A book a day: Herbert Clyde Lewis: Spring Offensive

Original Language: English
Títutulu Original: Spring Offensive
Translation: Angels of the Saints
Year of publication: 1940
Valoración: recomandable

American writer little known in these parts for his short list of published works, Herbert Clyde Lewis was formed through his work as a correspondent in Shanghai, but it was after his return to the United States when he began with a literary career that combined with his work As a journalist and film screenwriter including a nomination for the best script for the movie “it happened on the 5th Avenue.”

In “Spring offensive”, the author tells us about the young Peter Winston, a twenty -three -year -old American and voluntary of the second battalion of the third brigade of the seventh division of the British expeditionary force in France that is quartered in the town of Latouche ( France) at the beginning of World War II, at a historical moment of some inactivity to the point where this period is He called “Joke War.” Thus, the protagonist, due to the little war activity and for being in a small town with difficulties in communications thinks that his situation resembles an outdoor jail than a growing historical moment. For this reason, Peter Winston, the only American in Latouche, finds that his days spend without any distraction so that to put an end to his earrings and in search of an entertainment that helps him make the wait more bearable he decides to venture to plant flowers in The defensive palisades of the Maginot line. But his work is suddenly altered when, once the task has been carried out and back to the barracks, the ankle twists and remains in that land of anyone without hardly being able to walk right at the time the bombardment between the allied and the German forces explodes . In a constant flow of consciousness caused by this state of immobility due to his physical condition, the protagonist reflects on his life and situation, realizing the absurdity of war and conflicts, of the intentions that countries move to face others In a great waste of human lives and, in their somewhat naive and idealistic mentality, he thinks that no one should die in that land, and if he had to die someone should be Next to his companions, his compatriots. Therefore, in that kind of semi -illordary state caused by hunger, thirst and loneliness, reflects on war and its absurdity, an absurdity that reflects exemplary with the paradox that «every time the Germans sent a way To kill him they made a hole to protect him », because the crater he left after his impact served him in turn. So in the midst of that state of waiting, he is questioned why during the night they do not stop shooting both sides, “did not see that they were wasting ammunition? … that they stopped shooting at once, that was the only thing I asked. I was not telling them to give up or prove the bitter taste of the defeat (…) that they stopped, even if only for one night; Let them go home, to have dinner quietly and read a book, or go to the cinema, anything. Tomorrow morning, after a good nighttime rest, they could resume the shots, if there was no choice. »

For all these reasons, the novel wields a clear defense of pacifism, criticizing the absurdity of war because it threatens the life of men, in a contest that faces them with each other by desire of those who send with some soldiers are only pawns in the service of a superior being that pushes them to a struggle that sometimes is foreign to themselves. Thus, this novel, written in 1940 has an important social background because it is published at a time when much of the American population doubted whether or not to participate in a war in Europe; With this, the message that oozes the book is that those who go to war are not always great patriots, but sometimes they are the opposite: young people who feel that their country has betrayed them, that they have not given them what they expect of him, that his standard country of the promised land has not fulfilled such a purpose. There is no promise fulfilled, there is bewilder Theirs who deny them work, love and a full life. For all these reasons, it is a book in which it is exemplified that the participation of war, by many young people, is not based on the fight to achieve a better or even for the defense of ideals, but For compensation for a present emptiness and discouraging because, as the protagonist affirms, «when someone died, he had to leave behind a reason why he had lived. Life should make some sense, however small. Otherwise, how could I die in peace?

For all these reasons, it is a recommended book that, beyond offering a certain paused rhythm, provides an important background on war, its causes and its motivations, and in which we are reminded that «each dead soldier is an argument Against the war »and that is something that we should not forget especially these days in which so many territories are at war for the desire for greatness of some leaders who, from their comfortable presidential chair, send people to a tragic destination to face each other knowing that they probably end up dying for fighting for causes that do not have to coincide with their own.