Hilltop in the Rain

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1928, is set in a fictionalised version of Birmingham, Alabama. Its central character, Morgan Henley, is a novelist working as an English literature lecturer at the local city college in an effort to support his young family. Though not as evocative of academic departmental life as Stegner’s Crossing to Safety or Williams’s Stoner, it remains an impressive depiction of the way in which the life of a literature lecturer suppresses the creativity of a talented writer and passionate thinker. On the entry into the war by the United States, Henley was “restless and sad at heart”, envying his friends who had the opportunity to serve. When he himself enlists, he's sent to Boston and is well trained in the use of the Lewis machine gun (“the tat-tat-tat of the gun was a thrilling music to him”). Before his training has been completed, however, the armistice is signed and he returns to his humdrum duties in the college.

The author, James Saxon Childers (born 19 April 1899), grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied at Oberlin College, Ohio, interrupting his studies to serve in the war as a navy pilot. He graduated in 1920 and subsequently completed a primary and secondary degree as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. From 1925 to 1942, he was a member of the English department of Birmingham-Southern College and this experience forms the basis of this novel. His debut novel appeared in 1927 and was similarly semi-autobiographical, telling the story of a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Perhaps his most important novel appeared in 1936; with the unimaginative title, A Novel about a White Man and a Black Man in the Deep South, it was a courageous challenge to institutionalised racism. Later in life, when working as editor of the Atlanta Journal, his progressive views on race relations cost him his job.

The central character, Morgan Henley, has a yearning to join the war effort:
“In reality he was no different from any other healthy, normal, high-spirited young fellow of 27, and in the late spring of 1918, the uniforms upon the streets of Iron City, the bands, the flags, the recruiting posters, the flaring headlines of the newspapers, combined to goad his spirit to a restlessness which caused a longing that was painful. All his friends, except those who were physically unfit or, like himself, were married and fathers, were away in training camps or in France.”

The Bitter End

This semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1928, is one of England's finest fictional accounts of an individual soldier's experience of the First World War. The central character, Donald Foster, son of a Liverpool merchant, in October 1914 volunteers for the army at the age of 16 during the half-term vacation from school; like many young men, including the author, he declared a false age in his attestation papers in order to serve. Wounded in August 1916, he's evacuated to a convalescent hospital near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he quickly falls in love with Celia, the daughter of the owner of the stately home in which the hospital is housed. When his physical recovery is complete, Donald returns to Flanders in September 1917; meanwhile his sister Millicent is now serving at Montreuil with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps alongside Celia. At “the bitter end” in November 1918, Donald asks a friend, “What made you join the army?”. The response isn't patriotic or proud but instead has a sense of disillusionment: “I don't know. I can't remember.” Donald has the final word: “Neither can I!”

The author, John Brophy (born 6 December 1899), grew up in Liverpool. He was not yet 15 years old when he enlisted in the army in November 1914. He served with the Liverpool Regiment on the Western Front for the duration of the war. He studied at the University of Liverpool and after graduating in 1922, trained as a teacher. His first novel (this one) was published in 1928. Building on its success, in 1929 he published two further novels, as well as a war-themed anthology. In 1930 he edited, with Eric Partridge, Songs and Slang of the British Soldier, 1914–1918. This formed the basis for Charles Chilton's iconic play, Oh, What a Lovely War! He continued to write prolifically during the 1930s, including The Five Years, a personal history of the war in 1936. Immortal Sergeant, his 1942 novel of the Second World War, is regarded by many to be his finest work and was made into a film. Many further novels, short stories and works of non-fiction appeared in the next two decades. His only child, Brigid, was also a successful writer.

When the wounded central character is evacuated from the Western Front in August 1916, the author looks back on the carnage experienced by his unit of the army in the space of less than two years:
“Frank was dead! Sergeant Brax was dead. Corporal Jarvis had been killed just before Donald was wounded. ’09 Wharton was dead. His twin brother had been hit on 1 July. Teddy Scott had gone back wounded and Sergeant Major Budden. Captain Wrekin was dead too. David Bryant and Jack Mason were left. No. 3, indeed all the company, was broken, patched with new faces! It would never be A Company again, as he and 200 other good fellows had known it. He perceived now that the rough, boisterous existence of the Company had had a delicate loveliness of its own. Only the memories of it were left now but not war itself could sear those memories out of the sundered friendly souls that lingered on in trenches or lay sick in hospitals or cold and lonely in their unkempt graves.”

Envy

This novella, published in 1927, is set in Moscow. The central character, Nikolai Kavalerov, is a young man consumed by envy of the model Soviet citizen, Andrei Babichev, who happens to be his benefactor. Communism is being shown in the novella to be a crushing of individual egos for the collective good. The book is remarkable for containing one of the earliest detailed accounts in literature of an international football match (actually between a Moscow XI and a German workers’ club) on 21 May 1927.

The author, Yuri Olesha (born 3 March 1899), was born in Elizavetgrad in central Ukraine and grew up in the port city of Odessa. He began writing while in secondary school. He began studying law in 1917 but interrupted his studies to serve as a volunteer in the Red Army during the civil war. He subsequently became involved in the Zelenaya Lampa ('green lamp') literary circle in Odessa, a group that included other writers of this generation, including Ilya Ilf and Valentin Kataev. His first literary output (a short story) was published in 1922. In the same year, he moved to Moscow to write for Gudok, a workers’ newspaper. Two collections of poetry appeared in 1924 and 1927. This, his first novel, was published in 1927 and several works of short fiction and drama followed its success. His autobiography was published posthumously in 1965.

The struggle between individualism and collectivism is often described in the novella in terms of warfare:
“ ‘Against whom are you waging war, scoundrel?’ you shouted to your brother. I don't know whom you had in mind: yourself, your party, your factories, stores, apiaries — I don't know. But I'm waging war against you: against the most ordinary lord, egoist, sensualist and dullard, assured that everything will come off all right for him.”

The Dark Valley

This collection of short stories, published in 1927, is set in Armenia, mostly in the mountain eastern province of Zangezur. In the story ‘The Apricot Field’, the author tells of how this particular field “would have nothing of value to be remembered by had it not been stuck between the endless fights of two villages Mir and Mrots”. (The same could presumably be said of Lone Pine Ridge or Hill 60.) When Armenia comes under Soviet rule, it appears a resolution is in sight with the view that “the land belongs to the worker”. When, however, a land surveyor has examined the case, his verdict is entirely in support of Mir due to it being “poor and deprived of land”. It is up to the people of Mir to see beyond their territorial gain to an outcome of peace for both communities.

The author, Aksel Bakunts (né Aleksandr Tevosyan, born 13 June 1899), grew up in Goris in eastern Armenia. In 1910 he was sent to study at the Gevorgian Seminary in Etchmiadzin on account of his academic promise. His first published writing appeared in 1915 while still a student there. From 1916, he served as a volunteer in the Armenian forces against the Ottoman army, fighting in the battles of Erzurum, Sardarabad and Kars. He studied in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv from 1920 to 1923  before returning to his native Zangezur. He settled in Yerevan in 1927 and in the same year his first collection of short stories was published. A second collection appeared a year later. He was prolific in writing short fiction and screenplays in the early 1930s before his writings brought him under suspicion. He was imprisoned by the Stalinist regime in 1936, along with his literary friend Yeghishe Charents, and was executed on 8 July 1937.

When the Soviet authorities determine that Mir should be granted possession of all of the Apricot Field, the news has a huge impact of the neighbouring community of Mrots:

“Even though that sheet of paper was small and quite common, it produced more noise in Mrots than the biggest bomb in the world would have. They came, looked at the paper and touched it. Even though many were illiterate, they passed on the paper to the next person as if it were a piece of hot tin that had burned the fingers of the one who had touched it.”
The people of Mir, however, were equally uncomfortable, complaining that the outcome had happened too fast. They submit a request to the authorities to rectify the situation:
“Give us half of the Apricot Field”.
It's reasonable to think that the author deliberately gave one of the villages a name that is the same as the Russian word that can mean either world or village or peace, depending on the context.

Days of Disillusion

This novel, published in 1926, is set in Sydney between 1894 and 1926. The central character, Robert Watson, is the son of a suburban stationer, who becomes ambitious in business after his father's premature death. The book is divided into six sections of Robert's life: the little boy (he was born about 1885), the youth, the young man, the married man, the father and a final section termed “the new day”. Towards the end of the novel he battles disillusion and dejection, losing his zeal for business. After experiencing tragedy, he verbalises his newfound philosophy: “I would not be dissatisfied with the world and the people in it because somehow I would understand that no life in the world is perfect and that human nature is but a process of becoming. I would know that anything human has the element of potential failure in it and that we must not make idols of human beings — we shall always be disillusioned; but that we should put our faith in the unseen.”

The author, Chester Francis Cobb (born 8 June 1899) grew up in suburban Sydney. On leaving school, he worked for Sydney's Daily Telegraph. Both his parents having died prematurely, in 1921 he emigrated to England, the country of his father's birth. He settled on a farm in Oxfordshire. His first novel, partly based on his father's life, was published in 1925 and was the first Australian novel to display the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique. This novel, with a similar setting, was published a year later. He wrote a third novel but it wasn't accepted for publication. Although he had a short life (he died in 1943) and a small body of work, his contribution to Australian fiction was recognised in his inclusion among Colin Roderick's Twenty Australian Novelists in 1947.

The novel doesn't detail the central character's experience of war. When trying to explain his disillusionment, he wonders whether the war was a factor:
“The war... it's no use saying it was the war. I was beginning to be restless and discontented and altogether fed up just before the war. As a matter of fact, if I want to be frank with myself, it was because I was fed up that I went to the war. Going to the war solved the problem for the time. Or it postponed the solving of the problem. But the problem's still here. I'm no nearer the solution than I was before the war.”
Later, when describing an unusually pleasant state of mind, he recalls feeling the same way on one occasion on the Western Front:
“What is this something so peaceful that I feel? ... I felt it first one night in the old office before the war. Since then I've flet it now and again at different times. One early morning in the line in France. And several times when I couldn't sleep at night in hospital [presumably having been wounded]. It was there. It has no voice. It doesn't speak. It doesn't move. It isn't anything that can be seen. It just is. And it's more than a feeling of peace. It's a complete body of life. It is life — a life. The peacefulness is what it is in its entirety. That sums it up.”

Stephen Morris

This novella, written in 1923, was only published posthumously. Although chiefly concerned with aviation and aircraft design in the years immediately following the First World War, it also works well as a classic love story. The eponymous central character had served as an Air Force pilot during the war and on graduating from Oxford looks to aviation for a possible career. Uncertain, however, about his prospects, he breaks off his engagement to his university sweetheart Helen, explaining his predicament after a good job in rubber had fallen through: “I haven't been able to find anything that gives me the faintest chance of marrying, now or in the future.” The novel goes on to describe his progress as a mathematically-minded aircraft designer and his prowess as a pilot for a construction firm (inspired by the author's own role with Vickers). When his job eventually seems secure enough to marry, he thinks about resuming his relationship with Helen.

The author, Nevil Shute (né Norway, born 17 January 1899) grew up in London. His father famously was head of the General Post Office in Dublin during the rebellion of 1916. In 1918, after completing training at Woolwich, he was deemed unfit for an army commission due to having a stammer and instead his war service was spent on the home front as a private in the Sussex Regiment. His brother, Frederick, had been wounded in action in June 1915 and died in a military hospital in France. Like the central character of this novel, the author studied at Oxford, graduating in 1922. Also in line with that character, he worked as an aeronautical engineer after leaving university, firstly with de Havilland and then with Vickers. He wrote his first novels in 1923 (this one) and 1924 but neither were published during his life time. His third novel, Marazan, was published in 1926 and other publications followed. Having set up his own construction company in 1931, he found less time for writing. He left the company in 1938 and began to devote his life to writing and was published prolifically. He served in the Second World War both as a naval weapons engineer and an official war correspondent. He emigrated to Australia in 1950 and settled with his family in rural Victoria. His most important novels, A Town like Alice and Round the Bend were published soon after. A partial autobiography, Slide Rule, was published in 1954.

In addition to the central character, many of the other characters in the novel had backgrounds connected with First World War aviation. His employer, Rawdon, had come to prominence in wartime:
“He had merely been one of a number of gentleman of private means who had been flying and designing aeroplanes obscurely since 1909... His first machine reached the Front after a long series of delays early in 1916; the historic Rawdon Rat. As soon as the first experimental Rat made its appearance, he was organised, protesting, into a limited company and bidden to design like fun; the rank of captain in the R.F.C. was bestowed on him to save him from conscription. But no encouragement was needed. The next production was the Robin... Next came the Ratcatcher, an improved Rat... followed by the Reindeer... Last of all the machines to be used in the war came the Rabbit, a single-seater of phenomenal performance.”

Recollections of a Soldier's Life

Here’s another book that I missed along the way. Although the title suggests a short memoir, this little book, published in 1918, contains two short fictional items along with a collection of verse. The first short story, Four Soldiers, is set at Gallipoli, the formative campaign of the Australian Imperial Force, on 6 August 1915. It tells of an afternoon meal of goat curry shared by an Australian soldier and three Indian soldiers with very little English and the humorous conversation that is exchanged between them in spite of the language gap. That night the Australian with the representative name Digger (the Australian slang term for a soldier) was killed in the first exchanges of the Battle of Lone Pine. The second short story, The Game, describes an infantry assault on a German trench on the Western Front. As they rest after the assault, one of the soldiers tells his comrades “a story of a greater, more silent battle than [this] one... a story of hardship, work and privation” back in Australia.

The author, Herbert Scanlon (born 18 September 1897), grew up in rural Victoria. When enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in July 1915, he claimed to be 21 and amended his surname to Sanlon. Serving with the 59th Battalion, he was wounded in France on 19 July 1916 and was discharged from hospital in October to return to Australia. Unable to return to farming, he set about making a living as a writer. His first publication (this one) appeared in 1918. He went on to write dozens of short stories, many of them with a wartime setting. The numerous pamphlet-style publications were sold in the 1920s by door-to-door salesman drawn from the ranks of returned soldiers, many of whom were unable to make a living in a conventional way due to physical injury or mental health conditions.

The author accurately describes the preparation for the bayonet charge on the Western Front:
“Again we get the order, ‘Fix bayonets!’ This order is the height of a soldier's ambition. What we have been trained up to is to take this order. ‘Fix bayonets!' calmly and as a matter of course. This is the moment men have waited for since enlisting. How many men have tried to picture this moment when training on the sands of Egypt? It could be fittingly described as the climax of a soldier's life. What will follow in the next half-hour is what the soldier has been trained to; and that, in a nutshell, is to kill, as quickly as possible, and, at the same time, to be careful of his own life. Is it any wonder men's hands tremble and shake as they fix bayonets to their rifles?”