On completion:I thoroughly loved this book. I finished listening to it and was desperate for more. I re-listened to the last chapters. Then I thought, I simply cannot leave this book! I searched to see what other books Sebastian Barry has written. This is the first of a trilogy followed by first Annie Dunne and then On Canaan's Side. I read what these books were about. The central theme of these books diverge; they are not about WW1. And this is the topic that I want more of. So I checked out The Absolutist and even listened to the narration at Audible. Again I felt let down. John Cormack's narration of "A Long, Long Way" had been superb, The snippet of "The Absolutist" just could not compare. Was it the narrator that I had fallen in love with? I listened to other books narrated by Cormack........but they were not what I wanted to listen to either. And here I sit, feeling desolate and sad, because I want more of the same. I want Cormack's narration and Barry's prose. I don't want to leave the camaraderie of the troops in the trenches of Belgium, near Ypres. Isn't it utterly strange that I do not want to leave the battlefields of WW1?! That is the truth of the matter, strange as it may seem.None of the other books I have read about WW12 have moved me as this has. I believe I understand what that warfare was like. It was horrible. When the war ended, it didn't really end. All who lived through it would never be the same. To understand the war itself you must look further than the blood and bombs and gas and grime and lice and all the physical horror of it. There is still more. There was also what the soldiers shared with each other. This is something very hard to comprehend to those of us who have not fought in wars. This book shows you how the soldiers intimately depended, needed and relied on each other. I am so shaken by the ending that I don't know what to say. I have no complaints. There is nothing I would change about this book.How do I sum up my feelings? This book has beautiful lines, and they are lines filled with meaning, imparting a poignant message. This is a book about WW1 and a book about Ireland's place in that war. Excellent writing by Barry. Excellent narration by Cormack!******************************Read with Barbara and Dawn. Here follow links to their reviews so you can follow our discussions:Dawn: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...Barbara: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...My thoughts, as I read, are added below. Through chapter 6, part one: This is excellent. The writing is superb! For me how an author chooses and lines up his words is very important. The Irish dialect and dialogs are spot-on. And I love how horrid stuff is mixed with beauty and camaraderie and humor. All of it seems genuine. The narration, audiobook by John Cormack, has such "oh-so-perfect" Irish!!!! This narrator has to be added to my favorites list, at least for Irish literature.Through part one:I have yet to read a text that so brilliantly describes mustard gas. The first time the yellow fog crept along the ground the soldiers had no idea what it was. Their fear and their instinctive horror engulfs the reader. Then imagine their fear when they know its consequences and it's used again and again and again. This is frightening to read. To the end of part one: Imagine fighting a war for country and family, only to discover that at home your efforts are not appreciated! Originally the Irish went off to war in the belief that Home Rule would follow at the conclusion of the war. But then there broke off a splinter group that opposed any fighting done for the King, the oppressor, he who stood in the way of Home Rule. They wanted guarantees of Home Rule before they would do any fighting for the English king! In Dublin, Irishmen were fighting and killing Irishmen. It became a civil battle between the Irishmen themselves. Those, such as Willie Dunn, fighting and dying in Flanders, were despised. Try and imagine how this would feel! As if the war itself wasn't enough! Barry adds this to the horrors of the trench warfare in Belgium. Yes, we are fighting, but for what? ETA: To understand this history I had to listen to one part over and over again. This is the only portion of the book where the dialect caused me some confusion. I am not sure if the language was cryptic, if I was being obtuse or if quite simply I was was obstinately demanding a thorough explanation of the historical events all summed up in one short dialog. I have this need to thoroughly understand the historical facts. I am satisfied. The historical context is made a bit confusing because Willie is terribly confused and cannot comprehend why the Irish are fighting the Irish when he goes to Dublin on furlough. In chapter eight: Two things I would like to praise. Again, Barry highl Irish conflict in the war. The Irish rarely were given high positions in the army. They were judged on another scale. He showed the English disdain for the Irish men when Willie is sent to headquarters with a message from his captain after a gas attack. The dialog really ripped me apart and made me want to punch some of those English, particularly Major "Stoker". (I am guessing at the spelling!) Again I must explain how much I like the writing style, particularly the brogue of the men in the trenches and the total lack of melodrama. There is a level tone, a distance to how the events are related. This lack of melodrama makes the horror of the war seem even worse because you realize these are the true events with not a smidgen of exaggeration. There is a tinge of irony, disgust of human folly. Yes, Willie admitted, when the officers said that the little Irishman stunk,indeed he had soiled his trousers. Due to fright.... This could be admitted. Anyone who had been in the trenches during the gas attack must acknowledge the blatant truth.Through chapter fourteen and part two: Chapter fourteen is moving, grim and a very difficult portion to read.This is trench warfare with all its gore and horror. Tell me, Barbara and Dawn, how you react to this chapter?Willie wished, as he marches forward under the exploding bombs of both enemy and friendly fire, that he were provided with blinkers as a horse on the road. The sights and smells and cacophony were so overpowering. Here follows a short quote: How easily men were dismembered. How quickly their parts were un-stitched. What this war needed were men made of steel.....The hopelessness of it all struck him with force:No one man had done anything but piss his trousers in terror.I admire the privates and their captain who must lead these men forward. Barry even throws in the absurdity of all the papers these captains must fill in. He has captured so many aspects of warfare. The filth, the food, the camaraderie, the desolation, fear and even bureaucracy! These are my thoughts as I read this chapter.
Barry has been on the queue for a while now. A perennial favorite with the Booker judges in the recent past (though he is yet to win the prize), this was his first shortlisted book and delves into the horrors of the men on the front during wartime.A lot of literature and cinema has been devoted to probably the worst war (though it’s only in explicit numbers that war can be considered relative to each other – else it’s just war) of the last century, World War 2. So much so that sometimes the First World War seems to pale in comparison to the horrors that came after. However, the first big war was also a mind numbing exposition of the futility of conflict with the number of men, young and old, as well as homes and families torn asunder and laid to rest in despondently alarming numbers. It is on this war that Barry focuses his attention on, particularly from the point of view of young Willie Dunne, a volunteer with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.Ireland was going through a complicated phase, and it was especially exacerbated for the men who chose to pick up arms and join the British army in the fight against the ‘Huns’ (Germans) as they called them. While on one side they felt they were doing their moral duty to King and country, there was also the internal strife culminating in the 1916 Easter Uprising for Irish Home Rule. The Irish men helping to fight the war were supposed to enable Ireland to achieve Home Rule soon after the war. However, a lot of the Irish could not wait for that or did not plain trust them and picked up arms against the government. Willie Dunne and others like him were caught in conflicted situations where they were jeered upon by their own people who felt they betrayed the cause, while the British seemed to look on them with suspicion. On top that, Willie’s father was a superintendent of police, in charge of keeping the peace against the rebels. The prose is beautiful, poetic. Barry manages to capture the devastation on the front lines of war and makes the reader wade through the trenches, the muck and dirt, blood and spilt guts along with our young protagonist. We start to connect and care for the young men before we suddenly realize that all is transient. War spares almost no one. Within a split second, the same bodies of complex souls, with all their dreams, aspirations, hopes, love, become reduced to just lifeless pieces of flesh strewn around. There can be no other genre which invokes one to think about the fragility of mortality as this one. Perspective becomes a luxury in these times. Willie makes the tough choice to leave his family (his father and loving sisters) and his lady love behind and gets lost in the murderous mayhem of the battle, and yet retains most of his sanity. As he takes his comrades to heart and despairs when they succumb one by one to bullets, poisonous gases, mortars, we despair along with him. On a furlough back home, before he leaves, confusion reigns as they are made to act against their own people, the rebels who rose up. Caught between both these wars, Willie wonders at times whose side he should be on. And we wonder at how much more humanity can keep feeding on each other to satisfy the lust and obsession of a few powerful people for domination. More than the politics, Barry makes us question the futility of it all. And he also makes us realize the importance of partings. A bad word, a misunderstood emotion – and that could be the last chance we had to make up before life takes its course. Willie’s relationships with his father, his sisters, his love, his army mates are all delved into and intricately portrayed and we feel for all these characters. There is no time like the now. And we might as well live it up. Because mortality is a fleeting pinprick in the vast spread of earthly life. It’s the least we can do to respect the mindless suffering inflicted in the name of country and community.
What do You think about A Long Long Way (2005)?
Sinfonia per un massacro In genere, quando si parla di Guerra Mondiale, siamo soliti pensare alla seconda guerra, sia perché molto più vicina a noi e fortemente “coperta” dai mass media (documentari e fiction), sia soprattutto perché caratterizzata da alcuni spaventosi eventi in cui la ferocia umana si è espressa ai massimi livelli (L’olocausto, Hiroshima e Nagasaki, il bombardamento a tappeto di inermi città, popolate solo da vecchi, donne e bambini). Questo romanzo invece ci ricorda come la Prima Guerra Mondiale, se forse meno distruttiva per la popolazione civile, ha visto l’assurdo massacro di centinaia di migliaia di giovani soldati (rimpiazzati ogni volta da reclute sempre più giovani e meno addestrate) che sono stati immolati sul fronte belga e franco-tedesco per contendersi inutilmente poche decine di chilometri durante 4 terribili anni. In nessun teatro di guerra, che io ricordi, si è assistito ad uno scempio così immane, crudele, immotivato e prolungato, tanto da assurgere spesso a simbolo dell’insensata follia di tutte le guerre. E’ lo scenario in cui (salvo brevi parentesi: la licenza, l’ospedale dove si rattoppano i corpi recuperabili per rigettarli appena possibile nel tritacarne) si svolge la vicenda di A Long Long Way vissuta attraverso lo sguardo del soldato Dunne, partito dalla natìa Irlanda, volontario e adolescente, e divenuto maggiorenne nelle trincee della valle della Marna. Ammetto che Il romanzo meriterebbe un giudizio più alto per la sua capacità descrittiva (l’autore è davvero ben documentato) ed evocativa ma francamente, almeno per un convinto pacifista come me, la lettura è risultata sofferta e a tratti insostenibile, per cui sono giunto al termine con un magone crescente mentre pressochè tutti i personaggi del romanzo venivano falciati in un orrendo impasto di fango e sangue.
—Ubik 2.0
Excellent, well written, moving, informative.Anyone who wants to understand Irish history should read this.This is an important book as it is one of the first to explore the nature of the First World War in the trenches from an Irish Privates perspective.It shows the turmoil the soldiers experienced, not only from the war, but also the shifting public and personal opinions due to the Easter Rising in Ireland. The meaning of fighting for 'King and country' for the Irish, changed throughout the war. Previous to the publication of this book, there was little discussion in Ireland other than the role of the Ulster (Carson's) Volunteers and Redmond's Volunteers and their respective bids to keep out or to gain Home Rule for Ireland. Here the soldiers futile sacrifice is recognized and their personal hell explored.Now that the 'decade of commemorations' is underway, this book provides useful background and shouts loudly that the war and the divisions in Irish society are to be remembered and understood, but not celebrated.The excellent writing and the character development keep one enthralled in this brutal account of war.Some quotations to illustrate this include'In this makeshift place Willie Dunne discovered a peace of sorts. Yes the wild guns struck their great notes in the distance like the bells of a horrific city. Hearts asleep in the shires of England close upon the sea must of heard them too. But he fell down between the boards of memory and sleep like a penny in an old floor. He lay there in the dust of nowhere, sunken and alone.'‘The executed men were cursed, and praised, and doubted, and despised, and held to account, and blackened, and wondered at, and mourned, all in a confusion complicated infinitely by the site of war’ P144‘Other times you had a rake of our lads killed, and a rake of the old grey-suited devils, and you wouldn’t know who had won the fucking thing, sure how could you tell boys?’ p232
—Granuaille
Sometimes, I find the books I love the most are the most difficult to formulate a review for.The book is about an Irish volunteer fighting in World War One, I thought it was interesting to read a story from an Irish perspective, quite enlightening in many ways - the turmoil at home as well as that in Europe and the prejudice that existed against Irish soldiers.I just found so much to admire within the pages of A Long, Long Way, chief among them is the stunningly, jaw-droppingly evocative way that Sebastian Barry describes things:Lungnaquilla is described as "the folds and folds of its great hills, like a gigantic pudding not ever to be entirely folded in" the sunset as "the sun was falling off the edge of the world like a burning man"What will stay with me is the terror of trench warfare, gas attacks, the meloncholy, the affection and love for family and the awakening of political awareness, friendship and trust, growing up, becoming a man. In the end, the book just about broke my heart. A book like this is why I read.
—Em
