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Book and Movie Reviews

Author Bio: My name is Ed Frey and I'm a 41 year old bachelor in Edmonton, Alberta who drives a school bus for a living. I'm a naturalized western Canadianhaving grown up and lived in Sask. and Alberta all my life.

DOING BATTLE:The Making Of A Skeptic, by Paul Fussell. Little, Brown and Company Toronto.(1996).


Here's the rare book so direct, you almost can read it by its cover. The title, combined with two photos of the author, seem intended to achieve this effect. One pictures him in 1944 at 18 as a newly commissioned U.S. Army Lieutenant, about to have his illusions of a reasonable and just world brutally slain in wartime France. In the other, we see the 70 year old retired University English Professor in 1996. The impression given by his thin lips and sharp, scrutinizing eyes is true. Without reading too far you conclude that Paul Fussell hasn't missed a trick. Not only can he spot phonies and their ideals, he has fun doing it with insolent, bullseye humour. That doesn't seem too commonly blended with penetrating social commentary.

As he chronicles his personal skepticism developing, he asserts that Americans as a culture starve theirs. Because of this they suffer "infantilism"(dumbing down). Detailing war's cruel absurdities, then his disappointments on discovering how counterfeit so much "education" in America is, Fussell sees connections. An infantilised populace is conned into war "cheerleading". Their lives of shallow thought impede comprehending deep evil. The recent example being the adolescent description of the Persian gulf war as "the nintendo war". Saddam had to be stopped as did Hitler, no argument there. He just stresses that only a nation of intelligent skeptics entering war without brainless jingoism has any hope of reaping little evil afterwards. By that standard America lost in Kuwait. How does he believe we can nurture this vital skepticism? His faith is that if enough of us cultivated the earnest thought required, and acted according to conscience on the moral questions great literature poses, it could save the world.

"For the twentieth century humanist, literature provides the redemptive experience. It was in my perception of the essential evil of people acting without the constraints suggested by high culture that the infantry veteran and the scholar coincided"(pg.251).

That noble conviction he states with a religious passion matching the articulation of C.S. Lewis confessing belief in the divinity of Jesus. I suspect most who honor literary classics would somewhat agree with him. His brand of skeptic is no cynic. One of those would ask him how much constraint was shown by some of the SS commanders intent on exterminating his rifle battalion in the Ardennes? I refer to the "cultured" ones who quite likely learned early in life to appreciate Bach, Goethe or the writings of Luther.

Big business and Big govt. are demonized by Fussell as the omnipresent evils stifling skepticism. Government's excessive and wasteful taxation robs us of the time needed to reflect on our existence. Big business with relentless advertising steals our spiritual/intellectual currency. It degrades ideas, aspirations and even everyday conversation to that of overstimulated, unsatisfied consumers. Such a materialistic, comfort obsessed culture can't realize self respect. How can crass modernists understand what Fussell learned in boot camp?

"Happiness consists not entirely in doing what one wants. It can be consistent also with deprivation and pain, exhaustion and tears--so long as self respect is intact"(pg.84).

Fussell blames world war two as the cursed empowerment of big business and govt. to build their modern muscle. Its social and economic demands coarsened our sensibilities, almost obliterating basic decency and civility, possibly for generations. Is this what Hermann Goering meant when he insisted the Nazis had not lost because in order to "win", the allies had to become like them? I think Fussell would agree.

If you percieve mainstream modern culture as brainless at its best and all too often downright destructive, having to constantly suppress sarcasm, Fussell says you're justified. His book does you two favors. 1. he inspires you to keep "doing battle". 2. He provides the bullets of thought and humour you need to do it.

 Comments may be directed to the author at: efrey@compusmart.ab.ca

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