The Trauma of the Post-War Generation
In the second review from the Man Booker longlist, Warlight by Michael Ondaatje proved a much more intense read than the crime-thriller Snap by Linda Bauer. A Canadian writer born in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje is an author of high regard, having won the Man Booker prize once before for his internationally acclaimed novel, The English Patient, and similarly winning the Golden Man Booker Prize in 2018 (the prize conceived to celebrate 50 years of the Man Booker which awards one book per decade a prize) for the same novel. To all those who know his writing, it is perhaps no surprise that Ondaatje finds himself in the running for the prize once again.
Warlight, told in the perspective of a young boy, tells the story of siblings Nathaniel (our narrator) and Rachel who, in the aftermath of the First World War, are seemingly abandoned by their parents under the thinly-veiled lie of being transferred to Asia for work. The two are left in the care of a stranger they come to know as ‘The Moth’ and his cohort of interesting acquaintances and friends, who become the siblings’ protectors. As the two spend more time with this random crowd of misfits, they begin to understand that their mother is not who they thought she was.
Undeniably incredible writing, as can be expected from a writer such as Ondaatje, I found Warlight to be a much slower read than Snap, for no other reason than the sheer intensity of every scene and description. While much of the “action” in the novel is reserved mostly for the last third, Warlight provides a vivid description of the struggles of children of those who experienced the war.
We read often about the trauma of those having experienced war, but rarely about how the children of these individuals learn to live with them and it. Nathaniel and Rachel find themselves victim of the consequences of war, but experience the privilege of being able to hold their parents, and particularly their mother, guilty for the neglect they believe they were dealt. On the other hand, their mother must learn to accept that their children’s hate is what she must endure for the choices that she made during her war years.
“It had taken me a while to realise that I would in some way have to love my mother in order to understand who she now was and what she had really been. This was difficult.”
Warlight is at once a complex and straightforward account of the getting to know one’s parents and the demons they face, as well as resigning oneself to the understanding that they will probably never know their parents fully. The quote above, found one hundred seventy pages into the novel demonstrates the struggle of giving how much needs to be given in order to know someone else.
In a single word, the novel can be described as one of love. But it is a strange love, one that ebbs and flows, that is shrouded by confusion, anger, hatred and pain. Parental love, marital love, childhood love, first love, and ephemeral love. All can be found in Warlight in some manner or another in this wonderful exploration of what it means to truly know someone else.
It is this that makes Warlight worthy of its position on the Man Booker longlist. Possibly one of the most desired emotions, love is also the most complex in its many different forms. Why else do we have hundreds of novels exploring the same topic, or thousands of songs lamenting or celebrating the fact yearly? Worldwide, we are obsessed with the emotion, so when we come across a novel that can reveal something new, or make us think differently, about it, it is no surprise that it will garner the attention of millions.
Does that make the novel an automatic forerunner for the prize? I guess, time will tell.
~S~
