Disclaimer: the following notes on these books expose my lack of formal education and basic ignorance.

Without planning I inadvertently read two novels about war.  The Sorrow of War by Bão Ninh and Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. They are the result of prowling among the table of book booty at my local library’s sale. One person’s remainders becomes another’s treasure. The Sorrow of War, published in 1991, narrates the experiences of a soldier fighting in the North Vietnamese army.  Remember that war?  It reflects a story told from the other side, that is, the side we fought.  The side that won. The narrator does not speak of winning because after ten years of relentless combat he has been crushed, sprayed with human brains and guts, witnessed atrocities that should be anomalies rather than routine.  He is in love and it’s unrequited.  His return to the real world after “victory” is touched with the knowledge that our capacity as humans for cruelty is fathomless. Is there a word that goes deeper?  If so, insert it.  The narrator writes a novel in an attempt to retrieve his life.  There is devastating poetry in his words depicting bucolic rice fields, that will soon be destroyed. As in All Quiet on the Western Front combatants are the victims. Didn’t Peter, Paul and Mary refrain, “when will we ever learn? when will we ever learn?”

In an interview with an author whose name I can’t remember I do remember she said she kept a copy of W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz on her bedside table. This is not to be confused with Teju Cole’s narrator in Open City who does the same.  Curious, my wonderful library tracked down a copy through the inter-library loan program.  You use that don’t you?  Anyway, it’s a strange book to me.  A story told about a friendship that drifts in and out of contact.  No context.  No paragraphs for that matter.  No quotation marks which initially disconcerted me,  like driving without headlights at night.  But the writing as random and disconnected as it was drew me in.  Sort of like listening to spa music.  In a good way.  I found myself looking forward to reading a couple of pages about these two friends, mostly about Austerlitz.  A guy who grew of up in England but was now a vagabond.  I’ve never read writing so seemingly haphazard that always moved forward.  It is so quiet.  So sweet that as the story unfolded (you’ll remember this is a war book) I was disquieted as he unveils that who he thought he was growing up was untrue.  He had been part of the kindertransport from Prague to England.  Austerlitz embarks on discovering his parents and their fate. He had vague reminiscences that surfaced as his journey takes him to childhood places. The “round ups” of neighborhoods of people are sadly part of current events as we transform warehouses into detention centers for thousands who have been dehumanized into “aliens.” Austerlitz wanders and as the book closes we have met another man who is telling another story.  A place called Fort IX in Lithuania.  A death camp.  Austerlitz does not find his parents.  There is no ending. No tidy conclusions.

From that I segued into Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower. I’ve never heard of German Romantic poet Novalis but the novel relates his early years (when he used his birth name of Friedrich von Hardenberg). As a young man of 22 he falls in love with Sophie Von Kühn who is 12. This brief novel has many observations of life in households both high (his) and not so high (hers). I didn’t understand this book at all. The story unfolds but I know there is a deeper story. A reread is in order. I know nothing of German Romanticism, Goethe (see disclaimer above) or so many things actually. I love Penelope Fitzgerald’s clever, quiet writing so there is more to uncover. It was her last novel.

Finally Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. Another very quiet book, devotional as a woman enters an abbey as a non-religious member in Australia. There are no fireworks. The plot is more like the book of hours. Memories and people do drift through this lovely tome but in the end you realize that time is a construct and given contemplation and discernment its presence rather than dominate, blends into the rhythm of life.