Literaly Analysis Essay

like Bolivia and Peru. What We Sell Drugs deftly exposes is how a “drug control apparatus” was just as prominent in determining the scope and shape o f American imperialism as the military industrial complex or the availability o f cold Coca-Cola in countries across the globe (226). Emily Dufton George Washington University

WORLD WAR 1 IN AMERICAN FICTION: An Anthology o f Short Stories. Edited by Scott D. Emmert and Steven Trout. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. 2014.

Western literature indisputably was altered by the end o f the First World War, shifting from the innocence o f an earlier era. The Great War and the events that un­ folded on the Western front permeated every element o f society and inspired writers to define its significance. “ T got some great stories to write when I get back to God’s country,’” claims the protagonist o f Richard Harding Davis’s “The Man Who Had Everything,” a story included in a new anthology, edited by Scott D. Emmert and Steven Trout, the first o f its category to present American literature reflecting the profound impact o f the war. And thousands o f stories were written, varying between depictions o f the front lines and the war efforts in the homeland. Even through diver­ gent viewpoints o f the authors, the collected stories distill a concise message: war taints all aspects o f human existence, regardless of gender, age, race or social status.

As the editors indicate, the anthology is a sampling of thousands of stories writ­ ten during and following the war; the collection aims at “juxtaposing works o f high modernism with those cast in earlier literary idioms” (3). Chronologically ordered, the stories progress— sometimes cohesively— from the immediacy o f the war to the reflection, often symbolically, on the permanent transformations that ensued. The resulting compilation holds a surprisingly diverse focus. Indirectly, or with purpose, for example, various narratives examine the impact of the war on the earth as a liv­ ing entity. Texts such as Dorothy Canfield’s “The Permissioniare” and Kay Boyle’s “Count Lothar’s Heart,” lend themselves well to what might be called, in contem­ porary terms, an ecocritical interpretation o f war and nature. Others, in particular, James Warner Bellah’s “The Great Tradition” and William March’s “To the Rear,” examine human relationships when exposed to the pressures o f the battlefield, with the latter highlighting the loneliness o f each soldier. Racial tensions direct several o f the narratives, reminding us that the blight o f American racism unfailingly persisted even under the banner o f war-driven compatriotism. The diverse themes portray the complexity o f war and, in turn, the anthology provides readers with an expansive literary assessment o f the period’s opinions and prose.

Read sequentially, however, the impact of the anthology depreciates. In the introduction, the editors observe that the American “collective memory of the Great War fractured, breaking into distinct and competing versions o f the past, each upheld by its own committed constituency” (11). Correspondingly, when taken collectively, we can grasp how several o f the authors approach their chosen war themes from antithetical interpretations, delineating their views through varying prose styles and sometimes only marginally achieving a marked outcome. This discontinuity between

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stories arises through the wide-ranging talent o f the authors and the “competing cultural efforts” (3) engaged in recording the war. Certain selections even dampen the overall effectiveness o f this anthology. The editors knowingly admit that certain stories are “fairly typical— and fairly pedestrian— example[s] o f popular magazine fiction” (18); and, while each composition has merit in its own right, the final product is left hindered by certain weaker stories with ambiguous motifs.

Nevertheless, as an indispensable addition to the American representation o f the Great War, World War I in American Fiction succeeds in its objective: present­ ing the assorted and expansive richness o f the writing bom out o f the period. To encourage further literary discoveries, for each author included, the editors give a brief historical overview and provide additional titles o f publications by the author. Ideally, the anthology is suited for the university classroom, as the diversity o f the texts should provoke students to engage in discussion while encouraging varying critical approaches to the literature. Appearing just before the centennial o f the Great War, university literature courses and interested readers will benefit from the selec­ tions within this timely anthology. Wayne E. Arnold University o f Kitakyushu, Japan

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