A Long Long Way discussion

I heard children's author R.L. Stine discussing this on NPR yesterday. (I haven't thought about R.L. Stine since I was about 10 years old! Brings back some memories.) He made this book sound so great that I'm adding it to my "to-read" list.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

Ditto on hearing the R.L. Stine comments on NPR. If someone reads this book soon, I would love to know what you thought. FOr now its added to my To Read as well.

This book is an incredible read, but its greatest power is how it takes hold in your thoughts and your perceptions of war.

R.L. Stine's comments are dead on. I loved this book form beginning to end. Don't just add it to your to-read list but to your must-read list.

Barry's cross-over from poet and play-wright to novelist has been one of the finest things to happen to Irish literature for years. His 5 novels are all beautifully constructed and his prose is so sumptuous that to be honest if he'd writen the Dublin telephone directory I'd read it.
3 of his novels concern the children of the Dunne family. Their stories are briefly interconnected, but all spring from the single source of a senior Irish policeman during the troublous times that blighted our country in the period of the Great War and the subsequent War for Independence.
A Long, Long Way centres on Willie Dunne who - as so many tens of thousands did - joined the British Army, thinking that he was fighting for Ireland's future (Only to be let down by the spite and fecklessness of post-war politics).
The story takes one or two very minor liberties with the realities of war on the Western Front, but otherwise it is a brilliant and compelling story about the conflict that a young Irishman faced during those dreadful years. I was so impressed by this book that I passed a copy to my brother-in-law who was serving in Iraq with my Regiment. He subsequently passed it on to others and everyone I know in the chain has rated it highly. One of my Gurkha soldiers is the current 'custodian'.
I agree with Jeff, this is one for your must-read list. Then again so are Barry's other novels, I suggest in the order Annie Dunne and On Caanan's Side (Thus completing the stories of the Dunne siblings).

Interesting. I downright hated his self-enamoured, prattling prose and how he triviliased the Great War.

An interesting view, Steelwhisper.

Having read the book while up to my own oxters in a war (Iraq), I didn't sense the slightest hint of trivialisation of either of the conflicts that engulfed Willie Dunne. And given that the medium which has perhaps brought the Great War to the widest audience - poetry - it seems strange to me that you have taken such a loathing to a poet's novel.

Still, each to his own.

However, forgive me for asking - did you find that the Great War was trivialised by the prose of Graves or Owen; Sassoon, perhaps?

Not at all, I loved Graves and Sassoon, Owen wasn't my thing. However--poetry is poetry (and Barry can't hold a hand to any of the original war-poets!). Overly flowery language enamoured with itself doesn't make good storytelling.

I've read different reactions (by soldiers) to Barry. Personally I find his book not well-researched. I for instance felt his liberties with military matters quite uncalled for (mustard gas in 1915, faulty symptoms, faulty ranks, faulty duties, etc.) and to me he exploited every single WWI cliche available.

There were for instance quite a few Irish soldiers SAD, but few of them in the manner, nor for such an offence as he described. Far more typical would have been the likes of James Crozier or James Joseph Daly. Daly was a mutineer alright, in a much larger uprising.

As it was, the SAD was used to further dumb down Willie Dunne, which I do find quite a trivialisation of things (the majority of SAD weren't making political statements and their deaths were badly disguised decimations). The whole talking down to allegedly achieve a "workingclass lad" grates for me, badly. Really badly. Barry made Dunne one of the most stupid characters I've read in a long time, and that's intellectual arrogance in my book. I've read many war accounts and diaries by real other ranks of the time and none of them came even close to such stupidity and naivety.

The coincidences Barry wrangled, such as Dunne of course dying before the father's letter reaches him, the cliches of the golden-hearted nurse, the last act of singing/beauty (derived from poor Remarque), the petty "deus ex machina" letter about the whore, Christmas singing--Barry sure didn't leave one easily accessible cliche alone and none were done well.

Back to the prose. I gave an example in my review and will willingly place it here as well:

Death was a muddle of sorts, things thrown in their way to make them stumble and fall. It was hard and hard again to make any path through the humbled souls. The quick rats maybe had had their way with eyes and lips; the sightless sockets peered at the living soldiers, the lipless teeth all seemed to have just cracked mighty jokes. They were seriously grinning. Hundreds more were face down, and turned on their sides, as if not interested in such awful mirth, showing the gashes where missing arms and legs had been, their breasts torn away, and hundreds and hundreds of floating hands, and legs, and big heavy puddles of guts and offal, all mixed through the loam and sharded vegetation. And as solid as the ruined flesh was the smell, a stench of a million rotted pheasants, that settled on their tongues like a liquid.

Now to compare this big sauce of words meant to describe the horrors of death and carnage with a mere few short sentences written by Guy Chapman, who actually was there and describes practically the same basic scene of walking across a field of dead:

My eye caught something white and shining. I stooped. It was the last five joints of a spine. There was nothing else, no body, no flesh.

One is the description of someone enamoured with his own voice, the other is spare, truly horrific and restrained elegance driving home the salient point of it. Chapman's restraint works in a far superior way. He as well turns from the scene to vomit, his collection making that a thing of far greater import. He adds a short account there of how he and a pal gather some several thousands of sock pairs from the haversacks of dead men on the same fields , to help his battalion fight trench feet. Absolutely superior.

Indeed, so far the best novels about the war I have read were written by men and women who participated.

The best novelisation I came across so far was Not So Quiet...: Stepdaughters of War.

Serjeant Wildgoose wrote: " Then again so are Barry's other novels, I suggest in the order Annie Dunne and On Caanan's Side (Thus completing the stories of the Dunne siblings).
..."

Thanks for that, I'm currently reading A Long Long Way and very much enjoying it. I'd def like to read more about Willie's family.

Hi Steelwhisperer. That's an interesting take. I'm a Yank, so I can't speak to how language was used to "dumb" down the character of Willie as a working class guy. I imagine if you are aware of it, it would be irritating.

My take on what you said is that perhaps Willie is intended to be a vehicle, or rather, a mouthpiece to articulate many of the issues of the time. The novel is dreamlike, well, nightmarish but you know what I mean, and the language allowed me to let go of a strict realistic interpretation. I'm not a huge fan of some of Berry's other novels, but this one was terrific as far as I was concerned.

Lisa wrote: "My take on what you said is that perhaps Willie is intended to be a vehicle, or rather, a mouthpiece to articulate many of the issues of the time. ..."

Yes, of course Willie is a mouthpiece preaching to the reader. Mainly of modern Irish woes and resentments. Nothing against that, but it's abusing the experience of the Great War of a lot of Britons.

Steelwhisper wrote: "Lisa wrote: "My take on what you said is that perhaps Willie is intended to be a vehicle, or rather, a mouthpiece to articulate many of the issues of the time. ..."

Yes, of course Willie is a mout..."

Again not a Brit but I assume modern Irish woes and resentments are the same as old Irish woes and resentments. That's how it works for us in the US.