Broken Ground

Well, we're all here now, so let's get started. I'm not sure how big these posts can or should be, but I'll start by bringing up some general thoughts regarding the representation of war/trauma. I wanted to bring your attnetion to a book by Dagmar Novak who wrote Dubious Glory. She argues that the early works of World War I were often romance, where pure and virtuous heroes descend into the hell of war and then ultimately emerge, perhaps dead, perhaps wounded, but not tainted, psychologically or emotionally. She says that later, in the 1920s and 30s, this mode was followed by a kind of brutal realism, and then, when works about World War II started coming out, the mode shifted again to a kind of sharp irony. One reviewer of Novak's book, however, has noted that one thing she overlooks are some of the rhetorical problems inherent in representing the horrors of war.

Another scholar, Dominick LaCapra, has written a book called Writing History, Writing Trauma. Some of the questions that his book raises are: what does the writing of history have to do with writing trauma? Are certain forms of representation better suited to the transmission of trauma than others? How can a historical writing of trauma speak to the specificity of a past event while paying attention to its connections with the present?

I think that these are all important questions that we can ask ourselves in connection to Broken Ground as well as many of the other novels that we will be reading in this course. The problem of language is a big problem. Language is never neutral, never sufficient, never accurate in its representations of reality. The idea that we can get at the "neutral" facts of the war is something that, I think, Hodgins questions throughout his novel.

The relationship of history to memory is also important, as we discussed last week. Some critics have said that it is memory - our ability to remember - that makes us persevere, as well as our ability to forget. It is important, therefore, to choose our memories carefully. But, in some of the experiences that Matt and the other characters in Broken Ground describe, I wonder if it is possible to choose memories. None of the characters in the book really want to talk about their war experiences, but those experiences continually haunt them and are, in fact, played out in the present through their battle with the land. The war against nature that these characters are fighting on Vancouver Island is a replication of the WWI experience, right down to the importance of the explosives expert who blows up the stumps. History - an old history from the old world - intrudes on a place that is most often associated with no history, a clean slate.

Well, these are some first thoughts. As you comment, I will add more. If we seem to be moving onto a very different topic, I'll just create a new post.