Group Read, April 2022: The Wars

Our April group read is The Wars by Timothy Findley. Please join in the read and post any comments on this thread.

I have my copy on my TBR and will probably be starting it some time during the second week of April.

I'm about 1/3 into this book. It's agonizing, like most books about WWI, and we have not yet actually gotten to the wars. But there's a kind of distance built into the narrative that keeps it from becoming unbearable. More or less. The book opened with horses and that is an unusual (though equally agonizing) subplot here. You forget that in this war, they still had the idea that horses were an important part of an army.

Anyway, just to warn you -- so far, there has been no light shining in the darkness. And I am not expecting one.

I've just started the book and have read about 10 pages. I can see already this this is going to be a dark and emotional read.

I read this book years ago and some scenes still haunt me...

Findley is one of my fav authors, but this book would be too rough for me to read. Has anyone read any of his other works, like pilgrim?

I haven't read anything else by this author, but now, after finishing The Wars I will be on the lookout for him. I was caught up in the emotion of this story and although the author didn't shrink away from the horror, he wrote some beautiful passages. For such a short book, it packed a very large punch!

>7 DeltaQueen50: One of my favourites by him is The Piano Man's Daughter

>8 Cecilturtle: Thanks, I will be on the lookout for that one. :)

BTW there is a bio on Findley Tiff: a life of timothy findley Its been sitting on my bookshelf a while, should move it up the stack

My favorite is Pilgrim

BTW there is a bio on Findley Tiff: a life of timothy findley Its been sitting on my bookshelf a while, should move it up the stack

Finally finished the book - only about a month late - and I don't have much to add. I liked the Canadian perspective on the war, which was obviously horrible. Overall I liked the writing but I didn't think the parts where the author interviewed "witnesses" worked very well. It wasn't exactly clear why these were chosen and others not, and the parts which are supposed to be from the diary of a 13-year old girl didn't feel authentic to me.

Findley's novella You went away is definitely worth reading.

Not wanted on the voyage shows his lively imagination. There are violent passages, but like The wars, they are necessary to the tale he's telling.