Tragic Maise

I finished "A Man Could Stand Up" and wanted to bask for a bit in a happy moment for Tietjens before, I assume, things get worse in the last installment.  I'm open to discussion on any part of our saga!

In honor of Veteran's Day and Armistice Day, here is a fascinating little video from the Smithsonian on a French soldier's room, left untouched since his untimely death in WWI:  

So I'm just coming out of Hell Weeks 1-2, which seriously curtailed my leisure reading.  In addition, it took FOREVER for the person who had the library's copy of Jeff Vandermeer's Authority (the second novel in the Southern Reach trilogy) to return it.  But once I got my hot little hands on it, I absolutely inhaled it, completing it in less than 24 hours.

To quickly review, without giving too much away (and again, I STILL can't really say what's going on, so there's not much to spoil at this point), part of the U.S. has been closed off by an invisible, mysterious barrier, creating a pristine wilderness known as "Area X."   Area X is filled with sinister features, such as a bizarre underground "tower" that is almost beyond description and a lighthouse that was once a scene of carnage and sinister creatures that seem to be part-human/part-animal. Anything that was in Area X prior to the "border" coming down has disappeared or returned to nature. Expeditions sent into Area X have met with tragic ends.  The government agency that monitors and tries to explore Area X is the Southern Reach.  Nothing and no one are as they seem.

In "Annihilation," (the first novel), our protagonist was the "biologist" (names are purposely avoided as a psychological tactic in dealing with Area X), who was a member of the 12th expedition into Area X, and things quickly went to hell.

In "Authority," we are introduced to John Rodriguez, aka "Control."  He is the new director of the Southern Reach, as we learn that the psychologist from the last expedition (who is MIA) was the former director.  Although his title makes him sound pretty important, he actually has zero "control," as he is being closely watched from above and gets no cooperation from anyone below.  His assistant director, Grace, is especially hostile.  He spends the majority of the novel trying to get a grip on what exactly Area X is and what a character now named "Ghost Bird" might know.  

So basically I've been working 12- to 14-hour days five days a week and 6- to 10-hour days on the weekends, and I am trying not to die of it.  I have limp hair and dead eyes.

So progress has been a bit stalled on Parade's End, but I am about to start the second half of A Man Could Stand Up.  The good news is, we have yet to discuss No More Parades.  So let's get that going, shall we?  I'm not sure how far along people are, so let's just assume that there are going to be SPOILERS GALORE in this discussion.

My thesis is that No More Parades is the Empire Strikes Back of this tetralogy.  We open the book in the middle of battle.  Our hero is separated from home, friends, and love.  By the end of this novel, the curtain closes on a moment of despair that left me uneasy and haunted for days.

Part One of this novel doesn't give us any prelude to chaos.  As per Ford's style, we are in the middle of a scene.  We have no idea what the hell is going on, where we are, or whom we're looking at.  At the beginning of Some Do Not, this was absolutely maddening, but I'm more comfortable with this structure, confident that sooner or later, all will be explained.  Tietjens seems to be on the outskirts of WWI, in France...it's dangerous enough that the Germans are lobbing some shells in the area, but safe enough that Tietjen's wife can come waltzing in and RUIN EVERYTHING LIKE SHE ALWAYS DOES.  There is a sense that Tietjens is protected here, is liked and respected and needed here, is much better off here than anywhere else in France, even though a man can suddenly die right in front of him at any moment.

Tietjens the soldier is a man trying to do 5,000 things at once, some of it banal, some of it having political and personal consequences, some of it artistic diversion, some of it just trying to run away from his personal problems...I think if you are getting men outfitted to meet their deaths, and knowing that delays lead to more death, and seeing death *right in front of you*, you have to occupy yourself with the little things, or you will absolutely lose it.  So his thoughts are dominated by the obligations of work, helping soldiers with finances and their wills, composing a sonnet, reflecting on Valentine and on Sylvia, approving a shady-sounding leave and worrying that the man will be a deserter...a million things are running through his mind, like someone who can't shut off the "to-do list" in his or her head at bedtime, and you're just about ready to SCREAM at Tietjens to recognize two things, which he can't be bothered to acknowledge: 1) that McKechnie is Macmaster's nephew (not that that seems to amount to much at the moment, other than vaguely alluding to Macmaster being a horrible person, but GOD, it's so obvious!) and 2) Sylvia has arrived for some epic shit-stirring.

That gets us to the end of Part II, and maybe that's a good place to open this up to other people's thoughts.  Of course, the REALLY exciting stuff is soon to come.

Some other random observations:

--So far, this isn't what I expected from a WWI scene.  I only think of trenches and machine guns and gas masks (and we'll get to those later). Right now, Tietjens has landed in a world of busywork and stretched resources and random death (with a punchline!  "Ere's another bloomin' casualty.").  He's one cog in an enormous wheel of a machine that is falling apart.

Typically, when long-lost photos are found and restored they're a bit underwhelming. But this new series of images, captured by an unknown photographer, are just incredible — from their portrayal of life in the trenches to the intimate glimpses of famous leaders.