Monday, September 19, 2016

Battle scenes

Whenever I come to a battle scene, whether history, fiction or historical fiction, my reaction is the same.  My eyes glaze over, I have no idea what is actually happening.  In movies, with the quick cuts and various perspectives, I suppose I feel rather like an actual participant in the battle - at the grunt level.  I don't know who is winning, nor what (if anything) will help.  I have the added disadvantage that I somehow cannot even tell friend from foe.  Hopefully, real soldiers can tell.


Anyway, I just finished a 60 page section in Les Miserables, which is about Waterloo.  Most of it is, in fact, description of the elements of the battle.  I stuck with it, because I have this wonderful feeling when I read Victor Hugo's writing, whether or not I "get" what he's talking about. 
There was one scene where a road cut, invisible to the charging army, went right across there path of attack.  The men and horses fell right into it.  They filled it up, and those who were left ran over the dead bodies.  If this had been a fictitious battle, I would have considered it too unbelievable for words. 
So eventually the battle is done and he gets to the part where he talks about the meaning of the defeat of Napoleon.  Which was, in his view, a prelude to the French revolution.  Only after destroying the power of the emperor could the hope for liberty be realized.


It was worth all those pages of people I don't know doing warlike things, just to reach the way he expressed this hopeful conclusion.

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