Poètes de guerre

Les meilleurs souvenirs ne sont que les épaves

de merveilleux instants qui n’ont jamais fleuri.

L’Angleterre admire et respecte ceux qu’elle appelle « The War Poets ». Ce ne sont pas des poètes qui admirent ou glorifient la guerre. Ce sont de jeunes hommes qui, au milieu des horreurs de la première guerre mondiale, ont laissé une sorte de testament poétique. Les noms de Rupert Brooke et Wilfred Owen viennent immédiatement à l’esprit.

Ayant trouvé par hasard les deux vers ci-dessus dans un cahier d’écolier rempli de notes et de poèmes par un Saint-Cyrien en 1915, je pense qu’il y a eu d’autres « poètes de guerre ». Si j’étais directeur de thèse, je lancerais l’un de mes étudiants dans cette direction pour sa thèse de doctorat. Dans les familles, dans les fermes, dans les petits musées ou bibliothèques de province, je pense qu’on aurait une bonne chance d’en trouver.

De John McCrae : In Flanders fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Parmi les champs de Flandre ondulent les pavots

d’une croix à une autre alignées savamment.

C’est là que nous gisons alors que dans le ciel

une brave alouette emporte avec son vol

un grisollement doux entre coups de canons.

C’est nous, les morts. Il y a quelques jours,

nous vivions, savourant l’aube et le crépuscule,

aimions, étions aimés. Maintenant nous gisons

parmi les champs de Flandre.

Échos de François Villon, n’est-ce pas ?

Cupidité

Au Brésil, on sacrifie des milliers d’hectares volés à la forêt amazonienne pour produire des biocarburants.

En 1803, Paulmiers Dannecours, qui avait été gouverneur de la Louisianne, se désolait de voir que les excellentes terres propices à la culture du blé, aux confluents du Mississippi et du Ouachita, étaient presque exclusivement consacrées à la culture du coton, alors que la population mourait de fin. Voici sa conclusion :

Il en est arrivé ce qui arrivera toujours dans tous les pays où une production de la terre conviendra mieux au commerce qu’aux premiers besoins de l’homme : la première a eu la préférence. L’avarice l’a emporté sur la convenance.

Ce brave gouverneur avait plus de 200 ans d’avance sur nous.

Book Review

Anne Perry’s « The William Monk Mysteries ».

  

The year : 1853. The place : London. 

 

William Monk is a detective in the regular police force. “The William Monk Mysteries” is, in fact a trilogy : three cases solved by Detective Monk. If we look at Anne Perry’s bibliography, we can immediately see that she has written many more detective novels with Monk as the main character. So, why put those three together ? They are linked by the fact that, at the beginning of the first one, Monk was hit by a cab, and has become partially amnesic. He has to grope his way through his personal and professional lives, trying to solve cases while rediscovering his own past and personality : a true psychological tightrope act.

A major element in the fascination these novels exert on the reader, is not the result of particularly mysterious or entangled plots, but simply the fact that the guilty are members of the upper class.

Anne Perry’s analysis of mid-nineteenth century English society is mesmerizing on three main counts :

1.   The rich are untouchable. Of course, that hasn’t changed. Still, they are so convinced of their own superiority that, in their minds, it becomes genetic. In a court of law, for instance, it is clearly implied that if a witness is a servant, you mustn’t take his or her testimony more seriously than you would from some sort of sub-human species. If we add that a servant who testifies against his master will never find work again, the so-called upper class can feel pretty safe.

2.   By some strange result of sociological brainwashing, the population at large share these ideas. A gentleman cannot possibly be a murderer or a pedophile, and those who accuse them of such things are clearly deranged.

3.   Women, even upper class women have no say in what’s going on. Nor are they credited with enough brains to do or say anything sensible. In those gilded houses, they are nothing but golden slaves. Like their own servants, they cannot afford to testify against their lords and masters. Some of these women would like to rebel, while others are in favour of the status quo, and place the “honor of the family” above any turpitude the men might be guilty of.

As in any good story, there are subplots. While he rediscovers himself, Monk has to admit that, before his accident, he was not a particularly pleasant of likeable fellow. He had been in love, but cannot remember the name of the woman. Little by little, he edges closer to a former Army nurse whose horrific experience on battlefields has helped turn her into a wide-awake feminist.

The court cases are nail-biting. As a fan of John Grisham, I am an easy target for this sort of thing. Just the same, the search for the truth and the jousting between defense and prosecution lawyers are masterfully written, and I would almost be tempted to say “directed”. Indeed, they are so vivid that they make you feel as if you are watching a movie.

Anne Perry is a great writer. Like some of the characters she creates, she fights for her deep-seated convictions, and that is what makes the cake rise so beautifully. 

I hasten to add, by the way, that she is not a 19th century English writer, but a contemporary New Zealand novelist.