The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers
Delia Falconer’s new novel is a quiet novel: written in tight instances of thought, remembrance, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers traces a morning in the life of Brevet Brigadier General Frederick W. Benteen—once a captain in Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. This quietness and tightness is also evident in the final length of the work: this is no sprawling story of a larger than life hero of the West. At just over one hundred and forty pages, it is deceptive—over “quickly”, it continues to creep up on the reader. It is not a book to devour in one sitting so much as one to mull over, to read slowly and lingeringly. The story recounts Benteen’s thoughts about his wife, Frabbie, and the men in his unit—Handsome Jack, Stargazer and others—during Custer’s last stand.
Launching the novel at Readings Carlton last night, Adrian Martin spoke of the difficulty in our culture of praising things: of the tendency among book reviewers to fall into certain clichés that ultimately tell the avid review reader very little about the quality of a work. I find it difficult to find the words to praise this book: its surface stillness belies the way this novel moves the careful reader.
The acknowledgement pages reveal the research behind this book: and reading it one feels there is a huge body of history beneath the surface. But this is not a book so much about the large event (Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn) so much as the personal story of the personal experiences of that conflict have touched Benteen. This book became surprisingly personal for me: having grown up in an army family, I was struck by how it captured the life and varying attitudes of military men—of how the observations which never ring false for the narrative at a century’s remove also hold true for my own father and brothers.
In spite of the quietness of this novel, it is at times very funny. It is a warm book: its precision never detracts from the reader’s emotional journey. It overstates nothing, but there is plenty of wry humour for the reader. A favourite moment comes when Benteen recalls meeting a nun in New York: she tells him how the monks used to piss in the molten stained glass to achieve a certain milky yellow colour. After this anecdote—“That one thought changed the whole of Europe for him.”
This novel is an occasion for celebration: it is not a sweeping epic, but a fully realised and very personal account of a life. It never sets a foot wrong, and has been, years after Falconer’s debut, worth the wait. I can’t help but worry that, not giving in to any cheap tricks, this book may not find an instant readership the way Falconer’s first novel The Service of Clouds did: I worry about all books that rely on concentration for the richest rewards in the age of the sensationalisticDa Vinci Code -style blockbuster. I hope, sincerely, that this worry is groundless and people take to this book in the way it deserves.
Launching the novel at Readings Carlton last night, Adrian Martin spoke of the difficulty in our culture of praising things: of the tendency among book reviewers to fall into certain clichés that ultimately tell the avid review reader very little about the quality of a work. I find it difficult to find the words to praise this book: its surface stillness belies the way this novel moves the careful reader.
The acknowledgement pages reveal the research behind this book: and reading it one feels there is a huge body of history beneath the surface. But this is not a book so much about the large event (Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn) so much as the personal story of the personal experiences of that conflict have touched Benteen. This book became surprisingly personal for me: having grown up in an army family, I was struck by how it captured the life and varying attitudes of military men—of how the observations which never ring false for the narrative at a century’s remove also hold true for my own father and brothers.
In spite of the quietness of this novel, it is at times very funny. It is a warm book: its precision never detracts from the reader’s emotional journey. It overstates nothing, but there is plenty of wry humour for the reader. A favourite moment comes when Benteen recalls meeting a nun in New York: she tells him how the monks used to piss in the molten stained glass to achieve a certain milky yellow colour. After this anecdote—“That one thought changed the whole of Europe for him.”
This novel is an occasion for celebration: it is not a sweeping epic, but a fully realised and very personal account of a life. It never sets a foot wrong, and has been, years after Falconer’s debut, worth the wait. I can’t help but worry that, not giving in to any cheap tricks, this book may not find an instant readership the way Falconer’s first novel The Service of Clouds did: I worry about all books that rely on concentration for the richest rewards in the age of the sensationalisticDa Vinci Code -style blockbuster. I hope, sincerely, that this worry is groundless and people take to this book in the way it deserves.
posted by Kate Middleton at 3:43 PM
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