I just read Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Yeah, it's a romance novel. I admit it. It was also a hell of an account of trench warfare in World War I. In addition, there is a woman looking to the past to find her identity. The book skips around from past to present, but not enough to be annoying. It would definitely be in my top ten, maybe even top five. The main character, Steven, against all odds, survives the whole war mostly on the front lines. He also spends a good deal of time below ground with miners in their on-going efforts to blow up the German lines by mining under them and setting off massive explosions. The Germans were also doing the same to the English and the French. It was a secret war with in a war. Steven was fictional, but Undermining was not. Here's a little reading to get you started if you so choose. The book does a much better job of describing all the horrors that went along with it then I ever could.
One thing that struck me was how people did not talk about their real experiences. The people back home choose to sweep the horrors under the rug. A guy tells his shell-shocked son home on leave, "Oh, I know all about it. I read it in the papers." There was no one the man could talk to. No wonder there was a "lost" generation. I can imagine a same rah, rah rah bullshit our troops get today. They used ribbons. We use bumper stickers. Same results. Young men return from war zones broken, disillusioned and robbed of their future. It seems we lose more to suicide than combat. I think we are more aware of it than at the turn of the last century. We would also not accept the astronomical casualties of the First World War. Though the threat of far more costly war always looms on subs, ships, in silos and aircraft with nuclear arms. Another thing we don't really talk about all that much.
It is a hell of a good book. Though it was exceedingly dark in places (literally and figuratively), over all it was more life affirming. Read it, you'll dig it. Pop it into amazon to get a copy.
