War Fiction

War seems to a global theme in fiction. The reasons are obvious, I suppose. The stories of war can be written from a variety of viewpoints and focus on everything from individual battles to the homefront. What excellent war fiction have you read and can recommend by authors from around the world? What viewpoint does it take and where is it set?

Some of my recent favorites: Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell set in Northern Italy during WWII. Very large cast of characters. men and women, with a variety of viewpoints. Very well done.

Islands of Silence by Martin Booth. A elderly man in a psychiatric facility has not communicated with anyone for decades; his life is slowly revealed in the book. Involves WWI and the battle of Gallipoli (story is told from a British viewpoint).

Ok, not a recent read but one of my all-time favorite books, Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. Set during the (rather confusing) Russian revolution and subsequent Civil War. I suspect most everyone is familiar with this story from the book or movie(s).

Well, War and Peace, of course. Written from the Russian perspective, but with a lot of philosophizing about war in general.

And, equally of course, I would not miss an opportunity to praise Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun which partly takes place during, and gives a lot of insight into, the Biafra/Nigeria war and its aftermath, from the Igbo (more commonly, at least in the US, Ibo) perspective.

Vasily Grossman's brilliant Life and Fate, about the siege of Stalingrad and WWII in general, from the Russian perspective, but with a sense of Stalinism as the successor to Nazism.

James Salter's The Hunters, about US fighter pilots in the Korean War, both the thrill and beauty of flying and the deadly results. I never expected to find a book about fighter pilots interesting, but it is beautiful and compelling.

Maybe more to come.

I read all of my father's war fiction when I was about 12 (plus or minus); most of the WWII novels were bestsellers and made into movies (i.e. The Dirty Dozen, Bridge Over the River Kwai) but my favorites from that era were the historical novels of Kenneth Lewis Roberts. He was a local Maine author who wrote fabulous novels set during the American Revolution and the French & Indian War.

It's been decades since I read them but I remember them having a real sense of time and place...

Speaking of WWII, Norman Mailer's classic The Naked and the Dead which I haven't read since I was a teenager and then read more for the sex than for the military stuff.

Also, the Hemingway I haven't read since I was a teenager: For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms.

Emile Zola's La Debacle deals w/the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870s(?) from a French point of view ... it was fascinating/depressing.

Another interesting "war" read is A very long engagement by Sebastien Japrisot ... WWI/French again.

Some good Vietnam books are Going after Cacciato by Tim O'Brien, Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright and Paco's story by Larry Heinemann ... all from the U.S. viewpoint, natch.

... and one more that should be high on a list like this: Catch 22!

A number of great books mentioned here already. Interesting I've read all 6 mentioned by KromeTomes and they are all very good especially Zola's. I've also read Dr. Zhivago, Life and Fate, War and Peace, The bridge over the River Kwai, The naked and the dead, For whom the bell tolls and A farewell to arms--so my batting average here so far is very good.

I'll mention a few others:

Curzio Malaparte's Kaputt.
Henri Barbusse's Under fire which won the Prix Goncourt with Barbusse back at the front.
Sebastian Faulks Birdsong
Willi Heinrich's Cross of Iron
Wilfred Owen's war poems.
Kenn Miller's Tiger the lurp dog--another Vietnam novel about a squad of army rangers.
Jean Giono's The straw man

Despite Avaland (rightly) pointing out that my library is very male biased, I have surprisingly few war books. The ones I have most enjoyed tend to be the those that describe war as being chaotic (The White Guard, War and Peace) or absurd (The Good Soldier Svejk, Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, The Cowards). I find things that deal with the full horror of war hard to connect with, I suppose because I have never had to go through that, but I did find Children are Civilians Too, Allah is Not Obliged, Fire on Water and If this is a Man all excellent, if unrelentingly grim.

KromesTomes mentioned Tim O'Brien and Vietnam -- his classic on Vietnam and war in general is the short story The Things They Carried (the touchstone refers to a collection).

I was going to ask you about Allah is Not Obliged since you are one of the few users that have it... I saw it in another user's library; she rated it highly but her review was incomplete, so I went looking for other's with it.

Did I say biased? No, I think I said it has a certain male "flavor" to it:-)

rebeccanyc, I am really, really going to get to the Adichie very, very soon. I'm going to finish the new Paul Auster, tackle a short Cesare Pavese and then...

Kromes, I heartily agree with your 3 Vietnam war novels, especially Stephen Wright's Meditations in Green, and even though it's non-fiction, I think Michael Herr's Dispatches should always be included on any Vietnam war book list too.

As far as WWII novels are concerned, I agree that Catch 22 should be at or near the top of the list, right along with James Jones' From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line, Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, and Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions.

Italo Calvino The Path to the Nest of Spiders. Not his best book, and rather different to his other work, it is still a decent novel about a boy growing up in Italy during WWII.

In reply to #9
I think its me saying its biased now, as I am becoming properly disturbed by the lack of female authors. I have vowed to try to rectify it later this year, and get stuck into some female authors. Half of a Yellow Sun will be one of the first, partly because it looks very good, but partly because I am scared rebeccanyc will become violent if we don't all read it soon.

As for Allah is not Obliged I would heartily recommend it. It is about child soldiers in West Africa. Before reading it I thought that child soldiers were simply just young soldiers, but they are actually almost a separate caste, with their own spiritual significance, behavioural restraints and access to privileges such as drugs. Needless to say, these significances are largely so that warlords can manipulate children into fighting. The book is a fascinating insight into west african politics and the violent world of child soldiers.

I am scared rebeccanyc will become violent if we don't all read it soon.

#12, I promise I will walk away from the computer and count to 10 if I get the urge to talk about it again!

'The white guard' mentioned above by depressaholic is very good too. I've also read James Jones 'Thin red line' and Calvino's 'Path to the nest of spiders' which actually is one of my favorites of his.

I was thinkings of W. S. Kuniczak and his two novels set in Poland during World War II. They are The thousand hour day and The March.

Aleksandr Solzenhitsyn and August 1914.

... on the topic of female authors/war fiction, I'm surprised Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy has been mentioned yet ... also on WWI.

Kromes:

You beat me to it! I was about to mention those...

All three books of the Regeneration Trilogy are incredibly moving and complex examinations of the results of WWI. And somehow, Barker manages to write about men and male characters, and what war does to men and their relationships with each other (and with women) in a totally convincing way.

Yes and Barker's trilogy is very good too.

Doctorow's The March is good on the Civil War, from the point of view of the people disrupted -- for better or for worse -- by Sherman's march through Georgia, including southern plantation owners, former slaves, an army doctor, reluctant southern army recruits, etc.

I have just started reading Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala. Like Allah Is Not Obliged, mentioned in #12 above, it is about child soldiers in West Africa. It received good reviews when it appeared about a year ago, and so far it promises to live up to the high expectations.

Another couple of novels worthy of attention, and also set in Italy in WWII, are Eric Linklater's Private Angelo and Norman Lewis' Within the Labyrinth. They make a change from all the depressing material listed, as they are laced with comedy.

Adding to jargoneer uplifting note. No One Thinks of Greenland by John Griesemer is an intelligent first novel, reminiscent of Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, which tells the story of mysterious goings-on in a Greenland Army base, just after the Korean War. It's got a great sense of place and is quirky, compelling and almost believable.

As well as Doctor Zhivago and War and Peace, two among my favourite books, I would like to add All quiet on the Western front by Erich Maria Remarque on the horrors of World War I.

A couple others:

Timothy Findley's The Wars
Orwell's Homage To Catalonia

I think my Fav's have already been mentioned, Life and Fate, The things they Carried, Catch-22, All Quiet on the Western Front (which I read every year) but I think a short story worth mentioning is For Esme with Love and Squalor by J. D. Salinger It's in the Nine Stories collection and is the only one narrated by Seymour.

Also Johnny Got his Gun by Dalton Trumbo is very powerful.

For non-fiction american war/conflict check out House of War by James Carroll and you can read about Pentagon policies and how close we came to a nuclear holocaust.

And if you haven't read The Guns of August a non-fiction about the start of WWI, check it out.

Can anyone recommend me anything (fiction or non) on the Spanish Civil War?

Prophet and Mistress--there is a small Spanish Civil War group on LT. I run down a list of books for it. Unfortunately I haven't put them or the authors in brackets--maybe I'll do that when I get home today and do a run down here of some of them.

A very good book set in Spain (and England) in the run up to the civial war is Wyndham Lewis's Revenge for love.

Thanks!

From Spanish writers--the novels I like the best are Camilo Jose Cela's San Camilo 1936--and Miguel Delibes The stuff of heroes. Both of those writers fought on the nationalist side in the war. Even so both are hardly Franco apologists. While Ramon Sender's Seven Red Sundays was published a short time before the war he captures the seething political situation pretty well--IMO. I like Man's Hope by Andre Malraux and also Ernest Hemingway's For whom the bell tolls but they tend towards their particular writers own biases and are good war fiction but unreliable historically.

Non-fiction I would look at Hugh Thomas and his history The Spanish Civil War and the same title also by Antony Beevor. They are both very respected historians and both works are excellent. George Orwell's memoir Homage to Catalonia is pretty good and fairly accurate--he was later taken to task though by the Nobelist Claude Simon for some glaring inaccuracies in The Georgics--which is not entirely about the Civil War though. Both Simon and Orwell fought in it. Another interesting book is kind of fiction and kind of non and that is Javier Cercas's Soldiers of Salamis.

regarding Vietnam, the literature of war and its effects on the soldiers who suffer through...i highly recommend Jonathan Shay's Achilles in Vietnam...written by a clinician who treated Vietnam Vets with PTSD ;he compares and sources the The Iliad.thoughtful and universal in its scope.

the Vietnam literature previously mentioned by KromesTomes and rebeccanyc are all excellent...i would add 3 more options: John M. DelVecchio's The 13th Valley, Tracers-a play performed at The Public Theater and the non-fiction, The End of the Line:The Siege of Khe Sanh by Robert Pisor- a book recommended to me by a soulful US Marine who came through this siege and said"if you really want to know what happened read this book".

I don't think anyone has mentioned Robert Graves WWI memoir, Good bye to All That. He was in the war with Sassoon, and I believe Owen. Not only does he give a vivid picture of the horrors of The Great War, he also shows its part in the break down of the British Empire and the class system in England.

On similar themes, you can read Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory.

Edited to note that this is a non-fiction work. History and Literary Theory.

More memoir than war story is Danielle Trussoni's Falling Through the Earth. It tells the story of her father, a Vietnam tunnel rat.

I was just looking at this and wanted to add a few: just about anything by Heinrich Boll, but particular Billiards at Half-Past Nine; and Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus is an incredible statement on WWII. And doesn't the Bhagavad Gita rank as one of the ultimate works on War?

Johnny Got His Gun blew me away. Pardon the pun.