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Execution
The great Canadian novel of the Second World War in Italy, winner of the 1958 Governor General’s Award
Lieutenant John Adam, recovering from wounds sustained in the Italian campaign of 1943, faces a terrible dilemma when he finds that one his men, a volunteer, is to be executed, shot by his comrades.
Lieutenant John Adam, recovering from wounds sustained in the Italian campaign of 1943, faces a terrible dilemma when he finds that one his men, a volunteer, is to be executed, shot by his comrades.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
About the author
Colin Mcdougall
11 books1 followerColin Malcom McDougall (1917–1984) was a Canadian author best known for his 1958 Governor General's Award-winning novel Execution.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 3, 2010
I loved this book. It was difficult reading emotionally especially right before the , but it was brilliant. A war novel, but like the best war novels, really about the human condition. I'd be keen to see a dramatisation of it, but I don't think it would translate to the screen very well. It's a novel that kind of has to be a novel (okay, maybe it would work as a play---yes, that I could imagine). I fell in love with all of the main characters, which of course was the whole point. Amo, amas, amat...amamus.
August 12, 2017
Perhaps this started out as just a war story but soon the description of the Italian countryside and the wonderful personalities of the characters soon drew me in. Early on there is an execution so brutally performed that each main character is changed. But soon they go on to execute their duties to take whatever advantage to move forward as well as seeing the consequences of this to be beyond the norm. But it is the execution of one of their own by firing squad that may bring out the best in the all. Absolutely one of the best novels I have ever read!
April 7, 2012
This book will forever hold a special place in my heart. Inspired by the author's own experiences in World War II.
April 15, 2024
This is a rare find, a novel about war viewed through the lens of execution. Not war or murder per se, but execution.
Colin McDougall, a decorated veteran of the small but ferocious Canadian expeditionary force in WW2, takes us through a novelized version of his own experiences in Sicily and Italy between 1943 - 1945. The book's first inciting incident is the summary and brutal execution of two Italian prisoners of war by the Canadians in a Sicilian barnyard. The second is a massive attack on the seemingly impregnable Adolf Hitler Line south of Rome by the Canadian division, a bloody massacre which its own commanding general likens to a formal execution of his own men. The last is the execution by firing squad of a Canadian soldier following his court-martial for murder. All of these incidents are woven together, as are the lives and the deaths of the characters involved, to form a tapestry -- not about war exactly, but rather the effect that ending human lives has on the human beings tasked with ending them.
McDougall is a startling writer. His prose often rises to the lyrical, and his insights into human nature buckling and occasionally strengtehning under the extreme pressures of war is profound. Nobody who reads EXECUTION will forget Ian Kildare, the cigar-waving brigade commander who travels with a personal bagpiper and takes sadistic relish in insulting his superiors; or Philip Doorn, the platoon chaplain who goes so insane he has nowhere to go but back to sanity; or Bunny Bazin, the battalion commander who accepts his own inevitable death in battle so completely he takes conscious steps not to try to avoid it. And McDougall's description of the Battle of the Hitler Line rises to the epic: I actually got goosebumps at its mixture of mindless butchery and accidental glory.
The cultural links between Britain and Canada show strongly in McDougall's writing. EXECUTION, despite its dark subject matter, is laced with dry (but stinging) English-style wit which occasionally rises to the level of black comedy or even satire; fans of Evelyn Waugh and Derek Robinson will smile at his tongue-in-cheek depictions of idiot bureacracy, fools in uniform, ironic outcomes and eccentricities often indistinguishable from madness.
There are admittedly a few sluggish chapters and the pace of the narrative sometimes loses its rhythm, but overall I would not only say this is a terrific novel, I think it's one of the better novels I've ever read and certainly a classic of war literature.
Colin McDougall, a decorated veteran of the small but ferocious Canadian expeditionary force in WW2, takes us through a novelized version of his own experiences in Sicily and Italy between 1943 - 1945. The book's first inciting incident is the summary and brutal execution of two Italian prisoners of war by the Canadians in a Sicilian barnyard. The second is a massive attack on the seemingly impregnable Adolf Hitler Line south of Rome by the Canadian division, a bloody massacre which its own commanding general likens to a formal execution of his own men. The last is the execution by firing squad of a Canadian soldier following his court-martial for murder. All of these incidents are woven together, as are the lives and the deaths of the characters involved, to form a tapestry -- not about war exactly, but rather the effect that ending human lives has on the human beings tasked with ending them.
McDougall is a startling writer. His prose often rises to the lyrical, and his insights into human nature buckling and occasionally strengtehning under the extreme pressures of war is profound. Nobody who reads EXECUTION will forget Ian Kildare, the cigar-waving brigade commander who travels with a personal bagpiper and takes sadistic relish in insulting his superiors; or Philip Doorn, the platoon chaplain who goes so insane he has nowhere to go but back to sanity; or Bunny Bazin, the battalion commander who accepts his own inevitable death in battle so completely he takes conscious steps not to try to avoid it. And McDougall's description of the Battle of the Hitler Line rises to the epic: I actually got goosebumps at its mixture of mindless butchery and accidental glory.
The cultural links between Britain and Canada show strongly in McDougall's writing. EXECUTION, despite its dark subject matter, is laced with dry (but stinging) English-style wit which occasionally rises to the level of black comedy or even satire; fans of Evelyn Waugh and Derek Robinson will smile at his tongue-in-cheek depictions of idiot bureacracy, fools in uniform, ironic outcomes and eccentricities often indistinguishable from madness.
There are admittedly a few sluggish chapters and the pace of the narrative sometimes loses its rhythm, but overall I would not only say this is a terrific novel, I think it's one of the better novels I've ever read and certainly a classic of war literature.
September 12, 2021
The character development in this novel is very rich, and the concepts are complex enough to warrant a few reads. I'm a little sad that it has apparently gone out of print. (I found my copy at the library.)
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March 18, 2015Actually took away something from this book, required reading in high school. The teacher told us it was about "acquiescence." Never forgot that word, or the associated quote: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (sic) to do nothing."
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews