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A Significant Experience
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1963
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 30, 2025
"...Set in a British regimental training school in Egypt during World War II, the story concerns the brutal disciplinary action taken against a young cadet, victimized by a military tradition, caste ritual, and complex sexuality, he cannot comprehend.
"Termed 'an amusing tactical exercise in psychology' by one of the officers, the savage incident reveals the attitudes and emotions of those involved with shattering realism. Van der Haar, the bewildered, shocked quarry, out of his depth because he has not had the traditional English upper-class upbringing; Captain Lutwyche, his company commander, not quite in control of his own lusts; Sergeants Cole and Caulderon, simple, deeply conventional professional soldiers with their own rigid code and their own way dealing of with transgressors - each is affected by the horrifying consequences of the episode.
"...(the) picture of the outmoded customs and cruelties of British Army life is deliberately nightmarish. There is a wilful intensity about this exploration of the way in which men use tradition and conventions of discipline as a means of tormenting one another, as an excuse for this torture, and as a shield of respectability that prevents them from examining their own most barbarous instincts." From the jacket flyleaf of the 1964 hardback English edition from Jonathan Cape.
There are two other reviews for this short novel? novella? on GR and both sing its praises. It is a very, very fine book and convinces me that Gwyn Griffin is author long overdue for rediscovery (please see the excellent article about this novel on the neglected book page at: https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=8891 - also see my footnote *1 below). Unfortunately Mr. Griffin lived most of his life abroad and died young at 45. He was not part of the London literary/publishing world and its cliques, which is not surprising as he loathed Englishmen of the public school/officer class. His novels, or at least all those I have read, find them not only fatuous, hypocritical but morally vacuous. If you attempt to read novels of authors like Simon Raven after reading Griffin you will choke on the cherry trousers, boots, spurs, death's-head badges and glinting buttons that Raven treats as nostalgic fetishes of England's glorious past. For Griffin these baubles of England's greatness were simply distractions hiding, as the epigraph to 'A Significant Experience' has it:
"One of the most ardent pursuits of man is finding excuses to persecute other people" - Laurie Lee
One of the most grotesque things about the barbarous humiliation perpetrated on Van der Haar is that it has nothing to do with making him a good officer. It is about antiquated shibboleths and barely repressed sexual longing (that is why I have shelved the novel as 'queer-interest' - queers can be as loathsome as anyone else). Van der Haar is there because he has unique linguistic skills which the intelligence wants to make use of as quickly as possible but to do so he must be commissioned. Everyone knows this but his persecutors don't care because caste and its absurdities are more important than winning the war.
A really great read which is not impossible to get hold and I hope will lead you to discover the other novels by this truly great but forgotten author.
*1 Also worth reading is http://twicelostblog.wordpress.com/20....
"Termed 'an amusing tactical exercise in psychology' by one of the officers, the savage incident reveals the attitudes and emotions of those involved with shattering realism. Van der Haar, the bewildered, shocked quarry, out of his depth because he has not had the traditional English upper-class upbringing; Captain Lutwyche, his company commander, not quite in control of his own lusts; Sergeants Cole and Caulderon, simple, deeply conventional professional soldiers with their own rigid code and their own way dealing of with transgressors - each is affected by the horrifying consequences of the episode.
"...(the) picture of the outmoded customs and cruelties of British Army life is deliberately nightmarish. There is a wilful intensity about this exploration of the way in which men use tradition and conventions of discipline as a means of tormenting one another, as an excuse for this torture, and as a shield of respectability that prevents them from examining their own most barbarous instincts." From the jacket flyleaf of the 1964 hardback English edition from Jonathan Cape.
There are two other reviews for this short novel? novella? on GR and both sing its praises. It is a very, very fine book and convinces me that Gwyn Griffin is author long overdue for rediscovery (please see the excellent article about this novel on the neglected book page at: https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=8891 - also see my footnote *1 below). Unfortunately Mr. Griffin lived most of his life abroad and died young at 45. He was not part of the London literary/publishing world and its cliques, which is not surprising as he loathed Englishmen of the public school/officer class. His novels, or at least all those I have read, find them not only fatuous, hypocritical but morally vacuous. If you attempt to read novels of authors like Simon Raven after reading Griffin you will choke on the cherry trousers, boots, spurs, death's-head badges and glinting buttons that Raven treats as nostalgic fetishes of England's glorious past. For Griffin these baubles of England's greatness were simply distractions hiding, as the epigraph to 'A Significant Experience' has it:
"One of the most ardent pursuits of man is finding excuses to persecute other people" - Laurie Lee
One of the most grotesque things about the barbarous humiliation perpetrated on Van der Haar is that it has nothing to do with making him a good officer. It is about antiquated shibboleths and barely repressed sexual longing (that is why I have shelved the novel as 'queer-interest' - queers can be as loathsome as anyone else). Van der Haar is there because he has unique linguistic skills which the intelligence wants to make use of as quickly as possible but to do so he must be commissioned. Everyone knows this but his persecutors don't care because caste and its absurdities are more important than winning the war.
A really great read which is not impossible to get hold and I hope will lead you to discover the other novels by this truly great but forgotten author.
*1 Also worth reading is http://twicelostblog.wordpress.com/20....
January 7, 2023
Wow! Thank you to neglectedbooks.com for bringing this to my attention. This book's apparent obscurity is borderline criminal.
Written in 1963 by Gwyn Griffin, who had non-front line experience during WWII, this is a great work of nonconformist literature, a book that simmers with rage which is directed at many "sacred cows"--including the military during WWII--in Griffin's homeland, the UK. Reminiscent of Billy Budd but much more of a topical attack than a metaphysical commentary on the question of free will, Griffin's short novel focuses on an officer training school located in Egypt during WWII. A young man, Van der Haar, finds himself unexpectedly thrown into the mix by virtue of the well-meaning but obtuse actions of an upper-level officer. Van der Haar has no military experience, but, due to his background, possesses language skills useful for the intelligence officials. Hence, he is to be put through 4 months of arbitrarily-assigned training to make him "eligible" for that posting.
Van der Haar has never been beaten down or broken by the machinery of cruelty and conformity that is the British military; as a result, he fails to fit in. After months of struggle, his superiors ultimately decide to give him a "Significant Experience"--a ritualized caning designed to...what? Make him one of them? Fulfill their own sadistic desires?
This is an astonishingly powerful novel that unhesitatingly compares the sadism of the British upper class to Nazis; in one jaw-dropping paragraph, the authorial voice reminds us that there is little difference between the German military class and the British save that one won and the other lost! In 1963! Not even 20 years after the war! Holy hell this book is smoking and almost hot to the touch with the author's palpable rage at a self-satisfied society propping up myths of colonial glory without reckoning with the essential despotism and despair rotting the heart of that dying empire.
An absolute gem that cannot be missed. Going to be hard to top this one moving forward this year.
Written in 1963 by Gwyn Griffin, who had non-front line experience during WWII, this is a great work of nonconformist literature, a book that simmers with rage which is directed at many "sacred cows"--including the military during WWII--in Griffin's homeland, the UK. Reminiscent of Billy Budd but much more of a topical attack than a metaphysical commentary on the question of free will, Griffin's short novel focuses on an officer training school located in Egypt during WWII. A young man, Van der Haar, finds himself unexpectedly thrown into the mix by virtue of the well-meaning but obtuse actions of an upper-level officer. Van der Haar has no military experience, but, due to his background, possesses language skills useful for the intelligence officials. Hence, he is to be put through 4 months of arbitrarily-assigned training to make him "eligible" for that posting.
Van der Haar has never been beaten down or broken by the machinery of cruelty and conformity that is the British military; as a result, he fails to fit in. After months of struggle, his superiors ultimately decide to give him a "Significant Experience"--a ritualized caning designed to...what? Make him one of them? Fulfill their own sadistic desires?
This is an astonishingly powerful novel that unhesitatingly compares the sadism of the British upper class to Nazis; in one jaw-dropping paragraph, the authorial voice reminds us that there is little difference between the German military class and the British save that one won and the other lost! In 1963! Not even 20 years after the war! Holy hell this book is smoking and almost hot to the touch with the author's palpable rage at a self-satisfied society propping up myths of colonial glory without reckoning with the essential despotism and despair rotting the heart of that dying empire.
An absolute gem that cannot be missed. Going to be hard to top this one moving forward this year.
March 20, 2024
rndgmoat's review says it all. A brief but highly disturbing novel that mounts a devastating attack on the British army, presumably based on Griffin's own experiences. Highly recommended (if you can find a copy).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews