In tribute to ‘In Memoriam’

Reviewing a truly distinctive World War I novel, revisiting 'Die Hard,' remembering a weird Dodger weekend, remixing Max Muncies, reckoning with a haircut for the ages and more ...

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Book review: In Memoriam

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn, tells the story of two teenage British schoolboys, Henry Gaunt and Shelby Ellwood, who fall in love just as World War I unfolds,. Soon, they join the fight (one of them doing so against conviction), leading them into a meat grinder of change, aging them a lifetime before either turns 21.

The novel lands at the intersection of love and war, and the savagery found in both. Winn is beyond effective at detailing the human carnage, more so than even Dunkirk or the recent film version of All Quiet of the Western Front. The relationship between Gaunt and Elwood is depicted both sensitively and savagely, as the pair fight not only the Germans but also their own personal traumas within a society that would rather see two men riddled with bullets than romance.

A subtle way that fuels the success of this story — incredibly, Winn’s debut novel — is that neither Gaunt nor Ellwood is alone in male affection. Among the ensemble of boys turned men, there are several gay men hiding in the ranks, realistically suggesting it is far more common than society would imagine or allow. Winn effectively expands the idea that the intimacy that breeds camaraderie on the battlefield cuts from the same cloth as a more sensual need or desire.

Another device that Winn uses to tremendous effect is to create reprints of newspapers that pay tribute to the dead, one after another. Over the course of the book, the lists of names grow longer and the obituaries more tender, and there’s a singular power in learning about the death of someone we have come to know merely by seeing his name, just as the people of the time would.

With its whistling-in-the-graveyard humor, In Memoriam is not morose, but neither is it forgiving. Through her novel, Winn rails against the millions of wasted lives. 300,000 in the Battle of the Somme alone. Those who survive could barely be called survivors, so altered are their lives. Winn tells a story of the heroic and the brave in a world that should not have required either.

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Die Hard bullets

There’s is poignancy today in seeing Bruce Willis in his career-defining film role as John McClane in Die Hard, now that we know he is suffering from dementia.

With that as a backdrop, on Saturday I introduced Youngest Master Weisman and Dana to the movie, which isn’t one of my core loves but did not disappoint as a weekend diversion. I hadn’t seen it in about 30 years myself.

Some observations: