By the Waters of Babylon

This story story, published in 1937, was written in response to the Fascist bombing of the Basque town of Gernika. As a work of science fiction it is considered remarkably prescient of the aftermath of atomic warfare as seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The author’s reference to a “deadly mist” is probably influenced by the use of mustard gas in the trench warfare of the First World War. The story is set in New England several generations after a war had killed most people. The remnant live primitively as hill people. The central character, John, disobeys the tribal law and visits the Forbidden Zone (New York City) and observes the equivalent of Pompeii (an advanced civilisation brought suddenly to an end). The story inspired elements of Edgar Pangborn’s The Music Master of Babylon, which was set in a post-apocalyptic New York City.

The author, Stephen Vincent Benét (born 22 July 1898), was the son of an army colonel. Belonging to a two-generation military family, he was sent to military academy in California at the age of 10. He studied English literature at Yale and was a key contributor, mostly of poems, to the university’s literary magazine. His studies were interrupted by a year of military service as a code clerk in Washington D.C. He graduated in 1919 and his first novel was published in 1921. His most famous work, John Brown's Body, an epic poem on the American Civil War, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929.

The central character, John, observes the fate of the advanced civilisation that had inhabited New York City. His tribe reveres those people as gods because they had been advanced but doesn't attribute their destruction to their own folly:
“Then I saw their fate come upon them and that was terrible past speech. It came upon them as they walked the streets of their city. I have been in the fight with the Forest People. I have seen men die. But this was not like that. When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and a mist that poisoned. It was the time of the Great Burning and the Destruction. They ran about like ants in the streets of their city. Poor gods, poor gods! Then the towers began to fall. A few escaped. Yes, a few.”

My War with the United States

This eccentric account of the author's war service was published in 1937. He explains in the foreword that the chapters of the book were translated from the German entries he made in the diary he kept during his service in the United States Army. The author served with a New York State field hospital unit, beginning at a fort in Oswego on Lake Ontario and later at an army psychiatric hospital at Fort Porter, Buffalo. During his time at Buffalo, the author himself experiences mental illness and protects his sanity by transporting his thoughts to the rural idyll of his Austrian childhood:
“I have found a way to calm myself: I go myself to the long baths. There is a bathroom for the men that is not much used, as they prefer showers. I lie in it whenever I can and I have started to think in pictures and make myself several scenes to which I can escape instantly when the danger appears.”

The author, Lüdwig Bemelmans (born 27 April 1898), the son of a Belgian artist, was born in South Tyrol and grew up in the central Austrian town of Gmunden and in his mother’s home city of Regensburg, Bavaria. He emigrated to the United States in December 1914 and worked for several years in hotels and restaurants. He joined the army in 1917 but was restricted to home service due to being a citizen of an enemy state. In the 1920s he did some work as a newspaper cartoonist but he did not achieve success as a published author until the 1920s. His first children's book was published in 1934 and his Madeline series commenced in 1939. He won the Caldecott Medal (for the most distinguished American picture book for children) in 1954. He also wrote several autobiographical books and some travel literature.

At one point during his war service, a colonel from headquarters sent for him and revealed that someone in New York had told the police he was a German spy and that the claim had been investigated. He writes elsewhere that “it is fine of the Americans that now, here in the war, they let me speak German, tell me that Germany is beautiful and don't say a word that I have a stack of German books and many German ideas. I am truly thankful for all this and respect it.” He compares the American mindset with the German one:
“I am thankful that there is little or no patriotism among the soldiers. They will fight and even be killed but they do it, even the crude ones, with the same feeling as if they were repairing a truck and it rolled over them. This seems a bigger field of sentiment and thinking than the Germans are capable of and I think it makes men better soldiers. The Germans are tied up with three little holy grails; they constantly shout and march around with them...”

The Man Who Meant Well

This tragic novel, published in 1936, is set in rural northern Belgium and in Brussels. The central character, Thys Glorieus, is the son of a poor craftsman living in a district whose inhabitants are looked down on by the people of the local village. From a young age his mindset is governed by a desire to oppose injustice and this a recurring theme throughout his story. He works as a farmhand on a large farm nearby and Rosa, one of the daughters of the family there, becomes enfatuated with him in spite of the gap in class. After a dispute he leaves home and moves to Brussels in search of job. When old enough he joins the army and serves as a batman to a prosperous captain, who retains a personal interest in Thys after he leaves. The remainder of the novel resembles the tragic fiction of Thomas Hardy. An interesting device is the alternating narration between the conventional single narrator and the gossip merchants of the village — this reflects the importance of personal reputation within the community as a theme in the novel. An eight-part dramatisation of the novel appeared on British television in the summer of 1976.

The author, Gerard Walschap (born 9 July 1898), grew up in rural Brabant. Much influenced by the poet-priest Jan Hammenecker, he began training for the priesthood in Leuven but did not complete his studies. In 1923 he became editor of a Flemish weekly magazine. In the mid-twenties he wrote several plays and collections of poetry. His first novel was published in 1928 and he went on to write more than 30 novels in a long career. He received the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (the most prestigious Dutch-language literary award) in 1968.

The central character, Thys (rhymes with 'ice'), as a schoolboy was vehemently opposed to injustice and got into trouble for his dogged protection of the girls who were picked on after school. He even took umbrage during history lessons:
“He hated the Romans who conquered Belgium which wasn't theirs to take. The schoolmaster described the savage battles in the forests; the Belgians were so brave that they fought till there were hardly 50 out of 1,000 left. Thys put his hand up and asked, ‘What about those 50? What did they do?’
‘What could they have done except take to their heels, the battle was lost, the Romans were master.’
Thys snorted contemptuously at those 50 out of a 1,000 and had to swallow the bitter truth that injustice had prevailed. No matter how hard he argued that, after all, there ahd still been 50 of them, the schoolmaster shook his head with a smile and said, just like mother: that’s life.”

South Riding

This novel, written in 1934 and published posthumously in 1936, is set in a fictional part of Yorkshire (the south in fact refers to the maritime East Riding). The central character, Sarah Burton, has come back to her native county from London to become headmistress of a small school for girls. She brings with her a socialist mindset and she attempts to improve the conditions of the poorest in the community. Much of the action of the novel involves the local councillors, some conservative, including Robert Carne of the big house, some socialist. Carne’s personal life is tragic and Sarah sees him as something of a Mr Rochester as she grows in affection for him in spite of their political differences.

The author, Winifred Holtby (born 23 June 1898), grew up near the Yorkshire port of Bridlington. On finishing school, she had the option of a place in Somerville College, Oxford but chose instead to volunteer in early 1918 for service with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. She was, however, only posted to France at the very end of the war. She took up her place in Oxford in 1919 and became a close friend of Vera Brittain — on graduating, they shared a home in London where they hoped to establish themselves as writers. Her first novel was published in 1923. She went on to write a further five novels and two volumes of short stories as well as some poetry (including some about Edward Brittain, Vera’s brother, who was killed in the war). This novel received critical acclaim and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1936.

The central character, Sarah Burton, was tormented by what she had known of the First World War. The playing of patriotic songs at a civic function brought her to tears —
“For though, apart from the death of young Roy Carbery, she had suffered less from the war than many women, seen less of it, remained less keenly conscious of its long-drawn catastrophe, the farther it receded into the past, the less bearable its memory became. With increasing awareness every year she realised what it had meant of horror, desperation, anxiety and loss of her generation. She knew that the dead are most needed, not when they are mourned, but in a world robbed of their stabilising presence. Ten million men, she told herself, who should now have been between 40 and 45 — our scientists, our rulers, our philosophers, the foremen in our workshops, the headmasters in our schools — were mud and dust and the world did ill without them.”

Last Cage Down

This novel, published in 1935, is set in a coal-mining village in Durham. The central character, Jim Cameron, is the local lodge secretary of the miners’ union. He carries the psychological burden of the death of his father in a pit accident and is determined to oppose the mine owner’s plan to introduce a high-risk industrial process to a dangerous seam. He predicts that the plan will inevitably lead to deaths and is jailed for threatening to kill the mine owner over his reckless scheme. The foreseen disaster would necessitate the closure of the mine and the destruction of the village economy. The novel was republished in 1984 during a period, as the foreword points out, of “massive pit closures and government ministers publicly discussing the privatisation of parts of the industry”.

The author, Harold Heslop (born 1 October 1898), grew up in a large mining family near the Durham town of Bishop Auckland. He left school at the age of 15 and began working as a miner. He was called up for army training at the end of 1917 and was based at Tidworth Camp in Wiltshire for the remainder of the war. He wrote, “The summer simply drooled on. Men died in Flanders while we played at being soldiers in and around Tidworth... We contributed nothing... The tale of disaster went on and on, killing ruthlessly the young men, while we stayed in Tidworth.” After the war he returned to the mines and became involved in the militant labour movement that looked to the Soviet Union for inspiration. In 1924 he wrote an essay that won him a two-year scholarship at the Central Labour College in London. While there he met other young activists, including Lewis Jones, whose novel, Cwmardy, featured in this project last year. Heslop’s first novel was written during his time in London — having come to the attention of a Soviet diplomat, it was translated into Russian and published in the Soviet Union in 1926. He went on to write five more novels as well as an autobiography.

The author describes the miners’ dispute with the mine owner in terms of warfare:
“The war was set. The old class enemies were erecting the barriers across the streets of industry with feverish anxiety; they were lining up ready for the encounter. Industrial strife is a remarkable phase of life, for it is in this strife that the meek and the lowly come forward with the mighty and the strong to form one solid phalanx of endeavour. Great companions. Strange weapons. Strange tools. Strange battle. The one holds all and is impatient; the other has nothing and is quietly determined, listening to every kind of counsel but that of despair, girding about them incalculable powers of resistance.”

The Pilgrim's Regress

This allegorical novel, published in 1933, is partly a reflection on the philosophical journey of the author. The narrator explains the journey as a dream (or series of dreams). The central character, John, leaves his home in Puritania in search of the beautiful island. It combines aspects of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress, as John encounters characters such as Reason, Halfways and Vertue, and of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels, as he comes across places such as Claptrap, Ignorantia and Zeitgeistheim. It was the author’s first novel and paved the way for the Space Trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia, which, like this novel, combine allegory,  adventure and critical comment on current affairs.

The author, C. S. Lewis (born 29 November 1898), was the son of a Welshman. He was brought up in Belfast and educated there at Campbell College and in England at Malvern College. In 1916 he began studying on a scholarship at the University of Oxford but within a few months he was preparing for war service. From a cadet battalion in Oxford, he obtained a commission in September 1917 as second liuetenant in the Somerset Light Infantry and was sent with the 1st Battalion to the Western Front in November. He was wounded by shrapnel at Riez du Vinage on 15 April 1918: “Just after I was hit, I found (or thought I found) that I was not breathing and concluded that this was death. I felt no fear and certainly no courage. It did not seem to be an occasion for either.” He was invalided back to England and remained in hospital until October. He never made a complete recovery and suffered from headaches and respiratory trouble for the rest of his life. His trauma produced nightmares: “On the nerves there are... effects which will probably go with quiet and rest... nightmares — or rather the same nightmare over and over again.” After completing his undergraduate studies he spent almost 30 years working as an academic at Magdalen College, Oxford before becoming a literature professor in Cambridge. His most famous works of fiction, the Chronicles of Narnia, deal with tyranny, conflict and sacrifice and were written in the aftermath of the Second World War.

The novel contains one reference to a past war and this could well be read as a reflection on post-war Europe. A young boy explains:
“We lost our ideals when there was a war in this country... they were ground out of us in the mud and the flood and the blood. That is why we have to be so stark and brutal.”
John argues in response that the war happened “years ago”:
“It was your fathers who were in it: and they are all settled down and living ordinary lives.”
Certainly the reference to mud must have been shaped by the author’s own experience of the battlefields of the Western Front.

Threepenny Novel

This satirical novel, published in 1934, is set in London during the Boer War. The central character, George Fewkoombey, is an invalid soldier returned from South Africa with the lower half of one leg having been amputated. He quickly ends up in poverty and vulnerable to exploitation. His employer, Jonathan Peachum, operates an extensive professional begging business; Fewkommbey is responsible for the dogs that have to be kept severely lean in order to attract the appropriate sympathy. Peachum’s capitalist ambitions lead him to invest in a corrupt enterprise to provide ships to transport military recruits to South Africa. His daughter, Polly, is courted both by a murderous crook called MacHeath and by Coax, the broker who has instigated the enterprise.

The author, Bertolt Brecht (born 10 February 1898), grew up in Augsburg, Bavaria. With his father’s support, he avoided the immediate rush of recruitment for the army by opting to study for a medical degree. He was conscripted into the army in the autumn of 1918 but his short military service was in his home city as an orderly in a military clinic for venereal diseases. Brecht’s first full-length play was written in 1918 but was not performed till 1923. His second play, Drums in the Night, was first produced in 1922 and dealt with the aftermath of the First World War. That year he was awarded Kleist Prize, the country’s most prestigious literary award. With strong socialist conviction, Brecht went into exile in early 1933 soon after the election of the Nazis to government. He wrote forty plays, several screenplays, hundreds of poems and a few works of fiction.

The central character, Fewkoombey, is not only a victim of warfare but also a victim of the society that he returns to. Though innocent, he's brought under suspicion for the murder of one of MacHeath’s shopkeepers. The court hears that logic “will not let us believe that the prosperous banker MacHeath could have murdered Mary Sawyer” and that same logic “convinces us that it must have been the penniless, brutalised ex-soldier, Fewkoombey”. The solicitor maintains that “fighting in the war... arouses in the coarser type nothing but the most brutal impulses”.