War & Turpentine, book reivew
War & Turpentine
Stefan Hertmans, translated
by David McKay
Book review
War & Turpentine is an
autobiographical novel based upon the experiences of the author’s grandfather during
World War I. Maybe.
There are indeed some facts.
The author’s grandfather,
born in 1891, died in 1981. “It was as if his life,” Mr. Hertmans writes, “were
no more than two digits playing leapfrog.” Urbain, an amateur painter most of
his life, left behind his wartime journals.
Beyond this, Hertmans dives
into his grandfather’s world, bringing us into the context and history of
Flemish Belgium around the turn of the 20th century, an industrial
age where children worked long hours at dangerous foundries incurring hideous
injuries that often left them scarred physically and emotionally, or worse:
dead. Urbain at every turn faced hardship and danger—and this was before he was
drafted.
The book is divided into
three parts. Setting the foundation of family history prior to the war, then a
reinvention of the wartime diaries—what the NYTimes described as speculative
writing—and the third act after the war, the rest of the story. Plus a meta
view of the grandson (author) who adores Urbain and at the time is unable to
grasp why he is who he is. It is only later the parts come together into a
whole.
It has been a 100 years since
WWI and many lists are featuring literature from this time period, titles are
being revisited or reissued. W & T 1914 – 1918 contains an immediacy
despite the fact that it is not Urbain’s exact words, it is his story
nevertheless reinterpreted by 2 generations removed.
“The truth in life often lies
buried in places we do not associate with authenticity. Life is more subtle, in
this respect, than linear human mortality. It goes to work like a
painter/copyist, using illusion to depict the truth.” And, here lies the
essence of the novel/memoir/memorial—who cares if it is exact, the elements of
what makes it real are all there.
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