The Wars is a 1977 novel by Timothy Findley that follows Robert Ross, a nineteen-year-old Canadian who enlists in World War I after the death of his beloved older sister in an attempt to escape both his grief and the social norms of oppressive Edwardian society. A fanmade movie trailer for novel, The Wars by Timothy Findley. Clips from: Movies - The Poker House and War Horse, Music Videos - BTS and B.A.P.

The protagonist of Timothy Findley's third novel is Robert Ross, a troubled young soldier in the First World War. Ross is haunted by a family tragedy, and traumatized by the worst horrors of trench warfare. The soul-destroying events he experiences build in intensity to one final desperate act. In his introduction to the 2005 Penguin Modern Classic edition, Guy Vanderhaeghe called The Wars 'the finest historical novel ever written by a Canadian.'

The Wars won the 1977 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.

From the book

The mud. There are no good similes. Mud must be a Flemish word. Mud was invented here. Mudland must have been its name. The ground is the colour of steel. Over most of the plain there isn't a trace of topsoil; only sand and clay. The Belgians call them 'clyttes', these fields, and the further you go towards the sea, the worse the clyttes become. In them, the water is reached by the plough at an average depth of eighteen inches. When it rains (which is almost constantly from early September through to March, except when it snows) the water rises at you out of the ground. It rises from your footprints — and an army marching over a field can cause a flood. In 1916, it was said that you 'waded to the front'. Men and horses sank from sight. They drowned in mud. Their graves, it seemed, just dug themselves and pulled them down.

From The Wars by Timothy Findley ©1970. Published by Penguin Random House Canada.

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Settings of The Wars

The Wars Timothy Findley Pdf

The setting in the novel “The Wars” by Timothy Findley is set during World War I in Canada and Europe. The war was the reality of that time, and this book talks about the life of a man named Robert Ross who decided to join the army. Findley used Robert’s character and the omniscient view of it to show the cruelty of war. When war happens, it affects everyone that is present. It affects not just an individual that goes into war; it also affects the loved ones around that individual. Though this novel is written in an omniscient point of view, Findley uses Robert as the main character above all heads to express the experiences he had in the army.

The Wars Timothy Findley Sparknotes

The Wars Timothy Findley Sparknotes Summary

Robert experiences restlessness and the hardship of a soldier. It was a dangerous war that most people did not understand. Soldiers were told to kill their enemies. As for Robert, his enemy was the Germans. Going into battle, there is no mercy. Corpses were everywhere, shells were being blown, air raids and guns were to be avoided. It was the colour of hell that he saw. Being in this situation was so dangerous that most people were scared of sleeping. Soldiers didn’t care if they were dead or alive, their orders were to eliminate the Germans and hope for the war to end.

The Wars Timothy Findley Pdf

The Wars Timothy Findley Movie

No man can be the same after war. Robert was no longer the same naïve and kind man he used to be. His duty as a soldier put him in a setting of hell which later on made him dark, depressed and negative. If war was beautiful, maybe all veterans would come home being the same. But the setting of war is not. Through his experiences and where his experiences were set, in the end he was brainwashed by his memories to believe that life was not meaningful. It’s war.