(Random House, $39.99)
War. What is good for?
Well, not much, except for writing books about, it seems. You can barely swing a handbag around in a bookstore without knocking over a dramatic tome about one war or another.
John Boyne’s The Absolutist is another “war novel” but its point of difference is that it’s actually quite a good one.
The book is narrated by sensitive young soul Tristan Sadler, and begins in 1919 with him taking a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters to Marian Bancroft – the sister of his “friend” Will, who he fought alongside during the Great War and was later shot as a traitor after declaring himself a conscientious objector.
But it’s not just the cache of letters that Tristan carries with him – he’s also burdened with a harrowing secret that he’s desperate to unload, if he can only muster up some courage.
The action jumps back and forth in time as Tristan tells of enlisting in the army as an eager (and underage) 17-year-old in 1916 – champing at the bit to serve King and country. We follow Tristan’s intensifying friendship with Will, from basic training in the English countryside to the fetid trenches of France, as he embarks on an agonising journey of self-discovery.
While author John Boyne does his best to avoid the old “war is hell” cliches, he’s not entirely successful and one part of the book that rings a little too familiar is the story’s epilogue, set in 1979. He uses a plot twist that is almost identical to Ian ocEwan’s war flashback novel, Atonement.
John is dipping his toes in familiar waters in more ways than one. The Irishman has written eight previous novels, including World War II melodrama The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide and was turned into a moderately received Hollywood film in 2008.
And there’s a touch of Hollywood in the details of The Absolutist as well: guns being fired, heroes and cowards doing their darndest, brains being blown and hearts being broken.
But it’s poor Tristan, who survives the war only to live in its shadow for the rest of his life – just as for many non-fiction soldiers – who truly makes the story.
While The Absolutist might be the latest in a long line of war novels, I was hooked from start to finish, hoping things would work out for its protagonist.
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