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adam_mcphee's Reviews (2.87k)
My favourite world war one novel. It's sort of Homeric in a way, in that the author uses his metaphors to connect the the world of war to the world of peace. Also, the old story about Canadians coming up with the idea of urinating on rags and then covering their faces with them as a deterrent to chlorine gas attacks gets retold here, though in a much nastier version: as the gas sinks down into their crater, Robert Ross is initially unable to convince his troops that it will work, and they're almost at the point of mutiny because there's only one gas mask.
The first half of this book is really good: small town boy runs away to join the circus, gets sodomized by a depression wizard who teaches him magic and pickpocketing as they tour the circus and vaudeville circuit and score morphine, then the boy runs away to England to work in a theatre. The second part about the theatre isn't as good. Also, it helps to ignore the Calvinism, Freudianism, repressed homosexuality, awkward framing story and sentimentality that tends to drag the story down.
Reminded me of David Mitchell, where form sometimes is more important than the story or characters, except here there's very little here to redeem that approach.
Makes you appreciate Sally Ride.
I LOVE THOSE GODDAMN APES.