Book Choice: The Wars

The Wars

By: Timothy Findley

The Wars was originally published in 1977 by The Penguin Group. The edition of the book that I selected was published in 2005. The Wars has around 198 pages, give or take a few because of publications.

I chose this book because it not only deals with the history and brutality of WWI in Canada, but also the psychological  aspect of war and how it effects one’s mind after being through the ordeals of war. I have also heard many good remarks of Timothy Findley and his writing which also urged me to choose this book.

After reading the prologue and a few chapters of this novel, I really enjoyed the beginning to the story line. During the first few chapters, the book goes through an overview of life in 1915 and how it radically changed when the First World War was in the creating through the use of flipping through photographs to get a sense of the setting and mood of Canada at this time. The beginning of the book also touches on the protagonist of the story of Robert Ross, a Canadian boy who ends up leaving for war.

As touched on before, the book really introduced the setting of Canada at the breakout of WWI and the mood drastically changing from a jolly setting to a strict and tenser situation through the use of photographs.  It seems the first chapter of the book is a flashback of Robert Ross’ memory of a horrible incident of a fire. Also in this flashback it tells of how Robert united with a horse and a dog to save livestock and over 130 horses from an abandoned train wreck. The character of Robert Ross is starting to develop more and more through the progression of the book and the telling of his family is also coming together.

Some themes that are starting to develop throughout the book are heroism and manhood. This is predicted to be two main themes in this story because of Robert Ross and the encounters that may come up in war where these themes must be used for survival. Other themes that came up in the book so far are the themes of fire and animal relationships from the flashback in the prologue to the story. Robert Ross shows relationships to a horse and dog in the prologue and the theme of fire comes up in this flashback of a house burning in front of him and unable to do anything about it.

I haven’t yet found an actual secondary source from a scholar based website, but from the research I did accomplish on the book, I was able to find interesting facts. This book deals very much so with the aspect of life or death and the relationship between Ross and animals throughout the story. I didn’t want to spoil the book, so I really didn’t research in depth too much about the storyline of the book. I didn’t want to ruin the story for myself that many people have said to be a very well written book. There is a website that deals with all this information that I have found that talks about Timothy Findley as an author and his accomplishments. The website is posted below. Click Here: 

“See what I mean? You have to be awfully careful how you define the extraordinary. Especially nowadays. Robert Ross was no Hitler. That was his problem.” (Findley 13)

This quotation really stood out to me as a reader of the book. This line is so powerful to the overview of the storyline. It foreshadows a huge part of the novel is its simplicity. This line speaks out to me that at one point of the book or even throughout it, many conflicts may come up in a life or death situation where Robert Ross won’t have the same mentality as a leader of such like Hitler, although it does say he is a hero. This line could be foreshadowing a large portion of the book or maybe not. I’m just glad I’ll be able to read to find out.

The Wars is only about 200 pages long. So I expect myself to read about 50-75 pages a week to finish the book within three weeks or so, depending on how much I enjoy reading this book and how I get involved into the storyline.