All I can say is OMG; profoundly sad book. I can't recommend it unless you need some perspective on your unhappy life.
This is a story / diary of a very young man who comes to the war bright eyed and bushy tailed and who is subsequently ground to a pulp by the war machine he was born into. I say born into because we are all born into our Age and have little choice of which war we would like to fight in.
Of course management of the flyers at that time was an all new thing, but the stress and fatigue of flying was (and is) so great that a little effort to limit there service may have been in order.
The concept of sending men into the air in these death traps was crazy enough; there was as much a chance of the plane malfunctioning or the flyer making a single mistake as there was in being shot down.
So this young man goes into training with the bravado and impatience of any 20 yo.
He parties with his mates, they find girls, they make friends, they loose friends.
They are involved in a what amounts to "field trials" for these aircraft. Maybe a third of them wash out or are killed during training.
They are human test subjects in a ridiculously fast paced series of experiments; that is "lets see if this will fly."
The War forced both sides to confront the need for Air Power. The Wright brothers had just flown their 1st flight 12 years before WWI. These engineers were masters, HOWEVER, these things were not ready for what they were used for. So the pilots died.
The shear insanity of what was attempted with this new for of weapon illustrates the lengths that humans will go.
The truthfulness of the entries can be verified online as never before.
The 1st edition has reprints of these wood cuts that are stark and until you get into it they seem harsh.
If you had an interest in these old flying machines as I did in my youth than this is a deep insight.
The nonchalant manner in which the author denotes another death even leaves the reader desensitized. Every other diary entry begins or ends with a one line statement of a death.
This young mans decent is horrific to watch unfold. As he descends he is continually concerned with his being perceived as not a coward. He clearly can see the Cowardice when it appears in others and has little empathy.
This however I think leads to his downfall.
As everyone around him dies he becomes fearless and appears to lose his vision of a future. loosing ones vision of a future I think is a hallmark of reckless behavior. Reckless behavior in a WWI flyer would have been a straight line to the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment