As you know, your Culminating Activity for ENG4U1 is a comparative essay. As you read the texts for this essay, you have been asked to keep a dialectical journal of each novel. If you have questions about your dialectical journal, please see the Culminating Activity package for a detailed explanation.
To help you in your dialectical journal writing, you will writing annotations for The Wars in this weeks blog assignment.
Using the topic list at the end of this posting, I would like you to compile a list (yes, an actual list, nothing else) of textual examples. Analysis in not required.
An example entry would be:
Part 1 Animals / Animal Imagery "In her lap she holds a large white rabbit."(7)
Notes:
- State which part of the novel your finding comes from.
- Use the motif as I have listed them in the Topic List at the bottom of this post.
- Use quotation marks to encapsulate the actual quote.
- Use parentheses to indicate the page number.
- Everyone must have a unique motif and part number. That is, Part 1 Violence is different than Part 5 Violence.
- You can reserve you motif and part number as soon as you want. Post it here, in this thread.
- When your assignment is ready, just delete your 'reservation' post, and submit your real one.
The following short excerpts were taken from easily accessible Internet sources. Please read them before you continue, noting the bold text in each excerpt:
1.
"It came as something of a shock, when gathering these stories for collective publication Dinner Along the Amazon (1984)], to discover that for over thirty years of writing my attention has turned again and again to the same unvarying gamut of sounds and images. They not only turn up here in this present book, but in my novels, too. I wish I hadn't noticed this. In fact, it became an embarrassment and I began to wonder if I should file A CATALOGUE OF PERSONAL OBSESSIONS. The sound of screen doors banging; evening lamplight; music held at a distance -- always being played on a gramaphone; letters written on blue-tinted note paper; robins making forays onto summer lawns to murder worms; photographs in cardboard boxes; Colt revolvers hidden in bureau drawers and a chair that is always falling over. What does it mean? Does it mean that here is a writer who is hopelessly uninventive? Appallingly repetitive? Why are the roads always dusty in the man's work -- why is it always so hot -- why can't it RAIN? And my agent was once heard to moan aloud as she was reading through the pages of a television script I had just delivered: "Oh God, Findley -- not more rabbits!"
Library and Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/3/8/t8-2008-e.html)
2.
The Wars remains his most-discussed book. Based partly on the war-time correspondence of his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, and on family photos, he wrote the novel in guise of a researcher trying to reconstruct the story of Robert Ross, a soldier of the Great War. The book explores many of the obsessions that colour all his writing: violence, loneliness, a concern for animal rights, and the survival of the individual in a world of madness. Findley believes that a writer has a responsibility to speak out about what is wrong with society.
Library and Archives Canada (http://www.collectionscanada.ca/3/8/t8-2008-e.html)
3.
His writing, typical of the Southern Ontario Gothic genre, was heavily influenced by Jungian psychology, and mental illness, gender and sexuality were frequent recurring themes in his work. His characters often carried dark personal secrets, and were often conflicted — sometimes to the point of psychosis — by these burdens.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Findley)
4.
Southern Ontario Gothic is a sub-genre of the Gothic novel genre and a feature of Canadian literature that comes from Southern Ontario.
Writers of this sub-genre include Alice Munro, Timothy Findley, Douglas Cooper, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Jane Urquhart, Marian Engel, James Reaney, Susan Swan, George Elliott, Graeme Gibson and Barbara Gowdy.
Like the Southern Gothic of American writers such as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, Southern Ontario Gothic analyzes and critiques social conditions such as race, gender, religion and politics, but in a Southern Ontario context. Actions and people that act against humanity, logic, and morality all are portrayed unfavorably, and one or more characters may be suffering from some form of mental illness.
Some (but not all) writers of Southern Ontario Gothic use supernatural or magic realist elements; a few deviate from realism entirely, in the manner of the fantastical gothic novel. Virtually all dwell to a certain extent upon the grotesque.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ontario_Gothic)
Topic List
Violence
Loneliness / The Journey to Identity
Jungian Psychology
Social / Political Commentary
Animals / Animal Imagery
Mental Illness / Madness
Gender / Sexuality
Photographs / Paintings / Artwork
Any motif from Findley's 'Catalogue of Personal Obsessions'
Any motif's from the Southern Ontario Gothic Mode
This assignment is due on the last Sunday of the March Break. That gives you one standard week, and one extra week before warning letters to complete this assignment.
25 comments:
Part 5 Animals/Animal Imagery
“The nightingales sang in the wood at noon.”(166)
“When he woke there was an old white dog at his feet.”(166)
“Robert thanked the man and petted the dog goodbye.” (167)
“The barn was low and wide and thatched and there were bleating sheep inside.”(167)
“Small white barns and cows in yards and he slept to the sound of water lapping his mothers feet and of nightingales.”(167)
“There were horses there and a large Ford motorcar.”(168)
“There were also some orderlies trying to calm the horses.”(168)
“Its ditches were filled with bright yellow cowslips and paddling ducks.”(171)
“He thought of the rats but there was nowhere he could climb.” (173)
“Blackbirds sang the tuft of last years rushes.” (178)
“The Rabbit disappeared.”(179)
“His horse began to rear.”(179)
“Robert was caught with a fresh supply of horses and mules.”(182)
“Both of them rolled like hedgehogs with their heads between their knees.”(182)
“The robins sang and the sun shone.”(185)
“Lying beside her there was a dog with its head between its paws and its ears erect and listening.”(188)
“The dog, in the meantime, had got to his feet and was wagging his tail, it was if both dog and horse had been waiting for Robert to come to them.”(188)
“The horse was a fine black mare.”(188)
“At the edge of the step, sat a pure white cat we’d had ad mascot.”(193)
Part IV: Animals/Animal Imagery
"The fields are filled with black and white cows..."(144)
"...larks fly up in endless song-and the rain, when it falls, is soft and warm."(144)
"...whirl you round a hundred village greens, scattering geese and waving at children..."(144)
"...deer would come out of the nearby forest and wander through the flower beds eating the lilies planted there in honour of the d'Orsey's origins as burghers of Rouen."(144)
"He had a satchel full of books and I asked him what they were and he showed me: sketch books with toads and things."(149)
"After that he set them open on the mantel and beside the toads there's a rabbit and a mouse."(149)
"...so I finally took the bull between the horns and said that Captain Taffler was just downstairs and why not go and visit with him now?"(149)
"But Captain Taffler made things easier when he winked at me and said that I should stand outside the door and keep the baboon at bay. I realized that Captain Taffler didn't like her either and that she was the 'baboon.'"(150)
"...and found our old Pin The Tail On The Donkey game and-honestly-simply not able to stop myself because it was just too perfect-I crept around the corner and slipped it under Major Terry's door."(152)
"Robert Ross said he had been for a walk and had seen three foxes in the field."(153)
"'Please don't mention it to Michael or he'll have the whole house roused at five in the morning and all those horns going off and the dogs out baying in the yard.'"(154)
"Everything they'd done was like a dance between two birds."(155)
"We'd gone down with Clive and Honor to see the new foal in the barns."(157)
"Coming out, we saw that Robert was running with the horses."(157)
"The horses seemed to love to race."(157)
"He's already given me the sketch books with the toads and mice and himself asleep."(162)
"So far, you have read the deaths of 557,017 people- one of whom was killed by a streetcar, one of whom died of bronchitis and one of whom died in a barn with her rabbits."(162)
Part One
Photographs / Paintings / Artwork
“Sometime, someone will forget himself and say too much or else the corner of a picture will reveal the whole.” (7)
“You begin at the archives with photographs. Robert and Rowena—rabbits and wheelchairs—children, dogs and horses. Barbara d’Orsey—the S.S. Massanabie—Magdalene Wood. Boxes and boxes of snapshots and portraits; maps and letters; cablegrams and clippings from the papers.” (7)
“Spread over table tops, a whole age lies in fragments underneath the lamps.” (7)
“The year itself looks sepia and soiled—muddied like its pictures.” (7)
“Some of the photographs are blurred. Even though the figures freeze—the dark machines that fill the roads move on.” (8)
“Here is the Boys’ Brigade with band... here are soldiers, arm in arm and singing: ‘Keep Your Head Down, Fritzie Boy!’ Tea-Dance partners do the Castlewalk to orchestras of brass cornets and silver saxophones.” (8)
“This is the age of motorized portation.” (8)
“This is where the pictures alter—fill up with soldiers—horses—wagons. Everyone is waving either at the soldiers or the cameras. More and more people want to be seen. More and more people want to be remembered. Hundreds—thousands crowd into frame.” (8)
“Here come the troops down Yonge Street!” (8)
“Here come the 48th Highlanders!!” (8)
“There is Sir Sam Hughes standing on the dais, taking the farewell salute. ‘GOD SAVE THE KING!!!’ (a banner).” (8)
“Robert Ross comes riding straight towards the camera. His hat has fallen off. His hands are knotted to the reins. They bleed. The horse is black and wet and falling. Robert’s lips are parted. He leans along the horse’s neck. His eyes are blank. There is mud on his cheeks and forehead and his uniform is burning—long, bright tails of flame are streaming out behind him. He leaps through memory without a sound.” (9)
“They serenade the crowd with ‘Soldiers of the Queen.’ You turn then over—wondering if they’ll spill—and you read on the back in the faintest ink in feminine hand: ‘Robert.’ But where?” (9)
“This picture will appear in the Toronto Mail and Empire with a banner headline, stating that the truck is being turned over to the RAYMOND/ROSS Field Surgery Hospital behind the lines in France.” (9)
“Rowena, the eldest, is not shown. She is never in photographs that are apt to be seen by the public. In fact, she is not much admitted into the presence of a camera. Robert has her picture on his bureau.” (9)
“Here is Meg—a Patriotic Pony, draped in bunting, standing in a garden… Just at the edge of the picture.” (10)
“This is Peggy Ross with Clinton Brown from Harvard!!!… Robert is in this picture too, seated on the steps of the South Drive house along with a girl called Heather Lawson.” (10)
“From the decks of this ship, early one morning, one of the Rosses (it was not clear which)—took a photograph of the ocean. Whoever it was, later drew an arrow—pointing to a small white dot on the far horizon… All too clearly, the small white dot is an iceberg. Why whoever took the picture failed to verify this fact remains a mystery.” (11)
“They sang at the tops of their lungs and they sang the old hymns because they were the only songs they mutually knew. Clifford also knew an obscene version of ‘Oh, Susannah!’ which he sang in a high, clear tenor with exactly the same pitch of intensity he’d just applied to the Old Hundredth.” (28)
“Would it be a Webley or a Colt—a Browning or a Savage? It’s fate, like the fate of Leopold Bloom’s bar of soap, became a minor Odyssey.” (32)
“Directly opposite the door, there was a wall that was covered with paintings of Odalisques and mirrors, so the first thing you saw was yourself, intermingled with a lot of pink arms and pale breasts.” (34)
“Ella got off the bed and tip-toed to the wall. Robert thought she was going to listen—but, instead, she leaned in close and placed her eye to one of the lilacs.” (39)
“Taffler had long since gone and the rumor was he’d been returned to France, although his picture appeared in the Canadian Illustrated—showing him in London with Lady Barbara d’Orsey: HERO AND DAUGHTER OF MARQUIS!” (41)
“Dead men are serious—that’s what this photograph is striving to say. Survival is precluded. Death is romantic—got from silent images.” (44)
“Oh—I can tell you, sort of, what it might be like to die. The Death of General Wolfe. Someone will hold my hand and I won’t really suffer pain because I’ve suffered that already and survived. In paintings—and in photographs—there’s never any blood. At most, the hero sighs his way to death while linen handkerchiefs are held against his wounds. His wounds are poems.” (44)
“… Afterwards, my mother will escort her friends across the rugs and parquet floors to see this photograph of me and everyone will weep and walk on tip-toe.” (45)
“I will have the Military Cross. He died for King and Country—fighting the war to end all wars. 5 x 9 and framed in silver.” (45)
“Oddly, too, he didn’t feel like sending love to anyone. It seemed unmanly. What he did do was enclose a photograph (official) and say to his father: ‘This will show you that my draft makes a brawling, husky lot of men…’” (46)
“The three of them went in and stood at the back and just as they did, the whole congregation stood up and began to sing.
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sign to the Lord with cheerful voice… “ (50-51)
“Calmer waters on earlier voyages had given him a false impression: the sea was deep—but temperate. It rolled you to your destination on the long green sweep of glassy swells. Any storms that troubled it got there by way of Joseph Conrad and the Boy’s Own Annual.” (51)
“In the ballroom there was a grand piano fixed to the floor and on one of the earlier evenings four blond men stood up and sang and thumped the entire score from Pinafore.” (52)
“He claimed the privilege of having lost his voice and spent the voyage sitting propped against his pillows drinking brandy from a silver cup and reading the works of G.A. Henty.” (53)
“He would sit on his bunk and polish his boots and buttons, nattering at Ord—completely unaware that Ord had fallen asleep up above or that With Clive in India was about to fall on his head.” (54)
“He looked down from his bunk where, by now, he was With Wolfe at Quebec—and appointed Robert as Harris’s successor.” (55)
“Robert suddenly realized he didn’t know where to fire at the horse and was about to ask when he remembered that somewhere in Chums—as a boy—he’d seen a picture of a cowboy shooting his horse behind the ear. The image rose in his mind—black and white and clumsily drawn—a child’s world picture of exactly what to do.” (60)
“He had gotten all the way to being With Wellington at Waterloo and he offered Robert a silver cup of brandy.” (62)
“He and Mrs Ross got on board their private railway car and rode through the night. She exhorted him to read to her. He read her Huckleberry Finn.” (64)
“’Come on back to the raf’, Huck honey.’ And this was what they called the wars. (65)
“All these letters, neatly folded and tied, were laid in an oblong lacquered box beside the silent, booted icon of ROBERT ROSS, SECOND LIEUTENANT, C.F.A. in the silver frame on the black walnut table in the parlour.” (65)
Loneliness/ The Journey to Identity Part Two.
“All he wanted was a dream. Escape. But nobody dreams on a battlefield. There isn’t any sleep that long. Dreams and distance are the same. If he could run away…like Longboat. Put on his canvas shoes and the old frayed shirt and tie the cardigan around his waist and take off over the prairie…But he kept running into Taffler. Throwing stone. And Harris.” (91)
“The hours were made worthwhile whenever Harris woke and smiled and sometimes Robert had to look away because he was confused by what he felt.” (93)
“The thing was –no one since Rowena had made Robert feel he wanted to be with them all the time. If what he felt could be reduced to an understanding –that was it. ‘I have to get over there and see him,’ Robert would think every morning when he woke up. He also wanted to be there if Harris spoke.” (93)
“Harris said the strangest things –lying on his pillow staring at the ceiling. Strange and provocative. Robert didn’t know, sometimes, what to do with Harris’s sentences; where to fit them in his mind, or how to use them. He only knew they went somewhere inside him and they didn’t come back out.” (93)
“Taffler was looking more like a Boy’s Own Annual hero than ever, dressed in his uniform with its green field tabs; carrying a swagger stick and groomed within an inch of his life. He’d just had his hair cut –a sure sign he was returning to the front. It was always the last thing you did. His head seemed enormous. His eyes and his mouth were like pictures of a mouth and eyes: static. His hands were naked. Robert blushed.” (94)
“Robert asked who he was. The nurse said ‘Captain Villiers.’ Then she said something strange that made Robert blush –though he didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the nurse’s vehemence –and the way she lowered her voice. ‘Just don’t ask me about the women. I don’t know how she dares to come here.’ That woman was Barbara d’Orsey.” (96)
“The thing you want to know about is Barbara meeting Robert and how it was that Harris brought about their ultimate relationship. These are the circles –all drawing inward to the thing that Robert did. You know –I’m guessing at this –but I think that Robert was in love with Harris. Somewhat the same way Jamie had been in love with Clive.” (101)
“But love –yes. Robert, though he never said so, loved Harris. It was clear in the way he dealt with his death and in the way he spoke of him afterwards to me.” (101)
“After, when Taffler had put his jacket on and he and Robert had struggled back into their greatcoats, the three of them walked away towards the Royal Naval College, Barbara trailing rose petals and Barbara said to Robert: You may not realize, Lieutenant Ross, that General Wolfe was born at Greenwich. No. Robert hadn’t realized. Yes, said Barbara. Then he grew up and got your country for us. Robert said: No, ma’am. I think we got it for him. We? Barbara asked. Soldiers, said Robert. It was the first time he’d truly thought of himself as being a soldier.” (106)
Part Two: Gender/Sexuality
“Poole’s breathing was harsh and liquid. He’d probably caught a cold in the marshes. It reminded Robert of Harris-and that was the last thing he needed reminding of. (91)
“But he kept running into Taffler. Throwing stones. And Harris. (91)
“Robert went nearly every day to visit his friend.”(92)
“Robert sat in the midst of all this wearing his polished boots and his uniform with the spotless breeches and he crossed his feet beneath the chair and folded his hands and watched for hours while Harris fought for breath. The hours were made worthwhile whenever Harris woke and smiled and sometimes Robert had to look away because he was confused by what he felt.” (92 – 93)
“The thing was – no one since Rowena had made Robert feel he wanted to be with them all the time. (93)
“His head seemed enormous. His eyes and mouth were like pictures of a mouth and eyes: static. His hands were naked. Robert blushed” (94)
“…but I think Robert was in love with Harris. Somewhat the same way Jamie had been in love with Clive. It may be pedestrian to say so – but the truth is often pedestrian and I think the fact is that extremely physical men like Robert and Jamie and Taffler are often extremely sensitive men as well” (101)
“But love-yes. Robert, though he never said so, loved Harris. It was clear in the way he dealt with his death and in the way he spoke of him afterwards to me.” (101)
“When he died, Robert took his gloves with the bitten fingers and the long blue scarf he’d wound around his neck.” (104)
“…he discovered to his horror that Harris had been cremated…Robert sat in the foyer of the hospital with the box in his lap. He sat there for hours.”(104)
Part 5 – Mental Illness /Madness
“The attendants were chosen from the best adjusted patients and often they would be no more than retarded.”(172)
“It began like that. As nothing more than an angry man who was slightly crazy”(172)
“Then he turned around and began to help the other survivors extricate themselves from the dead”(180) (Madness)
“His body was completely numb and his mind had shrunk to a small, protective shell in which he hoarded the barest essentials of reason.” (182)
“But he was afraid of Captain Leather. ‘Leather is insane’…” (183)
“… looking at the whole scene laid out before him and his anger rose to such a pitch that he feared he was going to over into madness.” (184)
“He decided that, plainly he was dealing with a man gone mad and thay he must act in accordance with that …” (191)
“… What he did next cannot be interpreted as being any less ‘mad’ than what Robert had done in taking the horses …”(191)
“…to assure us that the killer –Ross would not escape. And were should he escape to? Death? …” (194)
“I tell you it drove me mad – the sight of that spick and span …” (194)
Violence Part 3
“When the mines went up the earth swayed.”(109)
“The blows came upward into his stomach and groin.”(109)
“As the pounding of the guns increased there was a howling…”(109)
“All that could be heard was the guns and the urgent breathing of the three men.”(112)
“This was normal procedure when there were no specific firing instructions and the front was quite”(113)
“The shells, for the more part, bursting in the air…”(113)
“The driven, ceaseless pounding of the guns (from both sides now) had nothing to do with the bursting of the shell and the bursting of the shells had nothing to do with the thudding of the earth beneath one’s feet.”(113-114)
“The Germans had started putting over 5.9s by now and sixty or seventy shells had landed while Robert waited to send his message.”(115)
“Robert pointed out where the mines had been blown…”(115-116)
“…the forward trench they found it so shot up and cut off from the rest of the line…”(117)
“You got your mortars into them and started firing.”(119)
“The back of his neck was like a board-waiting for the shot that would kill him.”(120)
“The Germans were going to attack.”(122)
“At any moment the Germans would appear, for surely the gas had been the prelude to their attack.”(126)
“He saw the German reaching over the lip of the crater. Something exploded. The German gave a startled cry and was suddenly dead, with his arms dangling down.”(130)
“…the night lit up in flames of a terrible new weapon and the days impalled in smoke.”(131)
“Liquid warfare”(132)
“…asphyxiated in the gas attack”(133)
“Rod well wandered into No Man’s Land and put a bullet between his ears.”(135)
Part 3: Mental Illness / Madness
“’Where is Poole?’ said Robert… ‘Who is Poole?’ said Levitt. ‘God damn it!’ said Robert …‘Please don’t swear at me, Lieutenant Ross,’ said Levitt. ‘I really can’t bear it’ Robert said: ‘Will you see what you can do about getting Captain Rodwell off my back?’ ‘Yes,’ said Levitt, ‘but please don’t swear at me.’… Levitt-who in fact was suffering from shock- stood quite still for a moment looking about the half- collapsed dugout.” (110-111)
“A wedge of chicken wire was sticking out of Rodwell’s knee. He plucked it away and threw it aside. ‘Ouch,’ he said- and laughed.” (111)
“Rodwell started lighting candles and setting them on top of the books- the only level surface in the dugout. ‘ Would you please not put them there?’ said Levitt. ‘I’m doing my best to clean things up and get this place in order. You fellows just keep knocking everything down and putting things where they don’t belong! Leave my books alone!’ There was an edge of craziness in his voice that sounded dangerous.” (112)
“Robert began to pull aside debris. Rodwell helped. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ said Levitt. ‘You’re doing it again! You’re messing everything up!’ Rodwell turned and struck him in the face. Instantly, Levitt turned and ran from the dugout. (112)
“Wherever it was wet, their fingers only made furrows and nothing could be pulled away. All they got for their frantic digging was clay beneath their fingernails… It was futile. Still- they didn’t stop for a second.” (112)
“Everything moved slow- motion – even things that fell seemed to float… There was a lot of noise but none of it seemed to be connected with what one saw…Everything was out of sync.” (113-114)
“Robert slid and stumbled down towards the crater thinking that surely one of his men at least had survived. But the trench where they had been did not exist… It was madness. The trench itself and all communication trenches were clogged with dead and wounded…” (114)
“The Germans had started putting over 5.9s by now and sixty or seventy shells had landed while Robert waited to send his message… One or two came fairly close and everyone dived for the floor… Standing up after one of the closer calls, a bright young man with popping eyes turned to Robert and gushed at him: ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’” (115)
“Leather even said ‘Just so’ when Robert explained that he hadn’t been able to locate his men and that he feared they had all been killed.” (116)
“Gun beds would have to be put in ‘here and here’ and ‘there and there’. Here and there was all right- but the there and there was a death trap…Robert felt constrained to silence. He wanted to advise Captain Leather of the state that Levitt was in…he wanted to say the forwards positions were crazy… But he didn’t say anything.” (116)
“… Bates just yelled out: ‘Don’t you stop for nothin’ or I’ll shoot youse myself!’ Robert believed him and hurried forward with his Webley drawn lest he fall and have to defend himself from his zealous corporal.” (117)
“When they reached what remained of the forward trench they found it so shot up and so cut off from the rest of the line that none of the dead or wounded… had yet been moved… One man lay alive on a stretcher while at either end the stretcher bearers curled like caterpillars- dead. All the walking wounded had departed; these that were left must wait perhaps to the end of the day before anyone would come to get them out.” (117-118)
“…Robert and the others had to press forward. That was the rule. No one went back- even for a dying comrade.”(118)
“Bates did not look at the terrain. He looked at Robert… a child in breeches with a blue scarf wound around his neck whose job it was to get them out and back alive. This – to Bates – was the greatest terror of war… What if they were mad- or stupid?” (119)
“Gas… ‘Put on your masks,’ Robert whispered… ‘We can’t sir,’ said Bates. ‘They sent us up so quick that none of us was issued masks.’ ‘Every man is issued a mask!’ Robert shouted out loud. (It was like being told that none of the men had been issued boots.) ‘No, sir,’ said Bates. ‘It ain’t true.’ (123)
“In seconds there was a nightmare. All too quickly they discovered they could not touch the bottom. Three of the men could not swim…Robert found he was saving a man who was already dead…For a moment they ceased to be soldiers and became eight panic- stricken men who were trapped in the bottom of a sink hole either about to be drowned or smothered to death...” (124)
“Eight men and one mask. Robert had to fight to keep it and he ended up kicking both the living and the dead. At last, lying flat on his back, he managed to get the automatic out of his pocket and using both hands he pointed it straight to Bates. ‘Tell them to back off,’ he said; ‘or by Jesus I’ll fire!’… One of the men began to run. Robert fired.” (124)
“What happened next was all so jumbled and fast that Robert was never to sort it out. He fell. He turned. He saw the German reaching over the lip of the crater. Something exploded. The German gave a startled cry and was suddenly dead…lying in the mud about a foot from the young man’s hand. Binoculars. He had only been reaching for his binoculars.” (130-131)
“One say bled into the next… Day and night became inseparable- the nights lit up with the flames of a terrible new weapon and the days impalled with smoke.” (131)
“It was something called a ‘flame thrower’ and rumours had come down the line describing it- but no one believed… Don’t be ridiculous …A: men would not do such things and, B: they could not. Then they did.” (132)
“ Levitt had gone quite mad and sat with his books piled up on his knees until they touched his chin.” (133)
“…Robert and Bonnycastle fought in confusion over who was in command of the guns. But there were no guns…But Roots had brought them over. No. Yes. No. How many gunners were alive? There was a man called Bates. Rodwell disappeared for twenty- four hours. No one could remember where he was- or if his section had survived or perished.” (133)
“… Rodwell had shot himself. Apparently he’s gone ‘down the line’ and been assigned to a company… Some of them were madmen…. When Rodwell arrived, he found them slaughtering rats and mice- burning them alive… Rodwell being Rodwell, had tried to stop them. They would not be stopped… they’d forced him to watch the killing of a cat. Half an hour later, Rodwell… put a bullet through his ears.” (135)
“Mrs. Ross began to seek out storms… If someone known should come along the street, she’d close her eyes and let them pass unseen. She carried a stick… she paused and threw her stick way out above the tree tops and watched it whirling through the snow until it disappeared. ‘There,’ she said; ‘it’s gone.’ Then she stood there till her furs and veils were layered white and Mr. Aylesworth stopped his motorcar to see if anything was wrong.” (136)
“In March… Mrs Ross put on the gardener’s rubber boots and walked in the mud.” (136)
“Mr. Ross would look at his wife across the table…in his mind, would recreate the past and watched her as she was when they first met.” (137)
“Across the table, she was hiding…He’d smile and she would stare as if he wasn’t there. He became a portion of her silence. He was just another room through which she passed towards the dark.” (138)
Part 1 Gender / Sexuality
‘Interested’ led to marriage and this is what Heather Lawson wanted. So did her parents. Robert was a fine catch for any girl (10~11).
“I guess you saw them all as beautiful because you couldn’t’t bear to see them broken” (12).
‘Oh - far from it! It’s the ordinary men and women who’ve made us what we are. Monstrous, complacence and mad… why, such men are just the butcher and the grocer’ (13).
At school he’d been taught that hunching the shoulders was an ungallant posture; still he maintained it while the engine bellowed and hissed” (13).
He was shy of girls, just now - discovered he was not in love with Heather Lawson…What did women mean to do with men? (14).
He was handsome - no question - even though his ears stuck out a bit too far and his jaw was unfashionably wide in an age of pointed features. Something in the way he stood appealed to her(15).
‘there’s a queer young lad out there who doesn’t seem to want to leave…’ (15)
Mrs Ross retired to her bedroom.
Mister Ross went up and knocked at the door.
No, she said (19).
Robert watched her with his arms hanging over the sides of the tub and the only sound was the dripping of the taps and the splash of a washcloth sliding into the water like something from the sea - afraid (21).
After this, she sighed and crossed her legs - looking as if she always came and sat in the bathroom with her son while he bathed (23).
For awhile, he was known as ‘Red’. This was the source, perhaps, of Robert’s popularity. In spite of his aloofness- no one could dislike a man who blushed (24).
He had also been a Varsity all-around athlete, though this was before Robert’s time and therefore Taffler’s face was not familiar to him. His name, however, was credential enough… He was over six feet tall and his face and torso were shrouded in dust. His mouth, his eyes and his nipples looked as if someone had been sculpting him and had left their thumbprints behind (29).
A man to whom war wasn’t good enough unless it was bigger then he was. Bam! A David. A man who made his peace with stones (31).
He was shamed into going. If tou didn’t go, you were peculiar. It was that simple. The barracks and the boarding school leave little room for the individuals when it comes to sex. Either you ‘do’ or you ‘don’t’ and if you ‘don’t’ you face a kind of censure most men would rather avoid.
As for its being against his better judgement - Robert was certain he would fail (32 ~33).
The women - (or girls: they were really both) - at first appeared to be dressed like actresses in a play. The colours they wore were high-toned and garishly mixed: chartreuse and black - orange and blue. It was not until his eyes had adapted to the golden glow of the lamps that Robert realized he could see right through the dresses and the shadows weren’t shadows but the shadings of hair and of nipples roughed with henna (34~35).
Her shoulders were naked bones and her eyelids were pained black. She was wearing a violet dress that was open down the from and tied with a sash and she seemed to be a walking pelvis (35).
She put both her arms around his neck and pressed her pelvis hard agains his groin. Robert was immobilized.
‘Move,’ she said and pushed (35).
‘isn’t there nothing special you’d like?’ she said. ‘I mean - here we are and everything.’ She turned around and leaned against the wash-stand, playing with her sash, threatening to reveal herself.
Robert didn’t know what to say. What was special?
‘Look,’ said Ella. ‘This is what I’m paid for. To make ya happy. O.K.?’
But how? Robert wanted to ask - except he didn’t know how to put that into words. (37)
‘Don’t ya wanta touch me?’ said Ella.
Yes; Robert thought. And no. he had sort of a problem he couldn’t discuss (37).
‘Oh,’ said Ella. But she was kind about it. She went on smiling - and kissed him at the corner of his lips. When she withdrew her hand, she kept it in a fist and crossed to the washstand. Then she picked up a towel and told him to stand up.
‘You take them off,’ she said, nodding at his trousers; ‘an; I’ll clean you up.’
Robert had ejaculated coming up the stairs. His body hadn’t waited for his mind. It did things on its own (37~38).
Robert wanted to cover himself but he didn’t know how to do that without making it look as if that was what he was doing. He thought of rolling over - but that would expose his backside (38).
She says if you go away unlaid, her house’ll get a bad reputation. No one’s s’pposed to go away unlaid. That’s her rule (39).
Robert heard a thump in the next room.
Then there were several other thumps and the sound of someone being slapped. Robert was sorry you would here through the walls. He thought: now someone knows about me (39).
The rider was using a long silk scarf as reins and the horse was biting into the other end with his teeth. The only sound was the sound of brething and of bedsprings. The rider held the reins in one hand and, using a soldier’s stiff- peaked cap, beat the horse on the things - one side and then the other. And the tow - both horse and rider - were staring into one another’s eyes with an intensity unlike any other Robert had ever seen in a human face. Panic (40).
THE MAN BEING RIDDEN was Taffler. The rider was the Swede.
Goliath (41).
Three days before, with a bottle of wine provided by Clifford Purchas, he celebrated his birthday. They did this at - midnight - singing songs in the latrine, long after lights out. Robert even smoked a cigarette. He was nineteen years old (42~43).
Clifford Purchas said that Robert should send his ‘love’ to Peggy. Robert nodded as though he might - but he didn’t (46).
‘This will show you that my draft makes a brawling, husky lot of men. Not quiet gunners or drivers yet - just as I cant quite feel that I’m a solider myself. Every time you think you’re ready, someone says you’re not. This is the way it’s been since the beginning. Every time you get in shape, they either take away our men or send you off to some new place where everyone is raw (46).
… the officers were very young and most of them were slimly built compared to the veterans of lumber camps and railroad gangs. In the end, it was only their mutual obedience to some intrinsic tyranny that held the men and the officers in check - apart (53).
He could not have been more then sixteen years old, in spite of what he must have told the induction officer. He was presently sitting on the steps with the rats at his feet and the wails of the fallen horse in the shadows beyond him. Regis had been weeping and his face was streaked with dust (58).
Monty Miles Raymond was everyone’s favourite young man. All the girls loved him - all the boys wanted to be his friend (63).
Mental Illness / Madness part 4
“At one point she raised her cup and in the accent of an actress born to play Eliza Doolittle she said: ‘gin was mother’s-milk to her’ and grinned”. (144)
“He loathed the country. He loathed his children. He probably loathed his wife. Juliet barely remembered him. The salient fact of his existence, so far as she was concerned, was his funeral”. (144-145)
“….every time one of the pacifists started to speak Michael called across the room to someone else and asked them at the top of his voice if they wanted more sandwiches or cake”. (153)
“….the Earl of Bath, was dreadfully wounded in the civil war and was hidden in the room I have described where Robert slept at St Aubyn’s”. (154)
“Captain Taffler didn’t want to live”. (155)
“One of the walls was covered with great wide swipes of red at shoulder height where he must have been rubbing his wounds to make them bleed”. (155-156)
“… I saw him firing his gun in the woods at a young tree….. He absolutely destroyed it”. (156)
“She told Lady Holman she thought Mrs. Dolby must be mad to encourage father not to come and say goodbye to his sons but stay in town instead to entertain their murderer”. (157)
Blog Assignment 3
3- Animal/ Animal Imagery
“ Behind him, there are forty horses- every fifth horse bearing a rider.” (69)
“ Robert knew it was French because he recognized that vaches were cows.” (71)
“ They reined in their horses.” (72)
“ They were joined by the rider behind them with four horses.” (73)
“ Robert on his horse, leaning forward to rest his stomach muscles, and the two men down in the road with the horses.” (73)
“ ‘Birds,’ said Poole.” (73)
“ ‘ I’d be very surprised if any birds has survived in his place,’ said Robert.” (73)
“ The horses shield and one of them snorted. Robert stood in his stirrups trying to see what it was that had flown. More and more of whatever it was flew up after it. A whole flock of something. Ducks?” (73)
“ All at once the air was filled with shock waves of wings- sheet after sheet of them, rising off some marsh they could not see.” (73)
“ The birds, being gone, had taken some mysterious presence with them.” (74)
“ Robert heard wings above them and around them. The birds were coming back.” (74)
“ Poole led the horses back in Robert’s direction.” (74)
“ The horses didn’t like being made to stand still. The wings had alarmed them.” (74)
“ ‘ Name all the birds you can think of,’ said Robert.” (75)
“ ‘ Storks,’ said Poole.” (75)
“ Ducks. They must have been ducks. They’re flying north and they need some place to rest so they’ve chosen these fields.” (75)
“ ‘ Where’s your horse?’ Robert asked.” (75)
“ ‘ And why aren’t you riding a horse? You shouldn’t come up here without a horse.” (75)
“ Levitt went on, ‘since there were all those horses and someone who knew …” (76)
“ Three men and seven horses.” (76)
“ He stayed on the horse, knowing the horse’s footing would be surer, more sensitive than his own. His father had taught him always to trust the horse’s judgment above his own when it came to path-finding.” (77)
“ One of the bids flew up and cut across Robert’s path. The horse shield. “ (77)
“ The horse turned sideways- this side then the other. Any ways but forward. Robert reined him in” (77)
“ He got down and shouted back that they should stay by his horse until he’d found the break.” (77)
“ Robert yelled and grabbed at it. Bones and claws. It drew away. Robert shuddered. Birds. (79)
“ They’d been crows al along- with wings as long as arms. When Poole and Levitt reached him with the horses, Poole got Robert to his feet…” (79)
“ The only sounds were the sounds of feeding and of wings.” (80)
“ Still, the horse had to swim for it. Robert took his boots out of his stirrups. He lay along the horse’s neck and held onto its mane with one hand. In his other hand he held the lead line to three horses who came through the river behind him. He could feel the surge of water against his legs as the horse’s flank was turned but the current- but cold as it was…”(80)
“ The hardest part was not to swim himself- but to let the horse do the swimming. It was an odd sensation, being drawn through the water, almost submerged with his clothes flowing back and his knees pressed hard against the horse and the stirrups banging against his ankles. Pegasus. When he got to the other bank, Robert fell off the horses and the horse went suddenly up the incline without him.” (80)
“ The long meandering line of horses and wagons starched ahead of him, black and sharp against the snow.” (81)
“ Each man had charge of a Section- seventy-five men and ninety-five horses.” (81)
“ … depicted the flight into Egypt- (head of the donkey and head of the Virgin).”(84)
“ He was working at a forge and held a gigantic ‘butterfly’ in a pair of tongs. The butterfly was rather grotesque and one had top assume that it was such.” (84)
“ ‘ Birds. Rabbits. Hedgehogs. Toads and things…’” (86)
“ Down in their cages the animal stirred ruffling their fur and feathers. The toad's eyes glistened in the lamplight. " (87)
" ' I wanted to join the cavalry, but the cavalry is sort of on the outs,' said Levitt." (88)
" ' Where did you find the hedgehog?' Robert asked." (88)
" ' Toad, there-I think of him as he." (89)
" Rodwell's squinting against the smoke and the animal's staring at the dark that only they could penetrate Rodwell held the toad in its cage in his lap." (91)
" His toes were curled like fists inside his boots- like a monkey's toes or the claw of a bird that are locked to a branch Robert smiled." (91)
" Like a seal." (93)
" Tall as a giraffe." (99)
" Barbara always tagged long when Clive and Jamie took the horses out." (99)
" And whales. He told of having swum with schools of whales and claimed that underwater you could hear them sing. Robert was sceptical. Whales made no sound at all. Now, of course, we know that Harris was right. I even have a recording of whales myself. But Robert didn't believe it. Then. Harris sad that sometimes the whales would beach themselves and then the fisherman would come in boats and slaughter them." (103)
" And the birds come from the sea in eggs. Horses lie in the sea before they're born." (103)
" It bean with Robert lying under his bunk with a rabbit, a hedgehog, and a bird." (106)
Part 4 - Violence
“Once the reality of Flanders struck and it was clear that the horrors of Kitchener’s army were real and omnipresent, a flood of Clive and Barbara’s friends in need of the rest began to give the place to feel of a hostel.” (146)
“This was about the time that Robert Ross returned from the Battle of St Eloi and accepted an invitation to visit St Aubyn’s.” (146)
“I tried to imagine someone like Michael losing both his arms and no one telling me and me just barging in and finding him that way.” (150)
“And Michael said even if it was a rumour her brother Baron Von Richthofen had killed a lot of brave British airmen and it wasn’t right and proper to have such a woman in our house with men like Taffler lying downstairs without arms.” (153)
“Hey lover, the Earl of Bath, was dreadfully wounded in the Civil Wars and was hidden in the room I have described where Robert slept at St Aubyn’s.” (154)
“She was damaged in the Second World War when the buzz-bomb fell on Parson’s wing.” (154)
“One of the walls was covered with great wide swipes of red at shoulder height where he must have been rubbing his wounds to make them bleed.” (156)
“Please don’t let it be the German measles come to disgrace us just when the Kaiser’s winning the war!” (159)
Loneliness/ Journey to identity- Part 3
“He apologized- even though he knew the man was dead” (114).
“Robert wondered afterward if setting the rat free has been a favor- but in the moment that he did it he was thinking: here is someone still alive” (114).
“Robert’s stomach sank as he realized he was going to be put in change of whatever scheme had brought captain Leather forward” (115).
“One man lay alive on a stretcher while at either end the stretcher bearers curled like caterpillars-dead. All the walking wounded had departed; these that were left must wait perhaps to the end of the day before anyone would come to get them out” (118).
“Then he smiled. He knew that his father would take one look at the crater and tell him not to go” (119).
“He was quite convinced that Robert had lost his reason- but you have to obey a man with a gun-mad or sane” (125).
“Robert sagged against the ground. It was even worse than that. Lying beside the German was a modified Mauser rifle of kind used by snipers. He could have killed them all. Surely that has been his intention. But he’d relented. Why? The bird sang. One long note descending: three that wavered on the brink of sadness. That was why. It sang and sang and sang, till Robert rose and walked away. The sound of it would haunt him to the day he died” (131).
“Mrs. Ross took pleasure in the rain and snow. She pushed her veiling back and let them beat against her face. She never spoke to anyone she met” (136).
“On days when Mrs. Ross was drunk, she sat on Rowena’s chair and Davenport would wheel her all the way to Chestnut Park and back” (136).
Robert’s letters were read and re-read numbered and catalogued and memorized” (137).
“Mr. Ross would look at his wife across the table at the evening meal and never ask her what she’d done that day. Though he missed her terribly, he never complained” (137).
“Being loved was letting others feed from your resources-all you had of life was put in jeopardy” (137).
“He’d smile and she would stare as if he wasn’t there. He became a portion of her silence. He was just another room though which she passed towards the dark” (138).
Violence Part 2:
“Here the ridge is what you fought for. If you could gain its height you had the advantage. So far the fighting had failed to dislodge them. The plain on which Ypres stands stretches like a broken arm through Europe...” (69)
“... the water rises at you out of the ground. It rises from your footprints – and an army marching over a field can cause a flood. In 1916, it was said that you ‘waded to the front’. Men horses sank from sight. They drowned in mud.” (70)
“Nothing is worse than shellfire in the dark. Running was pointless at any rate, except to find some cover for your head – but here in the open any attempt to run in darkness led to drowning.” (70)
“This place was called Asile Desolé, which means desolated or devastated refuge ... it had been shelled in some previous war.” (70)
“The man threw down his hat and began to shout. ‘Enklesh! Enklesh! Vous êtes anglais? Maudit anglais!” he screamed. Robert became alarmed. He backed his horse away, but the man pursued him.” (71)
“- his previous officer having been killed when he stepped outside one evening ‘for a breath of air’. The breath of air had blown his head off” (72)
“There’s some that says a handful of this clay could knock a person out.” (72)
“Faraway there was a booming noise. Guns. “ (77)
“He pushed. He tried to force his pelvis forward and up. The muscles in his stomach made a knot... It began to make a sucking noise at the back of his legs. The fog came down like a muffler over his face... – he would suffocate and drown.” (78)
“He reached above his head and shoved his hands down hard through the mud until he could curl his fingers deep in the earth. He pulled himself forward with his legs like twisted ropes and then he gave a violent, sudden spasm and flopped face down in the slush.” (79)
“Robert desperately tried to see but his eyes wouldn’t open. They were flooded with burning tears and his lids wouldn’t lift.” (79)
“The Second Battle of Ypres had taken place in April of 1915 and from that time forward till the end of the war the city would remain in Allied hands.” (81)
“The size of the order would depend on how long the guns were required to fire. If they were to fire, for instance, for two hours – you knew that was important.” (82)
“Sometimes, the air would be full of aeroplanes. Then the anti-aircraft guns would open fire. These were called Archies ... “ (82)
“... their objective was to create a ‘zone of death.’... Two million shells were fired that first day at the rate of 100,000 rounds per hour. The bombardment lasted for twelve hours. That same day...Huns were also making a gas attack... “ (82)
“The past week there had been almost continuous scrapping in their region, so when Robert and Levitt came down from the O.P... they discovered there was practically nothing left of the trenches.” (83)
“This fragment showed his sword and helmet – laid at his bloodies feet.” (84)
“’Clausewitz says the true basis of combat is man to man. He says for that reason an army of artillery is an absurdity...’ Somebody coughed.” (87)
“[Clausewitz] says in that way the enemy’s forces must come themselves and seek their own destruction. That way, he says, the whole war can be carried out as a serious, formal miunet...’” (90)
“The sound of distant rifle fire clattered against the dark like a handful of pebbles thrown against a window pane.” (90)
“The smoke from the brazier burned his eyes.” (90)
“His fingers, inspite of gloves, were bound to bleed before morning because they clung so tightly to the wire.” (91)
“At night – the Zeppelins came. There was a sense of silent menace.” (92)
“...I was blinded by their scales. We swam into seaweed. Kelp. Long, slippery arms, like horses’ tails. It caught around my neck and I thought I couldn’t breathe – that I was going to drown and die.” (93)
“When they’d gone Robert could feel the man in the bandages ‘screaming’ and the sensation of this silent agony at the other end of the room was finally so strong that Robert had to go and get one of the nurses.” (96)
“...the man had been trapped in a fire and his vocal cords destroyed when he’d swallowed the flames.” (96)
“The only time that anger flashes is when she mentions his detractors. The name of Stuart Ross, for instance, causes her to stutter.” (98)
“Well – he had to indicate that she was mucking up a friendship. She came storming into the house ...and flew around in an absolute rage.” (99)
“Barbara’s wrath. Her coldness in the presence of someone else’s death. No one else was allowed to love – or possess- or steal her heroes and her lovers.” (100)
“[Clive] was killed on the First of July.’ ...21,000 British soldiers were killed – 35,000 were wounded and 600 taken prisoner by the Germans.” (100)
“’He was taking his troops to the front and they were walking along a road that had been shelled and he saw a soldier lying dead by the road whose head had been smashed.” (101)
“There was so much death. No one can imagine...These were murders. By the thousands.”(102)
“...The Germans set off a string of land-mines ranged along the St. Eloi Salient... and the whole of the countryside seemed to jump into flames.” (106)
Jungian Psychology
Parts 4 & 5
“I took advantage I’m afraid, and gave myself the pleasure of the loveliest Mass you can imagine! The poor dreaded man would never have forgiven me of course – but you have to understand what it means to be able to order a mass and I knew I’d never have the opportunity again…” (145)
“I was looking through the toy box for some dominoes and found our old Pin the Tail On the Donkey game and – honestly – simply not able to stop myself because it was just too perfect – I crept around the corner and slipped it under Major Terry’s door.” (152)
“Tonight I prayed and prayed. I want to be a nun.” (156)
“This is when I fell in love with Robert Ross myself – if I may put it that way.” (156)
“And now I’ve done it again. This time I doubt that I shall ever be forgiven. By myself.” (159)
“The shape and the violence. Barbara was lying on the bed, so her head hung down and I thought that Robert must be trying to kill her.” (160)
“He hated small rooms – he hated being enclosed. He’d grown afraid of walls that pressed too close since the dugout had collapsed. He almost ran to the bathing room.” (172)
“Robert stood in the centre of the room. …He pulled out the drawers of the dresser one by one. He dumped them on the floor. He lifted the mattresses and pulled it sideways across the bed. …He threw the jug in the corner. It broke into sixteen pieces. He tipped the dresser. Nothing.” (176)
“Robert couldn’t stand it any longer and he said to Devlin: ‘I’m going to break ranks and save these animals. Will you come with me?’” (183)
“It took him half-an0hour to kill the mules and horses. Then he tore the lapels from his uniform and left the battlefield.” (184)
“He had feared she might be lame, but as soon as he approached she put her hoof back down on the cinders and raised her head…She greeted him with a snuffling noise…The dog, in the meantime, had got to his feet and was wagging his tail. It was as if both dog and horse had been waiting for Robert to come to them.” (188)
“Robert was inside – watching Mickle through a crack in the door. He had drawn the Webley and was quite prepared to shoot anyone who came in to get him or to release the horses.” (190)
“Robert’s answer to this was to take a shot at Mickle” (191)
“Robert was heard to say with great clarity: ‘The dog. The dog.’ And then he lost consciousness. The dog was never found.”(192)
“Juliet d’Orsey has said that she loved Robert Ross. There can be no doubt of this.” (195)
“Mister Ross was the only member of his family who came to see him buried.” (196)
Part 5
Loneliness /The Journey to Identity
“He felt as if he’d left his face behind in a mirror and the webley in a stranger’s hand.”(165)
“He sat on the bench with his collar up and settled down to sleep.”(166)
“He passed a number of deserted buildings. It was suddenly an empty landscape. Where had all the people gone? Robert felt abandoned…he wanted only to arrive.”(167)
“He felt—all at once—appallingly alone.”(169)
“ He slept with his fist in its place and the cold, wet blooming of four hundred thousand possibilities—of all those lives that would never be—one his fingertips.”(169)
“He hated small rooms—he hated being enclosed. He’d grown afraid of walls that pressed too close since the dugout had collapsed. He almost ran to the bathing room.”(172)
“Gun. Gun. Gun. He wanted his gun.”(176)
“They stood there. Robert wished all his heart that men could embrace. But he knew now they couldn’t. Mustn’t. He said goodbye quite suddenly.”(177)
“He wished that Poole would wave—but he didn’t. He went away and disappeared in the crowd.”(177)
“Robert sat on the mutilated mattress and opened his kit bag. Everything was there—including the picture of Rowena. Robert burned it in the middle of the floor. This was not an act of anger—but an act of charity.”(177-178)
“All the horses and mules were either dead or dying. It appeared that only Robert had survived.”(184)
“Twenty feet away, Robert sat on his haunches watching them. His pistol hung down from his fingers between his knees. He still wore his uniform with its torn lapels and burned sleeves. In the firelight, his eyes were very bright. His lips were slightly parted. He could not breathe through his nose. It was broken. His face and the backs of his hands were streaked with clay and sweat. His hair hung down across his forehead. He was absolutely still. He wandered now for a week.”(188)
“Robert appeared to be the sole survivor.”(188)
“…Robert called out very distinctly (and there are twenty witnesses to this): ‘We shall not be taken’. It was ‘we’ that doomed him.”(191)
“What in fact happened was that Robert began shouting ‘I can’t! I can’t! I can’t’ and by the time Mickle realized this meant ‘I can’t opened the doors,’ it was too late.”(192)
“Mickle admits that, at that moment, he said a prayer for Robert Ross—and the prayer was for a quick death.”(192)
“I said: ‘I will help you, if you want me to’. And I knew he understood—because he said: ‘Not yet’. Not yet. He might have said ‘No’. He might’ve said ‘never’. He might’ve said ‘Yes’. But he said ‘not yet’. There, in those two words, in a nutshell—you have the essence of Robert Ross.”(195)
“…According to the medical testimony—there was virtually no hope that he would ever walk or see or be capable of judgment again.”(195)
“…And there was always an unlit candle beside his bed.”(195)
“Minister Ross was the only member of his family who came to see him buried.”(196)
Social/ Political Commentary pt.2
"On either side the ditches are filled with fetid water. Everything is waterlogged" (Pg.69)
"At the center of the world is Ypres and all around the center lie the flats of Flanders" (Pg.69)
"The plain on which Ypres stands stretches like a broken arm through Europe from the Russian frontier to the border of Spain… once in Napoleons time it was the only way east" (Pg.69)
"Robert was trying to remember what it was like to bathe in hot water. He couldn’t" (Pg.74)
"The trumpet fell silent." (Pg.74)
"You weren’t a real soldier unless you were in jeopardy" (Pg.76)
"There's a man just there. He's dead I think." (Pg.79)
"It gave the war some meaning if you knew that the men who took your fire (and returned it) wore blue scarves or had grey mittens like your own." (Pg.82)
"They lived in dugouts." (Pg.83)
"He was very easily depressed. A single drop of rain could depress him." (Pg.86)
"Books eh? What a waste of a knapsack." (Pg.86)
"It was a popular hedge, just at that moment." (Pg.88)
"Everyone is strange in war I guess." (Pg.90)
"Sleep was dangerous. The animal memory in you knew that." (Pg.91)
"It was like a tunnel through which you walked not knowing your destination." (Pg.92)
"This was the beginning of the second phase of a battle that the Canadians had already thought was over." (Pg.106)
"In it 30,000 men would die and not an inch of ground would be won." (Pg.106)
Part III Violence
“Jesus. Gas. Bates had scrabbled up to the ledge. Put on your masks, Robert whispered. The air seemed to be alive with sibilance. The canisters were that close. Bates just stared. Put your mask on corporal bates! I can’t said bates. What the hell do you mean? Put your masks on. We can’t sir. Said Bates. They set us up so quickly that none of us were issued masks.”(137)
“Fire storms raged along the front, men were exploded where they stood- blown apart by the combustion. Winds with the velocity of cyclones tore the gas from their emplacements and flung them about like toys. Horses fell with their bones on fire. Men went blind in the heat, blood ran out of their noses, ears and mouths.”(148)
“ He fell. He turned. He saw the German reaching over the lip of the crater. Something exploded. The German gave a startled cry and was suddenly dead, with his arms dangling down.”(145)
“ The shot that had killed him rang around and around the crater like a marble in a bowl.” (145)
“ The Germans had started putting over 5.9s by now and sixty or seventy shells had landed while Robert waited to send his message.”(128)
“ When they reached what remained of the forward trench they found it so shot up and so cut off from the rest of the line the none of the dead or wounded Robert had encountered there in the dark had yet been moved.” (131)
“Each clip had seven cartridges. Seven. Seven. Seven time seven. Is forty-nine. Plus seven. Is fifty-six. If he hadn’t fired the gun – but he couldn’t remember that.” (137)
Violence- Part One
“Many men have died like Robert Ross, obscured by violence. Lawrence was hurled against a wall—Scott entombed in ice and wind—Mallory blasted on the face of Everest. Lost. We’re told Euripides was killed by dogs—and this is all we know. The flesh was torn and scattered—eaten. Ross was consumed by fire. These are like statements: ‘pay attention!’ People can only be found in what they do” (7).
“Mister Ross was coming into the house and Robert pushed him aside, almost knocking him down going through the back door” (20).
“Robert regained his feet and lunged, butting his head like a battering ram between the giant’s shoulder blades. Teddy only knew he was being attacked. He couldn’t see who by and he couldn’t imagine why. His reaction was immediate and sensible, under the circumstances. He reached up over his head and grasped the only thing that came to hand. One of Robert’s Indian clubs. With this he struck out blindly at the figure in the overcoat, whose face he could not see” (20-21)
“So what he wanted was someone else who had acquired that state of mind: who killed as an exercise of the will” (24).
“He drawled and squinted at the bottles—took aim and threw a stone. It arrived and the bottle was demolished. ‘That’s what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘Killing bottles.’” (29).
“‘All you get in this war,’ he said, ‘is one little David against another.’ Then he threw—and broke the tall, thin neck clean off. ‘Like that. Just a bunch of stone throwers.’” (30).
“He was thinking that perhaps he’d found the model he could emulate—a man to whom killing wasn’t killing at all but only throwing” (31).
“Mrs. Ross was forced to smile. Snowballs can’t be made from water” (51).
“His temperature soared an after a day-and-a-half he was taken down to the infirmary where he shared the attention of the medical officers with two of the men who had beaten one another senseless with the heels of their boots. One of them had stolen the other’s chocolate bar” (54).
“He pressed it hard behind the horse’s ear and swore at the horse: ‘God damn it, damn it, damn it—stop.’ His knees were wet and he drew himself into a ball and pushed it with all his strength. He began to squeeze the trigger and he squeezed it again and again and again—so many times that when the Sergeant- Major pulled him away the gun went right on clicking in his hands” (61).
Loneliness / The Journey to Identity Part Five
“…Robert was sent to one station and his kit bag was sent to another… It was strangely disconcerting to have lost it. He felt as if he’d left his face behind in a mirror” (165)
“He passed a number of deserted buildings. It was suddenly an empty landscape. Where had all the people gone? Robert felt abandoned.” (167)
“his beard and the shadows round the sockets of his eyes made him look like an old, old man. He smiled. He’d thought he would stand and see himself like a god in the glass—and there he was” a scarecrow.” (169)
“He made a fist around his penis. He thought how small it was. He drew his knees up. He felt—all at once—appallingly alone.” (169)
“He’d grown afraid of walls that pressed too close since the dugout had collapsed.” (172)
“They stood there. Robert wished with all his heart that men could embrace. But he knew now they couldn’t. Mustn’t.” (177)
“Everything was there—including the picture of Rowena. Robert burned it in the middle of the floor. This was not an act of anger—but an act of charity.” (177-178)
“I’m going to break ranks and save these animals.” (183)
“It appeared that only Robert had survived.” (184)
“If an animal had done this — we would call it mad and shoot it, and at that precise moment captain leather rose to his knees and began to struggle to his feet. Robert shot him between the eyes” (184)
“Robert appeared to be the only sole survivor.” (188)
“… within about four hours of Robert shooting private Casses, Major Mickie and forty men had taken after him on foot.” (190)
“He had drawn the Webley and was quite prepared to shoot at anyone who came in to get him or to release the horses.” (190-191)
“We shall not be taken” (191)
“… I said: ‘I will help you, if you want me to’ And I knew he understood — because he said: ‘not yet’. Do you see? He might have said ‘No’. He might’ve said ‘Never’. He might’ve said “Yes’. But he said ‘not yet’. There, in those two words, in a nutshell – you have the essence of Robert Ross.” (195)
Part 1- Loneliness/ Journey to Identity
“They look at you and rearrange their thoughts. They say : ‘I don’t remember.’ The occupants of memory have to be protected from strangers. Ask what happened, they say: ‘I don’t know.’ Mention Robert Ross--- they look away.” (6)
“People can only be found in what they do.” (7)
“Rowena, the eldest, is not shown. She is never in photographs that are apt to be seen in public. In fact, she is not much admitted into the presence of a camera. Robert has her picture on his bureau.” (9)
“It was Robert’s fault. Robert was her guardian and he was locked in his bedroom. Making love to his pillows. Jesus. She fell. It was Sunday. Robert wasn’t there.” (16)
“Robert envied him because he could go away when this was all over and surround himself with space. (It was then, perhaps, the first inkling came that it was time for Robert to join the army. But he didn’t think it consciously.)” (19)
“All he knew was that his hands felt empty. In his mind, they kept reaching out for the back of Rowena’s chair.” (19)
“The rabbits had to die--- and Robert had to do it.” (19)
“He fell against the side of the car and part of his sight took into the soldier standing there, lighting a cigarette--- and Robert yelled at him something like: ‘you bastard! Bastard! What are soldiers for?’… Robert regained his feet and lunged, butting his head like a battering ram between the gaint’s shoulder blades.” (20)
“What he wanted was a model. Someone who could teach him, by example, how to kill.” (24)
“One night, Robert ran with a coyote… The coyote had known he was there the whole time: maybe the whole of their run across the prairie.” (25-27)
“Clifford said: ‘That’s Eugene Taffler, you idiot.’…Taffler was a hero. He’d already been to France--- wounded and returned to Canada.” (29)
“Robert had to be coerced into going against his better judgment. But the ‘coercion’ was simple. He was shamed into going. If you didn’t go you were peculiar.” (32)
“Robert suddenly realized he didn’t know where to fire at the horse and was about to ask when he remembered that somewhere in Chums--- as a boy--- he’d seen a picture of a cowboy shooting his horse behind the ear.” (60)
“He began to squeeze the trigger and he squeezed it again and again and again--- so many times that when Sergeant- Major pulled him away the gun went right on clicking in his hands.” (61)
Animals part 3
“The bird shook its feathers” (110).
“The rabbit turned with its eyes shut right and huddled in the corner of its cage facing Robert. The hedgehog lay on its side in a ball” (110).
“A wedge of chicken wire was sticking out of Rodwell’s knee” (111).
“All the animals have survived, although the hedgehog still had not unrolled itself” (111).
“Rodwell found a spoon and a fork on the floor and they used these as claws” (112).
“I another hole there was a rat that was alive but trapped because of the waterlogged condition of earth that kept it collapsing every time it tried to ascend the walls” (114).
“I will be back in the dugout drinking tea with Rodwell and toad and I will be sending a runner to say this has been done” (119).
“They could just be sitting ducks and that would be the end of it” (121).
“All out once- a bird sang over their heads” (122).
“Some one swore as if the birds had given them away” (122).
“The crows started to call to one another” (126).
“A Bird sang, something like a white throated sparrow: one long note descended; three that wavered” (127).
“This was a bird that had sang before” (127).
“The bird had made him extremely nervous. Rob the Ranger always whistled like a white-throated if he saw an Indian moving in the woods. And the Indians hooted like owls and howled and barked and yipped like wolves. Robbers could meow like cats. Anyone in hiding was an imitation animal” (127).
“The bird sang” (128).
“The bird sang” (129).
“The rabbit, the hedgehog and the bird had died- asphyxiated in the gas attack” (133).
“Rodwell had saved the toad by putting it into the drinking water pail and placing sheets of Develin’s glass on top” (133).
“The toad had a choice” (133).
“’Free as a bird’ said Captain Leather” (134).
“These are my sketch book and the toad” (134).
“Take good care of the toad” (134).
“”When Rodwell arrived, he found them slaughtering rats and mice- burning them alive in their cooking fires” (135).
“’when the robins’” (137).
“She driven around and around the park in a shiny black phaeton by a spotted horse” (137).
“He though how marvelously cruel she was- to him and her pony- not to pause to let it drink and not to let him speak her name” (138).
“There was the toad” (138).
“Just a plain, bad-tempered grumpy toad” (138).
Social/ Political Commentary
Part 1
“This is the age of motorized portation” (8)
“Women abandon all their former reticence and rush out into the roadway, throwing flowers and waving flags. Here come the 48th Highlanders!! Kilts and drums and leopard skins… There is Sir Sam Huges standing on the dais, taking the farewell salute. ‘GOD SAVE THE KING!!!’” (8)
“A Band is assembled on the Band Shell- red coats and white gloves. They serenade the crowd with ‘Soldiers of the Queen’.”(9)
“But Mrs. Ross is adamant. Such things have to be done… someone has to do them. The leaders of society are dutybound- and what would people say…?” (10)
“Robert was a fine catch for any girl. He was a scholar and an athlete. Besides- he had money.” (11)
“Everyone wants to know what people look like. Somehow it seems to say so much about a person’s possibilities.” (12)
“My opinion was- he was a hero. Not your everyday Sergeant York or Billy Bishop, mind you! But a hero nonetheless.” (12)
“At school he’d been taught that hunching the shoulders was an ungallant posture”(13)
“Those people in the park-you-me-every one- the greatest mistake we mad was to imagine something magical separates us from Ludendorff and Kitchener and Foch. Our leaders, you see. Well- Churchill and Hitler, for that matter! (LAUGHTER) Why, such men are just the butcher and the grocer- selling us meat and potatoes across the counter. That’s what binds us together. They appeal to our basest instincts. The lowest common denominator. And then we turn around and call them extraordinary!” (13)
“He was handsome- no question- even though his ears stuck out a bit too far and his jaw was unfashionably wide in an age of pointed features.” (15)
“The week had no more meaning. Even holy days of abstinence and sober significance like Sundays and Eater, the trains came and went and the people got on and off laughing just as if the world wasn’t going to end.” (15)
“To these he was polite but he found excuse to keep them at bay. He wanted no attachments yet.” (24)
“the necessary accoutrement the army did not provide- such as liquid compasses and riding boots and blue-tinted field glasses… ‘DON’T THEY EVEN ARM YOU?’ his father telegraphed. ‘ONLY WITH ARTILLERY’ Robert replied.” (31)
“it should be pointed out that this was a ‘people’s army’- not an army of professionals. Officers provided their own uniforms and some times even their own horses if they to desired… Commissions could still be bought and event eh private solider got his socks form home.” (32)
“The houses were made of wood and have since been burned. The only building shared in common with the present was a General Store then run by a man named Oscar Dreyfus. But Dreyfus was a name that had fallen into bad repute, so the sign read OSCAR’S DRYGOODS.” (32)
“He was shamed into going. IF you didn’t go you were peculiar. It was that simple. The barracks and the boarding school leave little room for the individual when it comes to sex. Either you ‘do’ or you ‘don’t’ and if you ‘don’t’ you face a kind of censure most men would rather avoid.” (33)
“The road through Lousetown faded into grass beyond the garbage dump. It was not the sort of street that people hung about in, even in the best of weather.” (33)
“Robert began to stumble around to the music- ‘nigger music’ as it was called in those days- full of shouts and thumping pianos and a golden wailing cornet.” (35)
“Whores, of course, had been discussed at school but no one actually ever said this is what you do. They’d make it all up.” (37)
“Robert wanted everyone to raise an arm in greeting. Why should the Indians not be greeted standing be the railroad track? But nobody moved.” (41)
“Then he could smell the city of his birth…he passed the fires of his father’s factories, every furnace blasting red in the night. What had become of all the spires and the formal, comforting shapes of commerce he remembered- banks and shops and business palaces with flags? Where were the streets with houses ranged behind their lawns under the gentle awning of the elms? What had happened here in so short a time that he could not recall his absence? What were all these fires- and where did his father and his mother sleep beneath the pall of smoke reflecting orange and red and yellow flames? Where, in this dark, was the world he’d known and where was he being taken to so fast there wasn’t even time to stop?” (42)
“It was the war that changed all that. It was. After the Great War for Civilization- sleep was different everywhere…’” (42)
“Gallipoli had proved to be disaster. The Allies would have to withdraw. The Germans and the Austrians had reached deep into Russia… Poland had fallen. Serbia was about to fall. All the Allies could think to do was to change their leaders in the field. Haig replaced French- the Tsar replaced his cousin, the Grand Duke Nicolas- Joffre was thrown the French command in a gesture of desperate consolidation… All the field Marshals seemed to be able to do was bicker and politick on behalf of their own reputations. Thousands were dying in battles over yards of mud. From Canada the word went out that thousands more were ready.” (42)
“On August the fourth of 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm had stood on the Unter den Linden… Then he said to his departing troops: ‘you’ll be home before the leaves have fallen form these trees!’ And now, the leaves had fallen twice.” (43)
“Longboat, Robert’s hero, was an Indian… he smiled and was silent. Robert smiled and was silent, too… and wish that he was red. Or Black. Or yellow. Any colour but pink. Smiling and silence didn’t seem to go with pink.” (43)
“Oddly, too, he didn’t feel like sending love to anyone. It seemed unmanly.” (46)
“His presence meant that some regiment of other was on church parade that morning and the pews would be crowded with soldiers… It meant the tone of the sermon would be militant and more than likely blood-thirty.” (47)
“Nothing had been thought of to entertain the men and so there was a good deal of fighting, most of it having to do with cheating at cards and sexual bullying.” (52)
“But the taste of regurgitated wine is no better than the taste of regurgitated curry, so in the end the effect of the food was the fairly democratic.” (53)
“In the end, it was only their mutual obedience to some intrinsic tyranny that held the men and the officers in check- apart.” (53)
“Very quickly he discovered that no one on the ship would cooperate. This included the ship’s officers and crew as well as those with the C.E.F” (55)
“So he exerted the pressure of his Government contracts and at last the news came through.” (64)
Violence in Part 5:
“The guns had not yet started their pounding.” (167)
“Bang-bang-bang! went the guns at the front.” (168)
“You could drown the fleas when you washed your hair.” (169)
“Robert had seen them throw the inmates up against the walls and batter them senseless with their fists.” (171)
“He feared an attack with weapons.” (174)
“They pulled at his lips until he thought his jaw was going to snap and the scream made a knot in his throat and began to choke him.” (174)
“He struggled with such impressive violence that all his assailants fell upon him at least once.” (174)
“His legs were forced apart so far he thought they were going to be broken.” (174)
“Someone struck him in the face.” (174)
“He pulled out the drawers of the dresser one by one. He dumped them on the floor.” (175)
“He threw the jug in the corner. It burst into sixteen pieces.” (176)
“He knelt beside the bed and tipped at the mattress.” (176)
“Less than a mile away-shells were falling.” (178)
“Their orders were to kill any man who refused.” (178)
“Something exploded. The rabbit disappeared.” (179)
“They severed the driver's head from his body and his arms went up as if to catch it.” (179)
“A bomb fell. It exploded to Robert's right.” (179)
“There was so much screaming and so much roaring of fires that Robert couldn't hear the planes when they returned or the next string of bombs when they fell.” (179)
“Always they were shelled or bombed.” (180)
“In places the ditches were literally piled with corpses and carcasses to a height above the level of the road. There was also a growing static convoy of vehicles and wagons and guns that had been destroyed.” (180)
“...they could fire at the backs of troops advancing against the opposite corner of the ridge.” (181)
“The casualties were terrible, rising in number by the hundreds by the day.” (181)
“The Military Police were stationed where the two roads met and, from time to time, a single revolver shot would ring out.” (181)
“...he saw there was a body lying in the road...He was quite dead and had been for more than an hour.” (182)
“There was hardly a shell that burst to the rear or in front of the line.” (182)
“He ran toward Devlin brandishing a revolver...Captain Leather shot him.” (183)
“The shells began to make direct contact at this moment.” (184)
“All the horses and mules were either dead or dying.” (184)
“Captain Leather rose to his knees and began to struggle to his feet. Robert shot him between the eyes.” (184)
“It took him half-an-hour to kill the mules and horses.” (184)
“If a mule or horse fell down or stumbled in the traces the wagon it was pulling was rolled aside and its wounded occupants surrendered to their fate. The fallen animals were dragged, still living, to the ditches where unavoidably they burned or were drowned. There were no acts of mercy. There was no ammunition to be spared.” (187)
“Now, as the German's turned their guns to its destruction, the British filled the town with their entire reserve for the battle.” (187)
“Men, machines and houses went up like torches. It became a holocaust.” (187)
“...when the private made a grab for Robert's reins, Robert shot him in the face.” (189)
“...with orders to shoot to kill if Robert opened fire.” (190)
“He had drawn the Webley and was quite prepared to shoot at anyone who came in to get him or to release the horses.” (190, 191)
“Robert's answer to this was to take a shot at Mickle-which missed.” (191)
“...and Robert's answer-just as before-was a shot.” (191)
“He sent four men around behind the barn...and told them to set fire to the roof.” (191)
“...the hospital was bombed.” (193)
“The German's were doing their best to destroy us all.” (193)
Your Notable Quotes for "Hunting Findley"
You many be asking yourself, "How can there be a notable quote if I am only quoting?" Full marks will be given to anyone with substantial annotations. Be alarmed if you do not see your name next week ... 'Notable Quotes' returns with vengence (kind of).
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