The great big show is, of course, World War One. Justin Lowe’s epic poem has a Homerian feel about it. It’s about the same size as The Iliad too, traversing East Africa, Capetown, Sydney, London, and France in what seems like a massive undertaking, with minimalist literary tools. The characters are equally big. The key one is Freddy Mannsteim, the slightly crazed Major leading his difficult troops while coping with his own failed relationships: the nurse he once loved and left, his dead father, a murder, and a friend/enemy/colleague he can’t quite come to terms with.
There’s also Catherine, the odd nurse who both captivates and repels those around her -- a kind of permanently absent, nebulous, beautiful, strong but slight love figure. There is also Cyril Oxley, commanding his Indian troop with one arm, Jane de Marche, the writer trying to make some sense of the war, Ana the artist, Corporal Pradham. It’s as if the characters function as a kind of strophe and antistrophe -- the male voices pressing on with the war and the females analysing, wondering, and in their own way, pulling back even as they participate. The tension between these dispersed voices drives the narrative forward and helps give the story a drama which goes beyond the action on the battlefield.
There are times when Lowe’s poetic sensibility shines. The largeness of the novel is tempered by the intimacy of rich observation:
always men like this
suddenly frightened by their years
righteous men ghostly with nostalgiatrawling your eyes for their lost years
while their pretty sons flit between
darkness and light (277)
Each of the poems is titled, and functions on its own -- most are good enough to be publishable individually. The poems each reveal their denouement: the shock of recognition that signals a completion of expression. There is always something new -- and something glittering, within each poem:
he places Ana down
with the air of one given the job
of balancing the world on a pin (183)
The pieces seem to work like flashes of lightning amidst the storm. We get a glimpse of meaning, of characterisation, and then it is dark again. It’s hard to say whether it all works on a narrative level though. While Lowe does a good job of lightly touching on both character and setting -- hinting at where we are, and painting an evocative image for the reader, it’s easy to get lost in the poetry. To work as well at being fiction as it does at being poetry, a tighter narrative structure might have been helpful.
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