War and the Mind: Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, Modernism, and Psychology ed. by Ashley Chantler and Rob Hawkes

Abstract

Ashley Chantler and Rob Hawkes, eds. War and Mind: Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, Modernism, and Psychology. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh UP, 2015.186 pp. 70,00 [pounds sterling]. In Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, Ford's character, tells Colonel Levin, the thing is to be able to stick to integrity of your character, whatever earthquake sets house tumbling over your head (167). Ending collection on this note, Gene M. Moore illustrates for us Ford that gave us who has fascinated each of essayists in this perceptive collection, which is admirably introduced by Ashley Chantier and Rob Hawkes, its editors. Here is list of essays: CHAPTERS OF WAR AND THE MIND: Ashley Chantler and Rob Hawkes, Introduction (1-16). Max Saunders, 'Sex ferocity' and 'the sadic lusts of certain novelists': Sexuality, Sadomasochism, and Suppression in Parade's (17-34). Karolyn Steffens, Freud Madox Ford: Impressionism, Psychoanalytic Trauma Theory, and Ford's Wartime Writing (35-49). Eve Sorum, Empathy, Trauma, and Space of War in Parade's (50-62). Megan Marie Hammond, Fellow Feeling in Ford's Last Post: Modernist Empathy and Eighteenth-Century Man (63-76). Barbara Farmworth, The Self-Analysis of Tietjens (77-91). Alexandra Becquet, War and Mind; Composing Parade's (92-111). Sarah Kingston, The Work of Sleep: Insomnia and Discipline in Ford and Sassoon (112-26). Charlotte Jones, Representing Shell Shock: A Return to Ford and Rebecca West (127-42). Leslie de Bont, 'I hate soldiering': Ford, May Sinclair, and War Heroism (142-58). Gene M. Moore, Peace of Mind in Parade's (159-70). Two things are unavoidable in writing about Great War. First, there are no individuals to Army's way of thinking. Discipline applies to everyone in uniform no matter what his distinctive character traits or his social connections. Consequently, as the military machine denies the soldier's subjectivity, that very soldier's heroism entails fighting against one's own (150). Second, it is individual soldier who records horrors he experiences in battle that change his way of thinking. Thus cannot rid himself of two excruciating experiences. First, 0 Nine Morgan is hit by shell-fragment and bleeds to death in Tietjens' arms. cannot shake this event from his mind: it haunts him throughout No More Parades. Second, German shell buries in trench mud from which he extricates himself with an exhausting effort that he must similarly employ to rescue Lance-Corporal Duckett, whose face reminds him of Valentine Wannop. This singular event of war thus momentarily returns to woman he loves. If army buries him in battle, Valentine raises him to life. Thus we are unavoidably plunged into considerations of Eros and Thanatos throughout Parade's End tetralogy. Karolyn Steffens shows how moments of death cannot be divorced from moments of love, like Duckett-Valentine moment. Even when O Nine Morgan is bleeding to death, Tietjens' thoughts go to Valentine too: what would she as pacifist make of this horror taking place in lap of man she loves? So Ford's impressionism doesn't end with unspeakable but is absorbed into unutterable: love stronger than death. Max Saunders shows another dimension in scenes of love and death by his acute analysis of sadomasochism in variety of characters in Some Do Not ... like Reverend Duchemin, his wife Edith Ethel, and Macmaster, but especially in Sylvia Tietjens. She embraces it totally in her on-and-off love-hate relationship with Christopher. She whips to death bulldog: a naked white beast ... Obese and silent.... Like Christopher (23). This is simply one prominent instance among others in Sanders' essay which thoroughly analyzes sexual madness, sadism, and assorted violence in Parade's End. …