Horrifyingly Powerful – The Futility Of War
My Dear I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young is a horrifyingly powerful historical novel that consumed me from the start.
It is set during World War I and perfectly illustrates the futility of war. It is mainly written from a masculine point of view of a soldier, but we also hear of the viewpoints of women too, particularly two nurses and a wife.
World War I was the first ‘modern’ war with tanks, planes and so many horrors on the battlefields. It is the reason why medicine rapidly advanced, especially in the field of plastic surgery and facial reconstruction.
Of the war, a character says: “It can’t go on much longer. Governments will just have to take a look at the hospitals… and they’ll stop.” But governments did not look at the hospitals. Governments didn’t care, and the war went on for another four long years.
Louisa Young has produced a novel that absolutely captures the horrors of war. We see what war does to minds, and to bodies. She does not shy away from descriptions of horrific injuries. Never before have I read such a powerful, graphic description of World War I in a novel. War is not glorious. War is horrific. War is not sanitised as in Hollywood movies, war is dirty. “Flanders had become mud beneath their feet” – and not just mud, but blood and guts too.
We learn that boys went to war and one commented; “I’m so… scared out there every day, every night – and now they’ve made me a… officer.” Boys went to war. They had to walk across No Mans Land or they would be shot by one of their own.
Boys and men tried various ways to block out the horrors – alcohol, women, or focusing on home – but nothing worked. They numbed their minds in any way they could. “We have horrors, and the worst horror is that before I came away on leave, I no longer saw them. I stopped looking… because I didn’t like what I was seeing.” For some, they found humour in the macabre. “So remaineth these three faith, hope and charity and the greatest of these is a sense of humour.”
A character with facial injuries retreats into himself. “Are you there? Riley? Are you still there?” Is he still Riley with part of his face missing? We see the kindness and composure of an eight-year-old, in contrast to the adults who shrink back.
As he faces op after op, Riley says: “I am no longer a man who does things… I am a man who things are done to.”
The three main female characters are all very interesting. We have one who is seen as a plain woman and not expected to marry. She becomes a nurse and is kindness itself, making her a very attractive character.
Another, is a young woman expected to make a marriage alliance but who falls in love with a man whom her parents deem is beneath her social standing. Against all odds, she stands up to her parents – the heart wants what the heart wants. Her war is spent nursing, first at home and then in France.
And the third female is seen as attractive and married. She has been brought up to value her beauty above all else. We hear of the lengths she goes to in order to remain beautiful for her Captain husband – but she is preyed on by charlatans who prescribe poisonous remedies for her. Ironically her husband no longer sees her beauty, as his mind is full of the horrors of the battlefields.
All the characters were well drawn and believable. The horrors of war were portrayed and the reader’s heart broke for so many characters in so many different ways.
My Dear I Wanted To Tell You is the most powerful book I have ever read on World War I. I can recommend it – but it is not a pleasant read. It is a necessary read in memory of all those who served and lost their lives (including my grandfather’s nephew Charlie Parkes), and of all those who served and who survived. They gave their yesterday so that we can have our today and tomorrow.
A word of caution: there are horrific battlefield injuries described, if you are of a sensitive nature, this may not be the book for you.
JULIA WILSON
