The nominee that
takes us there—and back again.
The roundtable’s
sixth and final presenter, my Fitchburg State University colleague Irene
Martyniuk, nominated Sebastian Junger’s War.
Compared to any of the other five nominees, Junger’s book—a very recent
bestseller, and the inspiration for an
Academy Award-nominated documentary to boot—might seem the least in need of
broader exposure. But Irene made a compelling case that we can and should
engage much more fully with War and
its subjects, on a number of different levels.
For one thing,
as Irene noted, you could say the same two things of the war in Afghanistan
that I just did about Junger’s book: that it’s been prominently featured in our
collective consciousness for a good while now; yet that we somehow manage much
of the time not to engage with it nearly enough. Junger’s book, quite simply,
takes us there. For another thing, as Irene argued with particular force, tens
of millions of American lives have been directly impacted by that war, and will
continue to be for many decades to come—and Junger’s book brings the war home
with its soldiers, and forces us to better recognize and engage with this
sizeable and evolving American community.
There’s at least
one more significant, and perhaps even more complicated, place to which Junger’s
book takes us, though: to the defining role that war has, in our contemporary
moment, in our enduring national identity, and, perhaps, in our human
consciousness. As Irene put it, a hard
but seemingly clear truth, and one from which Junger does not flinch, is that
we are drawn to war, that it speaks to us somehow. I’m not claiming that’s true
for all individuals, as that’d be a serious injustice to some of the best
individuals I know. But collectively? We’ve got a deadly
serious obsession with war, I’d say—and Junger’s book can help us admit
that we’ve got a problem.
March recap
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. So last
chance for now: thoughts on this nomination? Other nominees for an Even Bigger
Read?
Restrepo might be one of the finest documentary, not just for communication but, as a high school teacher, this documentary allows me to open my students up to the idea of war as something much more profound than soundbites on the news. These young men, barely older than my seniors (some the same age) appearing in the documentary and then NOT appearing in the documentary really drove home war as something larger than this abstract idea that happens "other there". Love the book, am passionately trying to get it in my summer reading, or into my Survival Lit class. Michael uses it in his history classes.
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