**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, tou**spoiler alert** It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on the consequences of war, extreme violence, the death of a loved one, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), & others.
The marvellous philosophizing of the interconnectedness of humanity has often played second fiddle to the meandering of egotistical villains. The stories of crafty titans such as Bradbury’s 1952 novella “A Sound of Thunder” encourage eager minds to collapse at the thought of consequence. Yet, when faced with the Leviathan of all repercussions—the mass death of the species—not one leading mind hitches on the intentional demise they set forward when declaring their country at war.
The oversimplification of this matter is done intentionally. In today’s day & age, our news sources are littered with bombings, shootings, painful burns, & cataclysmic catastrophes. Every waking moment brings us to the forefront of what we have never been able to shake—our lust for destruction. Should we ask ourselves if we are in fact the antagonist? If we shoot the gun is it not the weapon that is responsible for slicing arteries? Is not our agency as individuals stunted by the nation’s need for peace? Year after year, we commemorate the end of the war to end all wars. Year after year, we deliberate whether to welcome refugees fleeing from war.
When I opted to read this book it was by random selection. The story is so highly acclaimed—the best war novel of all time—I felt inclined to believe that reading this book would pose no loss for me. Yet, as I flipped the yellowed pages of the old story I grew confused. What was Remarque trying to achieve? Was his intent to free himself from his own experiences? Did he believe that war was an inevitable part of human existence? Did his main character ever survive the things that happened to him?
I haven’t read enough war novels to gauge the explicit nature of the claim that this one, over all the others, is the best. I am confident in my claim that this book contains a good story, one I would argue is reflective of the lived experiences of thousands of individuals, some of whom died in mud & searing pain, prevented from liberating their thorax from the croaking moans of war. Perhaps, for folks such as this, the story poses a petal on the flower’s stem; allowing the nameless voices of victim & perpetrator to rest.
As for myself, I found my reading experience enthralling because the main character, Paul, is a man who weaves a good tale. In the opening lines of the book, Paul via the author, rests easy in the knowledge that the reader will continue down the road with him. Simple prose decorates the pages of this narrative in a way that shapes the reality of brutal circumstances without leaving the reader on the side of the road to perish alongside the soldiers. Though we often take for granted the fact that a book is a story of something other than our lives, it is rather touching when a strange situation eases the reader into its nucleus as though the threat were our own.
By allowing readers to wander alongside Paul—a man who is brave, charming, uncontrollably dissociated, & pained—the author has granted the reader permission to forget that there exists a good vs. evil in war. When tinged with the reality that eviscerates our extra personal relations with the species at large for fear of the “other” overtaking the asserted tranquillity of our own communities, we often forget that to another we are “other” & perhaps, we pose just as much a threat as the nightmare that looms in our restful state.
Paul’s guidance throughout this story allowed for a point of view that was removed. The issue that arises with this approach is that the threat of losing the main character is rather slim. This is not to say that there needs to be a danger for the reader to feel connected to the narrator. Rather, when the bombs were flying & Paul squeezed closer to the core of the earth while in hiding, I never felt that this was the end—there were far too many pages left. However, one may advocate for the ambiguous ending. Perhaps Paul lies dying as the story draws to a close or, perhaps the writing eases into omniscience whereupon another narrator takes heed.
I did not feel as though Remarque would allow Paul to die. Again, this is not a bad thing. However, as I grew to rely on Paul to communicate with me in an indirect fashion, I feared the moment when the book would come to an end. When Paul returned home to visit his family, I felt we had reached the tenderness of the story. Unfortunately, as many are aware, this tenderness is not permitted time to bloom. One cannot take a pause from horrible circumstances to sigh & sleep deeply when the anxious threat of a return looms on the periphery.
These scenes drew me to Paul. Though many of the older generations in his small German village had certainly experienced war before, no one seemed to take death seriously. I am not in a position to reflect on this stance with astute accuracy—I am not of a generation that has experienced war firsthand, nor have I studied this position at length. I brood over the logistics of confidently erasing the worries of young people as they go away to become burned alive by Mustard Gas & shot to pieces by weapons the likes of which had never been seen before.
The intimacy of the return home, the journey on the train, & the knowledge of an end to the world that goes on without us; left me feeling overwhelmed. I felt ashamed to see so many people boisterous when speaking of the ambitions of war. No tears, no worries, only the depraved eagerness to kill. When someone they loved was killed on the front, the narrative shifts to heroic praise, & sadness in every remaining aspect of life. Why have we been allowed to carry on this in this way?
When I think back to how this story made me feel while reading it, I’m not sure that I have the words. I wasn’t necessarily sad or shocked. The Great War is often categorized as a social reset in that it changed the way we fight; the ways in which we view the enemy & the tingling drip of damage to the psyche. All of this is rather tedious as I do not believe that there was ever a time in history when gastric violence was not preceded by traumatic injury to the brain. Arguably, very few people go about life unaltered by their environments. Here I return again to the blame I want to shift onto the shoulders of all who smiled & waived the youth away into the fields where they remain unhoused in the soil.
There is room within this story to question the stance of the reader. Does the reader believe that war is worthwhile? Is there a means to an end when relying on violence? Is every death paired with sorrow? Within this story, Paul is often granted moments of what I will call reprieve. He is allowed to step outside of the redundancy of the situation wherein one party is set to die & the other to vanquish. To see one’s friends die is a horrible experience no matter which side you are on. Perhaps it is our downfall that we cannot collectivize our understanding of what it means to be good & just. We find ourselves habitually stuck in the complex role of alien invasions, cowboys & Indians, battlefields, poltergeists, & victors.
Inside this book lies the truth that one man sought to communicate. The rotting flesh on the living man, the nibbling teeth of the trench rats, the dulled eyes, mucus & fluid, starvation & comradery, friendship & solitude. Maybe this is the best war novel ever written because it comes from an intimate place of nuance. Maybe there is room inside this story to reflect on what it means to meet oneself on the battlefield from which one will surely, never return.
Ultimately, this is a good book & one that I am certain a war scholar would be better suited to dissect. Paul is a character who is easy to root for as he maintains a veteran boyish perception of the world. He cares for his family & he cares for his friends. He understands that death befalls us all & knows that we are unlucky when we play at spades with sharp edges. In the mundane recalling of cigarette smoking, bread mongering, & body decaying landscape of the foreign land where war-ravaged human life, there is Paul. The man who understood that between good & evil, there he stood....more
**spoiler alert** When German documentarians, Bernhard & Julie make their way into the Kandy province of Sri Lanka with the intent to film clips of th**spoiler alert** When German documentarians, Bernhard & Julie make their way into the Kandy province of Sri Lanka with the intent to film clips of the devastating effects of climate change on local farmlands, they come across a local folktale whispered amongst farmers. The legend of an entity that floats through the jungle with seeds for eyes & lures children with tenderness; always keeping an eye on the health & wealth of the lands, seeking to protect the nourishment that it requires to prosper. Throughout this novella, a multitude of characters, each with their own dramatic backstories, find their way to the house only to become lost in the horror that befalls the property.
There is always room on my library shelf for a book that requires me to research topics. Though I enjoy stories that lead me down familiar roads, there is something to be said for those who leave me seeking to learn more. This is one such book.
Riddled to the brim with folktales & lore, the Sap Mother is an entity that was sprinkled into the story just enough to leave me feeling intrigued yet, I did not feel that enough dedicated detail was given to her or any of the characters to leave me feeling fearful. I wonder if this is due to the length of the book or if it is because the story is being presented in book format, that the intensity of the lore is lost upon me. Should I find myself watching this story unfold, I should think that I would enjoy the film very much.
I am not one to comment on something that I have no knowledge of. I will always do my due diligence in terms of research materials that were previously outside my realm of understanding. When it came to seeking to understand who the Sap Mother was for locals, especially those in the farmlands of Kandy, I came up empty-handed. It was incessantly difficult to find any information about a Sap Mother, an Anik Amma, or a White Lady in local lore which made the author’s note a bit confusing.
There are ample texts dedicated to explaining the phenomenon of The White Lady for different nationalities of people; the concept appears to be quite common among humanity. However, I could not find anything specific outside of a couple of quick mentions of general descriptions.
The White Lady is a woman who wanders around luring men to their deaths, essentially. However, after coming up short in terms of specific information regarding this entity I relied heavily on the descriptors given to us in the book. I acknowledge that the author is recounting some of the stories that he has been told & am in no way seeking to claim falsehood when stating that I could not find information about this entity. Rather, I wonder, why we are given so little.
In the context of the story, the Sap Mother is said to be a protector of the land. Given the level of reliance that the local people have on a generous rain season to ensure that their crops grow, the Sap Mother wanders around taking seeds as payment for guardianship. My first moment of confusion arose when we were told that the Sap Mother gets her strength from the young, feeding on their life force to sustain her. Does this mean that she kills them or does this mean that she finds joy & sustenance for her tasks, in the presence of children?
What leads me to question this is that—& perhaps this was the point—the Sap Mother is simultaneously presented as good & evil. She kept a child captive with her during the entirety of his life in the jungle after he ran away from the house that mob members were barging into. Yet, we are also meant to believe that she is simply angry at the house for rotting the land & sucking it dry from water.
What is the link between the Sap Mother & the House of Drought other than they both inhabit the same place? Why were the children captive within the walls of the house? Who made it so this house held secret rooms? Are we to believe that the Englishman who built the establishment had directed it to be built as such? If not, where do the supernatural aspects of the story come into play when it comes to leading people to be imprisoned within the walls of the House of Drought? Wouldn’t the Sap Mother want to set the children free from a house that was ruining the land she sought to protect?
I understand that this story relies fully on the make-believe aspect of storytelling. For example, everyone who was trapped inside the Drought House would have died within three days, especially if the house was sucking them dry of any/all moisture.
I appreciate that not every aspect of an entity of local lore may be completely understood or accurately translated. However, this story would have benefited from more elaboration. Rather than hearing a villager recount some of the stories & experiences that she had, more than twice, we could have seen the characters of the documentarians do personal research. Perhaps they were in the early stages of their project but, seeing as we read about them gathering final clips of the house for the film I think not.
Bernhard & Julie would have added more than a disjointed link to the history of the house had they participated in the research. Seeing them be told by third parties what happened in the house felt a bit boring & I know that’s not a great descriptor but, every flashback to the present time saw me waiting for the next section of explanation about the actual people that lived in the house.
With that being said, some editing could have been done to have these pieces of the story flow with more ease. I do not think it necessary to read about every group of people’s impressions of the palace especially when each of these was the same, one from the other.
The dialogue grew to feel increasingly disjointed & I cannot pinpoint if this was intended in an attempt to write the English text how someone who spoke another language would speak it—utilizing intonations, emphasis, etc.—or if the author could have benefited from another editor.
As well, I had no reason to believe that the characters held the nationalities that they did. There could have been further German employed to reinforce where the characters were meant to be from. I originally thought that the employment of “ja’” in place of “yes” was due to spelling errors & it wasn’t until a German word was used that I understood why this was being done.
In cases such as this, it would be positive to have the English book be written in authentic English speech & not adopt the speech patterns of another language. Words can be utilized within the text to confirm who is speaking & what language they are speaking but, to do both feels disjointed.
Ambiguity is generally fine, I enjoy it in Horror but, in this case, I was waiting for something catastrophic to happen to lead me to feel enthused about the book. When Hemantha is probably killed by the Sap Mother I couldn’t help but wonder, why. This is meant to be a peaceful being & yet she murders a random person for being inside the house she hates? Is she single-minded or can she intone that these people walked through the forest in which she lives to seek shelter in the house? Did anyone find his body?
This leads me to question, again, what the connection between the House of Drought & the Sap Mother is. Is the house evil or is it simply haunted? Is it haunted because of the Sap Mother or is it haunted because the Englishman gave less than 2 cents for the land & the people?
When all is said & done, I enjoyed the thought & motivation behind this story more than I enjoyed the story itself. When the house captures Bernhard I didn’t care, I was eager to be done reading. Jasmit’s side quest to release the person who saved her after 20 years felt ridiculous; I’m sure it was difficult for her to return to the house but come on…this person sacrificed themselves in coming to save you, please be better. With some editing, this story would flow very smoothly & ultimately that should be the goal; to have a horror story transition effortlessly through terrors & fears, with bumps in the night & strange light, into the solitary confinement of a man without willpower.
Thank you to NetGalley, Stelliform Press, & Dennis Mombauer for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!...more
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