11 Days of Remembrance: Generals Die in Bed

Back in the summer, when I first transferred to Mac, I took an English course called Longer Genres. We studied a variety of novels, including one called Generals Die in Bed, which was written by Canadian author and World War One veteran Charles Yale Harrison back in the 1920s.

My copy has this cover. I only just noticed the four stars under the title. Subtle.

Generals Die in Bed is a fictional WWI account being told in the first person by an unknown narrator, chronicling his experiences in France. It starts with the narrator preparing to ship out to Europe- the celebrations, the heroic cheers, the ideas of glory and valour- and leads the reader through the gore, death, and fears of battle that are to come. Spoiler alert: you want every hero to survive, but just like a real war, not everyone makes it out alive.

The title of the book, which is also mentioned in the story, made for an interesting discussion starter in tutorial. Actually, for anyone who's interested in military history or military politics, it'd make for a decent conversation piece there too. The main idea behind the title is that the lower, menial ranks are the ones who are destined to die on the battle field- dirty, starving, fighting for every second of their lives- while the higher officer ranks, such as the generals, get to have a warm bed to sleep in at night and are well fed... The idea that the officers make the plans, but will never act them through themselves. When I was in my tutorial, and we were discussing the significance of the title, I took the Devil's Advocate route, and suggested that the reason why generals get to die in bed instead of a trench is that they had already done their service. You don't just say, "hey, I want a glorious rank," and get it handed over to you freely. You have to earn it. Sure, there was the argument that nothing like the First World War had ever occurred before, which may be true, but from where I was sitting, I was thinking that those generals would have experienced the Boer War, or other battles like it, and that's not exactly something to take lightly.

As for how the book itself was accepted, those who were of the lower ranks praised it as an accurate account of events and experiences. I'm presuming it's like the book equivalent of Saving Private Ryan with regards to war-zone authenticity for those who have never experienced it. However, those who were the higher ranked officers- the ones who were perceived as never having to do the dirty work- saw it as blasphemous and false.  An inaccurate account forged out of anger and spite.

I personally enjoyed this book. It described more than what we could only dare to imagine. Only people who have been in a war zone, thought, would be able to yay or nay this idea for sure. However, anyone who's looking to read a piece of military fiction that's based on reality, I definitely recommend it.