Disrupting The Fictive Dream

I recently read Articles of War by Nick Arvin. Never has a war story so moved me. Not even The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. The reason Arvin's book impresses me more than Mailer's is because it's more personal. Rather than following the course of the war through the eyes of several characters, it follows one American soldier, detailing his reaction to the horror, the stupidity, and the boredom. Such a counter-position brings the action much closer to home, making it much more personal and effective. One of my favorite movies is an Australian picture called Gallipoli, directed by Peter Weir, about the Allies' attempted invasion of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

But actually, this post isn't about war or war novels or war movies. What I want to comment on right now is how historical figures are used in fiction. Several books of fiction are based on the lives of real people. I, Claudius by Robert Graves is a magnificent portrayal of Imperial Rome. Little Big Man by Thomas Berger is a hilarious account of the expansion of the American West, and the effect of European civilization on Native Americans, in which historical and fictional people interact with aplomb. Several key sections of Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres detail the rise to power of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a very real person who led the fight for the foundation of the modern state of Turkey.

I am very fond of Little Big Man and Birds Without Wings, but Articles of War surpasses them both in the wealth of detail about the actual feel of combat. Or at least what I surmise actual combat feels like, having never actually been in combat myself. The portrayal of the main character proceeds without flaw. The meaninglessness of battles and bombings and killings is presented with a calmness that makes turning each page imperative. For most of the book, that is. The point where I felt jolted out of the the fictive dream was the introduction of Private Eddie Slovik who was executed for desertion on 31 January 1945. One of the questions raised by the narrative is how Slovik could have been fearful of combat when he faced execution so fearlessly.

For some reason, though, the introduction of Slovik totally derails the storyline for me. It seems like a huge, red flag. It's as if Heck, the main character, violates the fourth wall of the reading experience (to appropriate a metaphor from stage), and addresses me directly. Sometimes this works as a device. All first-person fiction is based on the premise that someone is telling the reader what happened. However, this cannot work in a piece of serious third-person fiction. If it does happen, the fiction is no longer third-person by definition.

So my point is that the use of a character from history instead of imagination can sometimes backfire. In this case, a most excellent book unravels at the end, with tatters of the story-telling thread left flapping in the breeze. The book itself I will trumpet forever as one of the best war/anti-war novels of all time. It's just too bad about that darn ending.