Jonathan's Reviews > War & War

A masterpiece, of course. There are wonderful reviews here already so, instead, I shall quote a few things which floated to the surface for me while reading.



"‘Let there be light! said God, and there was light!’
‘Let there be blood!’ says man, and there ‘s a seal
The fiat of this spoil’d child of the Night
(For Day ne’er saw his merits) could decree
More evil in an hour, than thirty bright
Summers could renovate, though they should be
Lovely as those which ripen’d Eden’s fruit;
For war cuts up not only branch, but root."

Byron - Don Juan


"Oh shame to men! Devil with Devil damn’d
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of Heavenly Grace: and God proclaiming peace,
Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
Among themselves, and levy cruel wars,
Wasting the earth, each other to destroy:
As if (which might induce us to accord)
Man had not hellish foes enow besides,
That day and night for his destruction wait. "

Milton - Paradise Lost



"The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebretonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast. "

Auden - The Fall of Rome
(Sidebar - I agree with Brodsky that that final stanza is all that is needed to prove Auden's genius)

One last thing to say is that, at times, my attempts to get a clear view of the extraordinary, flowing temporal/geographical/meta-textual shifts (not to mention the incredibly skilful use of narrative voice and point of view to create a highly effective distancing effect) reminded me of physicist's attempts to explain higher dimensions. I felt like the famous square in Flatland watching an unknowable sphere pass through my world.

My only query would be how necessary the final section was...