I almost did it last night When I finished this book, I was too overjoyed by its beauty, I thought of putting the book in front of me, stand up and applaud It s just that I was not at home I was in a 24 hr Dunkin Donuts outlet and people would definitely stare at me and think that I was a losing my mind I did not know what to do My head was spinning with joy and I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.Come to think of it, as a reader, how do you celebrate finishing a great novel At the end of [...]

Moving account of one Canadian man s experience with World War 1 The novel is barely 200 pages, so what we have here is no sweeping coverage of the war, nor an in depth immersion in the horrors But we get enough pictures of Robert Ross s life leading up to the war for his character to shine through and then sufficient samples from the stages of his training and long service at Ypres in Belgium to feel very intimately the destructive power of the War to End All Wars Findley uses plain and clear p [...]

I waited a little while to write this review, because it felt like a book I needed to muse over for a while But to be honest I don t think the extra time helped my feelings about this book are still a bit muddled and overwhelming I did like it very much, although maybe not quite as much by the end as I thought I would at the beginning I think the narrative structure although objectively I can say that it works very effectively kept me from connecting emotionally to the degree that I expected to [...]

I was very impressed by this war novel one of the best I have read The I progressed in the book, the enad I became, and drawn into the different settings and characters All was wonderfully envisioned as one becomes immersed in the narrative The ending is view spoiler tragic hide spoiler , but after all this is war a vast barbaric machine.I had never heard of this Canadian author, so thanks go to the GR network The first twenty to thirty pages are rather intangible, but after it settles into ou [...]

I hate reviewing Timothy Findley books The reason is, I m always at a loss for words because of how emotionally straining it is to read one of his novels I hate rereading my review of Not Wanted on the Voyage because I realize that my words don t do justice to his books, and most of my review was a rant about Margaret Atwood Let s not get off track I ll try to express my feelings about this book as coherently as I can I m on such an emotional high from finishing the book, that I feel like I m wr [...]

This review was written in the late nineties just for myself , and it was buried in amongst my things until today, when I uncovered the journal it was written in I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago although square brackets indicate some additional information for the sake of readability It is one of my lost reviews.Fragments That is the greatest strength of Canadian Literature for me the masterful use of fragments Michael Ondaatje s The English Patient is certainly the master [...]

Simply one of the best novels ever, this is a stunning read because it immerses the reader so completely into the experience of Robert Ross that it s hard to extract oneself afterward I found myself thinking and seeing and imagining the way he does for a long while after I had finished the book or it had finished with me for the time being For some reason there are a great many books that are ostensibly about the Great War WWI , including Birdsong and The Ghost Road and Goodbye To All That, and [...]

I remember reading a book by Timothy Findley as a teenager in Toronto My parents had a copy of The Last of the Crazy People on their shelves and I randomly picked it up I think the cover appealed to me I don t remember much about it now except that it made me feel uncomfortable Looking it up I see it s considered a pioneer of the Southern Ontario gothic genre Not really YA I guess Fast forward a few decades and a Facebook acquaintance posted this link to required reading for students around the [...]

I wanted this to expand on my WWI reading experience It did in a rather minor way Many of the books on trench warfare speak of the mud Findley does a better job of making this phenomenon real than anything else I ve read The mud There are no good similes Mud must be a Flemish word Mud was invented here Mudland might have been its name The ground is the colour of steel Over most of the plain there isn t a trace of topsoil only sand and clay The Belgians call them clyttes, these fields, and the fu [...]

Beauty and pain Pathos and prosaic passion Heartrending, compassionate, truth No one says it like Tiff did It s the ordinary men and women who ve made us what we are Monstrous, complacent and mad Pg15 Staring down expressionless, he watched as his reflection was beaten into submission by the rain Pg18 All of these actors were obeying some kind of fate we call revenge Because a girl had died and her rabbits had survived her Pg23.Findlay structures characters, narrative and actions with the precis [...]

World War 1 The trench warfare Principal protagonists both male, young and handsome This, and Sebastian Faulk s Birdsong another 1001 book which I would have reviewed, and given five stars, had I not read it long before I joined.When you get so much, or even just a second helping, of the same thing your pleasure tends to be less and less You ll go, hey, I ve seen this before family, war, a little sex and romance, the present s memory suddenly hurtling towards the past, the beauty, promise and in [...]

In 2011, Canadian parents challenged the inclusion of Timothy Findley s award winning novel The Wars on a high school reading list, describing it as depraved and full of sex I mentioned the challenge in one of my periodic banned book blog entries and promised myself I d read it It took me a year to run down a copy it s a Canadian novel from the 1970s and you never see it on book store shelves, at least here in the States but with the help of a bookseller friend I tracked it down.And I m glad I d [...]

3.5 stars.The Wars by Timothy Findley would be a great pick for a book club looking for a WWI book It practically begs to be discussed It is broken into five parts, all focusing on the same Canadian soldier Each section has a different focus pre war at home, the trenches, etc Written in 1977, to me it seems early in the timeline of disjointed fiction And, as I have found with many such works, it was a mixed bag It was interesting to study the various threads and the symbolism scattered throughou [...]

Probablement le meilleur roman sur la guerre que j ai jamais lu Je suis sans mots.

Canadian attitudes towards war are strangely encapsulating than American attitudes There seems no definitive pride in victory only in living.

I don t recommend Worst book ever I would only try reading it again to see if I like it in twenty years, or to see whether I was biased based on the school setting that I was in.

Brutal and raw, and yet because of the narrative technique not a little reserved Somehow it all works.I wonder if Findley s intention wasn t to completely upend all the traditional war story cliches Instead of the loyal band of brothers in arms who die off one by one in the most tearjerking manner possible, preferably after a good death speech , other soldiers drift in and out of Robert Ross life, often in only a page or two, without us ever learning much about any of them People lose their mind [...]

There are two really great things going on in Timothy Findley s The Wars Firstly, is the narrative technique The book is written from the perspective of a historian trying to make sense of a moment of madness in the middle of the First World War Findley accomplishes this goal through mixed medium narrating, using journal entries, interviews, photographs and the historian s conjecture This keeps the story mysterious and engages the reader in a sort of detective, choose your own adventure kind of [...]

I struggled to appreciate this book in the beginning because I found no beauty in the writing It was straightforward, simplistic, even a little patronizing at times Like we know 1916 was a leap year if the date is February 29 Thanks The characters lay flat for the most part, and I scoffed at the suspense Findley was attempting to construct surrounding the event with the horses , which I knew would probably disappoint me I didn t come away feeling like I had become acquainted with the main charac [...]

I had to read this for my grade 12 English class, and I have to say that it is, without a doubt, one of the worst books I have ever read It has horrible pacing, and no consistency as to the Voice telling the story It was supposed to be told from the point of view of a historian, but there was often detail in scenes that the historian couldn t have access to IE rape scene , Directly followed by a scene that was glossed over that should have been given time IE the entire last chapter The perspect [...]

The book is a very clever mix of a researcher trying to piece together the actions and short life of 19 year old Robert Ross during The Great War, and the immense atrocities of the war as seen through the eyes of Robert Ross himself.Interesting is the plural form of the title To me it implied both the First World War and the war Robert is fighting within himselfI had rated the book 4 to 4 stars originally but the I thought about the book and its story while writing my Dutch review for the Nethe [...]

I read this for a student I was tutoring I found out it was Canadian literature an it s often studied in school While historical warfare lit is not my thing, the psychological journey and interrogation of masculinity and the hero was quite nuanced A lot of different layers and meanings to take from this one Surprisingly enjoyed it.

Did not understand it at all when I read it for the first time This is definitely one of those novels that you have to reread multiple times which I did Still don t understand it There are some very explicit scenes in this novel Would not recommend that you read those passages aloud to company as a way to pass the time.

love the commentary on animals within this book, so relatable why do humans value themselves above any other life form made me question my morals, overall becoming a bit disgusted with humanity.

This was a good book, but not a great book for me It was choppy and disjointed and really lost me at times When the story was actually in the war zone, it was outstanding There was a scene when they are sprayed with gas which I will always remember This book is about 19 year old Robert Ross, a sensitive soul, whether it be to his treasured sister, to his fellow soldiers or to the horses he valued The author does a fine job of showing the ravages of war, especially in the last 40 pages or so I ju [...]

The book had a solitary feel to it and it seemed like a testament to what a soldier silently endures as one simply tries to survive Whether a part of a company or an army, it goes against everything man is made to be It is one thing to suffer deprivation in pursuit of some goal but it is another to suffer in a straightjacket, as the men at Ypres had It is not so much the sheer waste of it that was horrible and horrifying but to be at the mercy of so much indifferent incompetence What lightened a [...]

I wrote a review earlier but accidentally deleted it Which was disappointing, but I ll stop my bemoaning Anyway I read The Wars for the first time this year as we studied it in class, and I ve got to say, it s one of those that needs at least a couple rereads to be thoroughly appreciated Findley s prose is devastatingly beautiful and so visually immersive the story of Robert Ross unfolds almost cinematically and reads like a dream For being such a short read, I admire Findley s skill for pacing [...]

What to say about this book Who is Robert Ross Oh, the difficulty of giving praise to a novel I enjoyed rather than criticizing one I disliked I ve previously read Timothy Findley s The Piano Man s Daughter and honestly don t remember much about it at all It just wasn t that memorable to me all I know is that I didn t love or hate it I vaguely remember the plot, but I don t feel like giving it a re read to find out Disappointment.And that s why I was so surprised to find out that this book, rec [...]

The Wars by Timothy FindleyNovember 20162 5 Read as part of my Advanced Literature English class in college 1 grade 12 If I could draw how this book was for me it would be the graphic of an reciprocal function starts high, and quickly becomes very low until it almost reaches zero I had no expectations going into The Wars mostly becomes it was an adult novel, and we all know how much I dislike those Yet, it started quite well, the beginning was interesting and even if the language was quite diffi [...]

Findley, how have I not read you until now Forgive me.An absolute must read, and then most likely a reread A haunting story filled with reflections on the brutality of war, youth, love, the natural world, our private vs public selves, understanding sexuality and the loss of innocence Just read this one.