Generals Die in Bed
Encyclopedia
Generals Die in Bed is an anti-war
novella
by the Canadian
writer Charles Yale Harrison
. Based on the author's own experiences in combat, it tells the story of a young soldier fighting in the trenches
of World War I
. It was first published in 1930
by William Morrow
.
slogans without ever truly understanding the horror of trench life. Like the poetry of Wilfred Owen
and Siegfried Sassoon
, or such European novels as Henri Barbusse
's Under Fire
, or Erich Maria Remarque
's All Quiet on the Western Front
, Generals Die in Bed attempts to strip war of its romance and glamour, to show the real experiences of men at war.
The story possesses a unique style in that we learn next to nothing about its main character and first person narrator, aside from the fact that he is eighteen years old. Therefore, it could be argued that his function is merely to serve as a surrogate for the audience
.
upon its release, and was by far the most successful of Harrison's novels. The New York Evening Standard called it “the best of the war books”. The reception was lukewarm in Canada, however, because of scenes depicting Canadian soldiers looting the French
town of Arras
and shooting unarmed Germans (which amounted to a war crime). Former Canadian Expeditionary Force
commander General Sir Arthur Currie
, said that the novel denigrated the legacy of Canadians in the war. Harrison denied the allegation in a 1930 interview with the Toronto Daily Star, praising Canadian soldiers and justifying his novel as an attempt to depict the war "as it really was."
After its initial success as part of the "war book boom" of the late twenties
and early thirties
, Generals Die in Bed was largely forgotten, until the Hamilton
, Ontario
publisher Potlach Publications reissued it in the 1970s. In 2002, Toronto
's Annick Press re-issued the original text of Generals Die in Bed packaged for young adults
, and further editions by Penguin Books
Australia
and Red Fox in the UK
followed. In 2007 Annick republished an edition intended for adult readers and course adoptions. The text generally states the horrific nature of World War I.
Generals Die in Bed is referenced briefly in the short story "A Natural History of the Dead" by Ernest Hemingway
, primarily as a satirical commentary on its title.
Charles Yale Harrison wrote several other novels and non-fiction books before his death in 1954.
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
by the Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
writer Charles Yale Harrison
Charles Yale Harrison
Charles Yale Harrison was a Canadian author and journalist, best known for his 1930 anti-war novella Generals Die in Bed.-Early life:...
. Based on the author's own experiences in combat, it tells the story of a young soldier fighting in the trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. It was first published in 1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
by William Morrow
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, and sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981. It was sold along to the News Corporation in 1999...
.
Plot summary
The story starts in Montreal with an unnamed soldier of 20 years old who is getting ready to leave with the Canadian army to go fight the Germans in Europe, mostly in France and Belgium, during World War I. He already starts to build close relationships with some of the fellow soldiers: Brown, Cleary, Fry, Broadbent and Anderson. Soon after, the story shifts to the trenches, where the conditions are unsanitary with lice and fat rats. The narrator (which is still and will stay unknown) changes his perspective about war. When he thought war contained glory and glamour, he finds himself wrong when his comrades start to die, beginning with Brown. A while later, he is emotionally affected when he kills a German with his bayonet. His emotional status worsens when another of his friend dies. The narrator then goes on leave for 10 days in England, where a prostitute makes him forget about the war. When he comes back, an attempt to raid the Germans takes place where the rest of his friends, except Broadbent dies. The general tells the new team that the Germans sank a hospital ship, and organizes another raid, this time to kill everyone. The narrator has wounded his foot, and discover that Broadbent was mortally wounded too. Broadbent’s leg is hanging by a string of flesh, but then dies by blood loss. Then the war is over. The recruits are told that the general lied, the Germans didn’t sink a hospital ship. It was a ship filled with weapons. He then realizes war is basically a chess game for the generals, and the soldiers are just young boys, listening to the orders, with meaningless idealsStyle and themes
The novel focuses heavily on the futility of war and how many of the soldiers were merely naive young boys, fighting fruitlessly for meaningless ideals. Generals and civilians spew patrioticPatriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
slogans without ever truly understanding the horror of trench life. Like the poetry of Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
and Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
, or such European novels as Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse
Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and a member of the French Communist Party.-Life:...
's Under Fire
Under Fire (novel)
Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse , was one of the first novels about World War I to be published...
, or Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque was a German author, best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front.-Life and work:...
's All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front.The...
, Generals Die in Bed attempts to strip war of its romance and glamour, to show the real experiences of men at war.
The story possesses a unique style in that we learn next to nothing about its main character and first person narrator, aside from the fact that he is eighteen years old. Therefore, it could be argued that his function is merely to serve as a surrogate for the audience
Audience surrogate
In the study of literature, an audience surrogate is a fictional character with whom the audience can identify, or who expresses the questions and confusion of the audience...
.
Literary significance and criticism
Generals Die in Bed was an international bestsellerBestseller
A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and...
upon its release, and was by far the most successful of Harrison's novels. The New York Evening Standard called it “the best of the war books”. The reception was lukewarm in Canada, however, because of scenes depicting Canadian soldiers looting the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
town of Arras
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...
and shooting unarmed Germans (which amounted to a war crime). Former Canadian Expeditionary Force
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the designation of the field force created by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. Units of the C.E.F. were divided into field formation in France, where they were organized first into separate divisions and later joined together into a single...
commander General Sir Arthur Currie
Arthur Currie
Sir Arthur William Currie GCMG, KCB , was a Canadian general during World War I. He had the unique distinction of starting his military career on the very bottom rung as a pre-war militia gunner before rising through the ranks to become the first Canadian commander of the four divisions of the...
, said that the novel denigrated the legacy of Canadians in the war. Harrison denied the allegation in a 1930 interview with the Toronto Daily Star, praising Canadian soldiers and justifying his novel as an attempt to depict the war "as it really was."
After its initial success as part of the "war book boom" of the late twenties
1920s
File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...
and early thirties
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
, Generals Die in Bed was largely forgotten, until the Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
publisher Potlach Publications reissued it in the 1970s. In 2002, Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
's Annick Press re-issued the original text of Generals Die in Bed packaged for young adults
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
, and further editions by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and Red Fox in the UK
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
followed. In 2007 Annick republished an edition intended for adult readers and course adoptions. The text generally states the horrific nature of World War I.
Generals Die in Bed is referenced briefly in the short story "A Natural History of the Dead" by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, primarily as a satirical commentary on its title.
Charles Yale Harrison wrote several other novels and non-fiction books before his death in 1954.
See also
- Battle of Amiens
- Canadian literatureCanadian literatureCanadian literature is literature originating from Canada. Collectively it is often called CanLit. Some criticism of Canadian literature has focused on nationalistic and regional themes, although this is only a small portion of Canadian Literary criticism...
- War novelWar novelA war novel is a novel in which the primary action takes place in a field of armed combat, or in a domestic setting where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, or recovery from, war...
External links
- Generals Die in Bed at Project Gutenberg AustraliaProject Gutenberg AustraliaProject Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. The site hosts free ebooks or e-texts which are in the public domain in Australia. The ebooks have been prepared and submitted by volunteers...