This review may contain some spoilers so I will begin with my bottom line.
This is a tightly written, many layered thought provoking small book. This is not light reading and is for the serious thinking reader. Dame West is given to simile and metaphor that may seem over done, but are brilliantly crafted to support the story line or its subtext.
Some weeks back I had reviewed Harriet Hume.
Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy
I found it wordy, florid and felt that I had missed something. This book, her first is better on all counts; including clarity of purpose.
Return of the Soldier has been written of as the first book of WWI written from a woman's perspective. Authentication of the claim of first is for others. This book is literally written from a woman's perspective.
The central character is Chris, the returning soldier. He received a head injury and is suffering from "retrospective amnesia". That is he cannot remember the last 15 years of his life. He has reverted to a simpler time before he had adult responsibilities, forgetting his wife and instead remembering his first great love. Being a member of the landed gentry he has nothing to but convalesce. Around him are the three women of his life. His childhood companion, Cousin Jenny; his beautiful, snobbish and stylish wife Kitty; and his first love, member of the working class, and long since married Margaret.
The story is told by or to the unmarried Jenny. Jenny shares the family estate with Kitty. At some point before he left to fight in WWI, Chris and Kitty had lost their 5-year old son to some disease and Jenny has been acting as Kitty's support in Chris's absence. Through her we see how the other characters react to each other and to her is told the back story of the long ago romance between Chris and Margaret. Kitty is mostly seen as some-what childlike, snobby and selfish; in the end it is her intense love of her injured husband that is most visible.
Of Chris we know that before his injury he had been an effective businessman, a responsible holder of the family's Baldrige Manor home and a loving husband.
As an injured amnesiac, he is in a kind of adolescence, if still aware that he has to act like an adult. His old love for Margaret is what keeps him together if rather passive.
Margaret is an older married working class woman. Her life has not been an easy one. Her face, figure and life style reflect a hard working life but her values are those of selfless sacrifice, loyalty and an essential goodness. Jenny wants to dislike her for her lack of upper class style and manners (Kitty never loses her snobbish view of Margaret and is further effected by her jealousy of her), but sees her as the Chris still does, the inner woman he loved in his youth. The love of Margaret and Chris is realized for us in the quote"
"Embraces do not matter; they merely indicate the will to love and may as well be followed by defeat as victory. But disregard means that now there needs to be no straining of the eyes, no stretching forth of the hands, no pressing of the lips, because theirs is such a union that they are no longer aware of the division of their flesh"
Of the several levels operational in this short book (my ecopy says 77 pages), I could identify at least two.
Initially this is the story of how every serving soldier returns from combat changed from who he was. Chris reverts to a more innocent existence. The general statement is that most if not all will be changed by the experience. At this level Dame West uses three different types of people who have to deal with this change. Loved ones (wife Kitty), family (Cousin Jenny) and everyone else (working class Margaret).
Having sent the soldier off to war, society has a duty to deal with their injuries and to support their recoveries. Family has to act as intermediaries within the house hold and with society. Loved ones have to find ways to adapt to or cope with the intimate reality of someone who is beloved and at the same time is a stranger.
By the end, this is a different but related story. What are the relative duties and responsibilities of the soldier, and buy extension any adult. Chris in his innocence can enjoy his immature love. It is a life fulfilling joyous love. It is a love of the inner person and is never to be changed by time. It is also a love free of duties, bills children or maturity. Chris's love of Kitty is that more adult love. Recognizing her means resuming the burden of their lost child, going back to war and again, by extension, accepting the struggles of an adult life.
Some have commented that ending is pat or contrived; in this light, perhaps not so much so.
Having previously complained about Dame West being too florid, this book is brilliantly tight. She has a great gift. One phrase used to describe Margaret's husband captures him completely in one phrase: " a man handling a spade without mastery".
This time I "get" Rebecca West. This is an admirable book. Short, dense with meaning. It is as meaningful to America in 2012 as it was to Post WWI England. It is not too much to call this great literature about the human condition.
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