WAR NO MORE. A review.
WAR NO MORE. Review: The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell
I do meditate on why we humans still kill. What could be worth taking another person’s life? My 800 cable channels versus your doctrinaire caliphate? Getting into heaven couldn’t be that easy. A blood-soaked ticket doesn’t pass as entry fee, no matter what sergeants, priests and mullahs say. Nor do I want to be in a heaven with the avenging angels of your god. It would be my hell because we wouldn’t have enough to talk about.
So I wonder when will Valhalla morph into heaven on Earth? Every generation spends itself repeating a lesson that nearly wiped out our parents, ad nauseum.
Will my children speak Norse or the emerging language of Englaland? It’s a question author Cornwell asks in his Saxon series, circa 900 AD. Cornwell is the best fiction writer of battle scenes. He’s written about Wellington to Waterloo, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War too. He puts you in the shield wall, slippery with guts and gore. I’d like to believe peace on earth is possible, but for generations it’s been tantalizingly far from grasp. Perhaps Cornwell is reading that men need to revisit in order not to want to repeat history.
Desperate for hope, I see war as evolutionary. Just look what it did to Germany, Japan and Europe as a whole. It took two great wars, two generations wiped out in thirty years. European culture was decapitated and reborn in an American model to struggle between dictator and democracy. But the fabric of the world changed. Down came colonialism and the last vestiges of feudalism, a model for 1500 years.
Now we have democratic capitalism inching toward socialism. Up is rising a long-suffering middle class, dragged into debt to pay for college and medical expenses. But we’re better educated, worked less, entertained more, and we have volunteer enlistment for those that insist on killing. Perhaps it’s their anger outlet while the rest of us are more playful with our testosterone... nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
After a lifetime writing about valor, heroes and war, Cornwell pens the following (page 272): I have tried to explain to my grandchildren what war is. I tell them it is bad, that it leads to sorrow and grief, yet they do not believe me. I tell them to walk into the village and see the crippled men, to stand by the graves and hear the widows weep, but they do not believe me. Instead they hear the poets, they hear the pounding rhythm of the songs that quickens like a heart in battle, they hear the stories of heroes, of men, and of women too, who carried blades against an enemy that kill and enslave us, they hear the glory of war, and in the courtyards they play at war, striking with wooden swords against wicker shields, and they do not believe that war is an abomination.
After 50 novels, this is Cornwell’s realization put into the mouth of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the savior of the Saxon realm. All Hail Bernard Cornwell. He is master class for feel-it-now histories of men-at-war stories. May peace prevail on Earth and may we all survive to grow kinder to our neighbors. For the day is coming when killing is no longer part of the mix of evolution. The grape sags on the vine and grows sour. By then, a video game may channel uncontrolled aggression if you insist on pulling a trigger. Imagine if we can manage to be the last generation that needs to wipe itself out in order to evolve into a peaceful demeanor toward all. Huzzah, I’d squeeze the grape for that.
I do meditate on why we humans still kill. What could be worth taking another person’s life? My 800 cable channels versus your doctrinaire caliphate? Getting into heaven couldn’t be that easy. A blood-soaked ticket doesn’t pass as entry fee, no matter what sergeants, priests and mullahs say. Nor do I want to be in a heaven with the avenging angels of your god. It would be my hell because we wouldn’t have enough to talk about.
So I wonder when will Valhalla morph into heaven on Earth? Every generation spends itself repeating a lesson that nearly wiped out our parents, ad nauseum.
Will my children speak Norse or the emerging language of Englaland? It’s a question author Cornwell asks in his Saxon series, circa 900 AD. Cornwell is the best fiction writer of battle scenes. He’s written about Wellington to Waterloo, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War too. He puts you in the shield wall, slippery with guts and gore. I’d like to believe peace on earth is possible, but for generations it’s been tantalizingly far from grasp. Perhaps Cornwell is reading that men need to revisit in order not to want to repeat history.
Desperate for hope, I see war as evolutionary. Just look what it did to Germany, Japan and Europe as a whole. It took two great wars, two generations wiped out in thirty years. European culture was decapitated and reborn in an American model to struggle between dictator and democracy. But the fabric of the world changed. Down came colonialism and the last vestiges of feudalism, a model for 1500 years.
Now we have democratic capitalism inching toward socialism. Up is rising a long-suffering middle class, dragged into debt to pay for college and medical expenses. But we’re better educated, worked less, entertained more, and we have volunteer enlistment for those that insist on killing. Perhaps it’s their anger outlet while the rest of us are more playful with our testosterone... nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
After a lifetime writing about valor, heroes and war, Cornwell pens the following (page 272): I have tried to explain to my grandchildren what war is. I tell them it is bad, that it leads to sorrow and grief, yet they do not believe me. I tell them to walk into the village and see the crippled men, to stand by the graves and hear the widows weep, but they do not believe me. Instead they hear the poets, they hear the pounding rhythm of the songs that quickens like a heart in battle, they hear the stories of heroes, of men, and of women too, who carried blades against an enemy that kill and enslave us, they hear the glory of war, and in the courtyards they play at war, striking with wooden swords against wicker shields, and they do not believe that war is an abomination.
After 50 novels, this is Cornwell’s realization put into the mouth of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the savior of the Saxon realm. All Hail Bernard Cornwell. He is master class for feel-it-now histories of men-at-war stories. May peace prevail on Earth and may we all survive to grow kinder to our neighbors. For the day is coming when killing is no longer part of the mix of evolution. The grape sags on the vine and grows sour. By then, a video game may channel uncontrolled aggression if you insist on pulling a trigger. Imagine if we can manage to be the last generation that needs to wipe itself out in order to evolve into a peaceful demeanor toward all. Huzzah, I’d squeeze the grape for that.
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