Reading Testament of Youth, war as an experience really struck me as a theme at the beginning of the selected readings. The poetry of Rupert Brooke is mentioned as one of the readings that the young Vera Brittain reads in her studies while Roland is away at the front. Brooke’s poetry is almost extreme in how it romanticizes and idealizes war as almost a cultural experience. For Brooke and his audience, fighting in World War I was an opportunity for glory that shouldn’t be missed by any young men.
Brittain is skeptical of Brooke’s themes, and her skepticism made me think of how words and literature affect those who are not at war, but are awaiting the ones they love to return. Brittain can only hear of her Roland through the letters that he sends and the news that comes through the papers. As she puts it, ” In desperation I began to look carefully through his letters for every vivid word-picture, every characteristic tenderness of phrase, which suggested that not merely the body but the spirit that I desired was still in the process of survival” (Brittain 107).
In the current news, reading of the attacks by Israel on Gaza Strip, even after the recent withdrawal of Israeli troops, makes me wonder if people here in the US who have family just hold their breath every time a story comes out like the one today, where “An Israeli air strike on a car in the southern Gaza Strip has killed a Palestinian and wounded at least three others, reports from Gaza say” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7864652.stm). How angry must these families be when they see poetry by people like Brooke, or when they see news editorials glorifying all the various conflicts around the world. For those who have loved ones fighting, or even those who have loved ones in war-torn areas, war is a struggle of daily emotional survival, and there is very little honor involved.
