could you do it to a girl with no hair?’ ‘How was I supposed to know she had no hair?’ ‘I knew it,’ Orr bragged. ‘I knew it all the time.’ ‘You knew she was bald?’ Yossarian exclaimed in wonder. ‘No, I knew this valve wouldn’t work if I left a part out,’ Orr answered, glowing with cranberry-red elation because he had just duped Yossarian again” (Heller pp 398-400).

“Billy was unconscious in the hospital in Vermont, after the airplane crashed on Sugarbush Mountain, and Valencia, having heard about the crash, was driving from Ilium to the hospital in the family Cadillac El Dorado Coupe de Ville. Valencia was hysterical, because she had been told frankly that Billy might die, or that, if he lived, he might be a vegetable. Valencia adored Billy. She was crying and yelping so hard as she drove that she missed the correct turnoff from the throughway. She applied her power brakes, and a Mercedes slammed into her from behind. Nobody was hurt, thank God, because both drivers were wearing seat belts.” […] “The exhaust system rested on the pavement. The driver of the Mercedes got out and went to Valencia, to find out if she was all right. She blabbed hysterically about Billy and the airplane crash, and then she put her car in gear and crossed the median divider, leaving her exhaust system behind. When she arrived at the hospital, people rushed to the windows to see what all the noise was. The Cadillac, with both mufflers gone, sounded like a heavy bomber coming in on a wing and a prayer. Valencia turned off the engine, but then she slumped against the steering wheel, and the horn brayed steadily. A doctor and a nurse ran out to find out what the trouble was. Poor Valencia was unconscious, overcome by carbon monoxide. She was a heavenly azure. Only hour later she was dead. So it goes” (Vonnegut pp 133– 134).

“Gallagher looked at the picture, and felt a pang. For an instant he remembered his wife and wondered what his child would look like when it was born. With a shock he realized that his wife might be in labor now. For some reason which he did not understand he said suddenly to the Jap, “I’m gonna have a kid in a couple of days.” The prisoner smiled politely, and Gallagher pointed angrily to himself and then held his hands extended and about nine inches apart. “Me,” he said, “me.” “Ahhhhhh,” the prisoner said. “Chiisai!” “Yeah, cheez-igh,” Gallagher said. The prisoner shook his head slowly, and smiled again. Croft came up to him, and gave him another cigarette. The Japanese soldier bowed low, and accepted the match. “Arigato, arigato, domo arigato,” he said. Croft felt his head pulsing with an intense excitement. There were tears in the prisoner’s eyes again, and Croft looked at them dispassionately. He gazed once about the little draw, and watched a fly crawl over the mouth of one of the corpses. The prisoner had taken a deep puff and was leaning back now against the trunk of the tree. His eyes had closed, and for the first time there was a dreamy expression on his face. Croft felt a tension work itself into his throat and leave his mouth dry and bitter and demanding. His mind had been entirely empty until now, but abruptly he brought up his rifle and pointed it at the prisoner’s head. Gallagher started to protest as the Jap opened his eyes. The prisoner did not have time to change his expression before the shot crashed into his skull. He slumped forward, and then rolled on his side. He was still smiling but he looked silly now” (Mailer 195).

8. Summary/ Shrnutí

This thesis concentrates on the Second World War in literature. Its primary purpose is not only to analyze and compare particular themes that generally appear in war novels but also to point at the different ways, by means of which writers integrate the themes into their stories. Certain attention is also paid to how authors combine true historical events with fiction so that their novels looked compact and storylines progressed smoothly. Other aspects being dealt with in this thesis as well are chief characters, through whom writers occasionally present their opinions on the war, and setting, depicting the environment of battlefronts in various parts of the world.

Tato diplomová práce se zaměřuje na Druhou světovou válku v literatuře. Jejím hlavním cílem není pouze rozbor a porovnání určitých témat, která se obecně ve válečných románech objevují, ale také snaha poukázat na odlišné způsoby, pomocí nichž spisovatelé tato témata začleňují do svých příběhů. Pozornost je věnována také tomu, jak autoři propojují skutečné historické události s fikcí, tak aby román působil celistvě a dějová linie se vyvíjela plynule. Dalšími aspekty, o kterých tato práce pojednává, jsou hlavní postavy, jež umožňují spisovatelům vkládat do knih osobní názory na válku, a místo děje, popisující prostředí bojišť v různých částech světa.

Annotation/ Anotace

This thesis focuses on analysis and comparison of particular themes that generally appear in war novels as well as it tries to point at the different ways, by means of which writers integrate the themes into their stories.

The key words: the Second World War, war novel, postmodernism, popular literature, detailed descriptiveness, fictitious stories based on realistic background, personal experiences

Tato diplomová práce se zaměřuje na rozbor a porovnání určitých témat, která se obecně ve válečných románech objevují a také se snaží poukázat na odlišné způsoby, pomocí nichž spisovatelé tato témata začleňují do svých příběhů.

Klíčová slova: Druhá světová válka, válečný román, postmodernismus, populární literatura, vysoká popisnost, fiktivní příběhy stavěny na realistickém základě, osobní zážitky