Death of a Hero

by Richard Aldington

First published in 1929, Death of a Hero was described by its author as both a jazz novel and a memorial to a generation. The hero is George Winterbourne. Leaving the Edwardian gloom of his embattled parents behind him, George escapes to Soho, which buzzes, on the eve of war, with talk of politics, pacifism and free love. He paints, he marries, he takes a mistress: the perfect hero of his time, whose destiny -- like all those of that lost generation -- is the bloody nightmare of the trenches.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, War, Historical Fiction, World War I, Literature, 20th Century

446 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Edward Godfree Aldington was an English writer, poet, translator, critic, and biographer. He joined the British Army in 1916 and was wounded in 1918.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_...

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially bought this book when I realised what a big trauma WWI was for the Brits and wanted to learn more about it. Like most people in the world, I learnt history at school, and it was the usual, jingoistic and egocentric version of it that schoolchildren all over the world are subjected to. In Poland, WWI is glossed over but for its one, most important aspect, and that is the return of Polish independence. For us, of course it is all about WWII.

Now that I have read ‘Death of a Hero’ I can’t believe this country seems to have completely forgotten the unruly, modernist gem. Or perhaps, I can believe it, because Aldington doesn’t have anything positive to say about his motherland.

This book is a precocious and observant child who doesn’t quite know what it wants to be when it grows up but. The author himself acknowledges that in the preface where he says:

“This book is not the work of a professional novelist. It is, apparently, not a novel at all. Certain conventions of form and method in the novel have been erected, I gather, into immutable laws, and are looked upon with quite superstitious reverence. They are entirely disregarded here. To me the excuse for the novel is that one can do any damn thing one pleases.”

And so he does. Even though it seems like the novel has a beginning, middle and end, it really feels like three different novels carelessly stitched together that differ in style and tone. The third person narrator, who claims to be our hero’s friend, every now and then turns omniscient where it suits him and spends the middle part of the book on a soapbox informing us of his various opinions about art, sex and the society.

Finally, Aldington includes the main spoiler in the very title of the book, as well as its prologue. Yes, the main character, George Winterbourne, dies. It’s not so much the war that kills him but the idea of peace and his return to the so called ‘normal life’.

After announcing Winterbourne’s death, the book goes back in time to focus on his parents and grandparents in a sardonic take on the British society. It’s a merciless and very funny caricature of the aspiring British middle class. The reader might question what Winterbourne’s grandparents grotesque marriage had to do with the World War I, but I think the author wanted to do away with this dreamy notion that WWI somehow ended some age of innocence in Britain. That innocence was never there.

It’s not until the last part of the book where we finally get to the war and the life in the trenches. It’s all pathos and bathos, and a pointless horror that WWI was. As powerful as I expected.

[Kuszma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olyan, mintha ketten írták volna: egy jó író, meg egy rossz író. Sajnos a rossz írónak jobban szaladt a tolla, övé durván az első 300 oldal. Ez a szakasz szegény George Winterbourne származásáról és felcseperedéséről szól, és össze lehetne foglalni két szóban: „rohadt viktoriánusok”. A szerzőnek láthatóan nincs más célja, mint hogy a korszak aljasságát, képmutatását és talmi voltát igazolja, ennek érdekében szereplők helyett karikatúrákat ír, elemzések helyett kirohanásokat, fárasztó, néha megmosolyogtatóan felületes eszmefuttatásokba bonyolódik, egyszóval: végig sokkal fontosabb neki Winterbourne személyes sorsánál az, hogy jól szájon kenje a Brit Birodalmat. Az egész első háromszáz oldal tankönyvi példája, hogy a strukturálatlan harag egy rendszer ellen (attól függetlenül, hogy az írónak igaza van-e, vagy sem) az irodalom ellen dolgozik. Az írónak desztillálnia kell ezt a dühöt, azt a regény belső motorjaként felhasználni – de nem engedheti meg, hogy a düh a szöveg voltaképpeni céljává változzon.

Aztán szerencsére Winterbourne bezupál, és a szöveg is varázsütésre megváltozik. A kötet második fele, az első világháború ábrázolása példaszerű, tiszta, pontos és erős. Érezzük a könnygáz ananászszagát, mi is ott caplatunk a térdig érő sárban, halljuk a srapnelek becsapódásait. Azt hiszem, a két textúra közötti minőségi különbség oka, hogy amíg az első szakasz az ellenszenvből táplálkozott, addig a második a személyes élményből, ennek köszönhetően amíg az első széteső és torz, addig a második feszes és plasztikus. Tanulságos. Vajon miért nem bízták erre az íróra az első részt is, kérdezi magában a naiv olvasó.

Különben meg pacifista regény. De valahogy disszonánsan az. Nem azért, mert az eleje rosszul van megírva – az más lapra tartozik. Hanem mert amíg az első szakasz egy hazug, kétszínű világot mutat be, a második egy olyan létezésnek – a háborúnak – állít emléket, ami véres és értelmetlenül kegyetlen ugyan, de mégis: a maga módján őszinte, átlátható és világos. Áthatja a bajtársiasság, és az a tudat, hogy a háború hülyeség. Paradox, hogy ezért az összhangért magának a háborúnak tartoznak hálával. Talán emiatt éreztem úgy, hogy ez a szöveg legalább annyira nosztalgiával kezeli a világégést, mint ellenszenvvel. Amit persze nem rónék fel neki, enélkül is van gondja elég.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book initially came into my hands when I was fifteen years old, and found, by chance, the first unexpurgated edition in a bookstore in Paris. For decades it was censored in England on account of the sheer venom that Aldington brought to his depiction of pre-World War One British society, and of the war itself as conducted by the British High Command. The novel tells the story of George Winterbourne (as in Winter-born), a young modernist British painter who before the war lives marginally in London, focused mainly on his art, and has relationships with two young women: Elizabeth (who becomes his wife) and Fanny (who doesn’t, but with whom he continues his liaison). With the coming of war, he on principle joins up as an enlisted man, though his education would entitle him to become an officer. Eventually, the sheer attrition rate of officers obliges him to become one. The novel graphically and eloquently depicts both the hypocrisies of British pre-War society, and the horrors and follies of the War itself. While it was censored in Britain, it became very popular in the Soviet Union: ironically, given that Aldington considered himself an anti-communist.

As I was living in France at the time, this book more than any other I can think of helped me to get a sense of the extremity of horror and societal upheaval that lay behind the vast and silent cemeteries of Verdun, the Somme, and Ypres, and that had helped shape the twentieth century.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A largely autobiographical novel about a British soldier, George Winterbourne, and his experiences in WW1 as an infantryman and then an officer. The novel is broken into thirds. The first part is about George’s parents and his own childhood before the war at the beginning of the 20th century. The Winterbourne’s are faux nobility and an odd family with a manipulative mother. In the middle of the novel we see George strike out on his own to London as an author and then marry a young woman named Elizabeth. George and Elizabeth end up in an open marriage and each take different lovers that makes for some unique situations.

The final third of the novel addresses George’s experiences while fighting on the front lines for the British. He starts as infantryman and serves seven months in France, then is sent home to officer’s school where he returns six months later. This part of the novel is very vivid and shocking much like All’s Quiet on the Western Front.

The writing style used by Aldington is a mix of beautifully poetic paragraphs interspersed with realism and its shocking descriptions of trench warfare. At times there is very choppy dialogue. Aldington was a poet so this may explain the lack of continuity between sentences and his reluctance to use many conjunctions to extend sentences.

So the novel is a little quirky but so authentic in disposing of and railing at many of the Victorian sentiments seen in novels just a decade or so earlier. This novel was banned on its publication in 1929 because of vulgar language, sexual dalliances and graphic descriptions of trench warfare. There is probably little in this novel that would be objectionable to a teenager today. Aldington is an excellent narrator although the dialogue is pretty average. Here is an example of his views in a wonderful prologue.

Under the heading “Killed in Action,” one of these later lists contained the words:

“Winterbourne, Edward Frederick George, A/Capt., 2/9 Battn. R. Foddershire Regt.”

“The small interest created by this item of news and the rapidity with which he was forgotten would have surprised even George Winterbourne; and he had that bottomless cynicism of the infantry subaltern which veiled itself in imbecile cheerfulness, and thereby misled a good many not very acute people. Winterbourne had rather hoped he would be killed, and knew that his premature demise in the middle twenties would be borne with easy stoicism by those who survived him. But his vanity would have been a little shocked by what actually happened.”

So I give this novel 4.5 stars, if you like war novels probably five stars.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Death of a hero is a book possessed by a righteous unpitying fury.

The book tells the story of George Winterbourne, an English artist who enlists in WWI, from the perspective of a deeply cynical friend. I assume the book draws heavily on the author’ own experience. Unlike other WWI fiction as much focus is spent on George’s pre war years all the better to castigate and rubbish Edwardian hypocrisy as on the trenches.

In turns moving, funny and sad it does the best job of any book I have read in capturing the anger returning soldiers must have felt.

[Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most World War 1 literature in popular culture seems to begin and end with All Quiet on the Western Front, which I hesitate to refer to as "overrated." Perhaps the best way to refer to it is "overused," but, it's hard then not to look back to All Quiet... when reading any of piece of literature about the First World War. In any instance I think then that Richard Aldington ought to be just as widely read as Remarque and I’ll explain why.
Remarque concentrates on a group: Paul Baumer's friends are picked off until there's just Paul, and then he too is claimed by the war at the very end of the novel. The tragedy being that Baumer's death as with his comrades is just so common that it doesn't even warrant mention in the reports of the day: everything is merely "all quiet." There of course is the tragedy: a life is so cheap that in spite of all the experience that one life has it is completely meaningless in the context of the war. Remarque obviously wants the reader to imagine themselves within the same situation. Remarque goes for empathy.
Now, Remarque’s book is excellent, don’t get me wrong and this empathy works very well.
The problem is that where Remarque has his group of characters go from close friends doing very unmilitary things together: chasing girls, hanging around town, so on and so forth, there is a time before when getting together with a group of your closest friends to fight and kill other groups of close friends was not even a remote thought.
Aldington meanwhile has his main character George Winterbourne who’s very alone. He has few close friends, he has romantic partners sure enough, but he is not really attached to people. He easily acquires and loses many people with only passing notice. Even his wife and mistress aren’t very close with him since they each have their own other sexual partners aside from George. George’s parents meanwhile are the proverbial ‘phonies’ of Holden Caulfield-speak. His father is a bit of a Quixote character who simply exists on a separate plane of existence from his son, while his mother rather likes the consecutive ideas of: a son; a son in the army serving his country; and a dead son having served his country. These she likes not for any of her son’s accomplishments, but for the attention that they give her. These phases of George Winterbourne’s life are mere tools for her own purposes.
That relationship cuts to the heart of the book, and the difference between Remarque and Aldington.
Remarque would fully acknowledge that this group of youth he portrays are used as tools, but his focus is on the breaks between individuals that this war causes, the loss of life as national tragedy, that is his focus.
Aldington is not interested in this. His focus is that on how the individual is used, how the individual progresses from body to corpse, and corpse to memory. George was not important for any social reasons, George was important because he was a soldier pointing his gun in the correct direction. His death is important because it goes back to and help props up that authority which sent him there in the first place. You can see this with the banality of the corpses in the final scenes-they are at best obstacles in ones path whether they are French or German is immaterial. It is a numbers crunch.
Again, this is something that Remarque would no doubt totally agree with, but since his focus is elsewhere it is not fleshed out nearly so well. Aldington’s message is that it wasn’t necessarily that society lost its humanity, rather it’s more likely that it never had any in the first place.

[Femke Van Der Smissen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Victorians, Edwardian intelligentsia, the army and the British society at large get severely roasted.
"As Winterbourne once remarked, one of the horrors of the War was not fighting the Germans, but living under the British."
Also, you better like the word "humbug".

[Anthony Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour de force written by Richard Aldington whose narrator, this reader felt, was an extension of his desperate need to try to purge himself of everything he felt was wrong with early 20th century British, specifically English, middle class moral and social respectability and both its cultural mediocrity and its pretentiousness, as well as vent his anger about the the crass dreadfulness of WW1.

The horror of the war in particular is one of the best that I, as one without any experience of soldiering, have read, and makes the unspeakable intelligible and, at the risk of being thought hyperbolic, experient.

Aldington is fuelled by a fury of frustrated and unrelenting indignation: the novel is his rage against the machine, his determination to make his case against what he regards as social, cultural and political idiocy, his case against going gently into that good night. At times, therefore, a reader needs to be prepared for a massive tirade, especially against hypocrisy and cant, words Aldington frequently repeats. I confess that I found these passages stretched my patience, but reading them aloud revealed that Aldington has what I thought was a rather fine sense of a kind of wrathful rhetoric.

The novel may be thought of as a memoir of the fictional life and times of George Winterbourne, killed in action on the Western Front. It is divided into a brief prologue that gives a sense of how George’s death was received by those closest to him, and then three main parts. Each section is accorded a musical direction – allegretto, vivace, andante cantabile, and, finally, adagio. I’m not sure why Aldington chooses to do this, although the final section dealing with George’s time at the Front is full of the often relentless , stupefying noise of gunfire – the sort of noise that a symphony orchestra at full throttle can assault a listener with.

Part I deals with George’s family history, birth and life up to the time he breaks with his family as a consequence of a gesture of ‘paternal malediction’: he refuses to accept his parents’ that wish he should become a respectable clerk, and is determined to make his way as a writer and watercolourist in London. Much of this section’s purpose is to describe a stifling Victorian/Edwardian middle class/lower middle class aspiring to both security, social advancement and respectability.

Part II looks at George’s progress in London. He scrapes a modest living from his writing and painting, and moves in exalted cultural circles about which he is sceptical and which Aldington’s narrator lacerates. He marries Elizabeth, a painter, and they hold Bohemian views on things. These views include an open marriage about which Elizabeth develops more conventional views when George and Fanny, an unattached socialite happy to hop around the beds of boyfriends, become familiar. Gradually, however, George begins to feel duty bound not to embrace the general detached opinions his acquaintances hold about the war, and he joins up.

Part III describes George’s time in the army Pioneer Corps, first as a private and then as an officer. The Pioneer Corps when I was in the Combined Cadet Force at school was regarded as a soft option. Not in ‘Death of a Hero’ it isn’t. Its soldiers’ role maintaining and mending trenches and constructing new ones (often into machine-gun strafed and sniper-covered No Man’s Land) is just as testing as any other role, Moreover, George, as a runner, has the added task of plodging through sludge and enduring, under shellfire, the hazards of carrying messages and searching out more whisky for already-drunk officers. He manages to remain remarkably stoical, but the narrator is clear that underneath it all he is reaching breaking point.

Enough said.

I noticed that very often Aldington’s style smacked of D.H. Lawrence’s. I understand they knew each other well, so it’s not surprising their styles might coincide, especially since they had the same sort of intolerant anger about precious middle class propriety. The introduction to my edition of ‘Death of a Hero’ makes the point that Aldington satirizes a number of literary figures including Lawrence whom he nails as Comrade Bobbe. Others are Ford Madox Ford (Herr Shobbe), T.S.Eliot (Mr Waldo Tubbe), Harold Monro (Mr Jeames), and Ezra Pound (Mr Upjohn). Mr Upjohn’s self-obsession in dress and conversation, and his leaping from one -ism to another in his interpretation of the world in art is pretty cutting. This culture-crew’s complacent, comfortably-heeled, unimaginative Bloomsbury non-combatant reaction to George when he comes home on leave contrasts blatantly with what George has been enduring. Elizabeth and Fanny are just as incompetent and uninterested in understanding - or enquiring about – anything George might have been through.

George comes across as a thoroughly decent man, and many of his comrades-in-arms do as well, especially Evans, his dutiful but humane platoon commander, in spite of George’s unease with Evans’ being a typical product of the public school system. The title of the novel refers presumably to the platitude of the soldier killed in action in the service of his country being spoken of and regarded as a hero. But Aldington shows us just what that heroism consists of, and it is utterly without the glamour associated with Hector, Ajax and Achilles, or even with Herbert Asquith’s in his poem ‘The Volunteer’ whose ‘hero’ a city clerk sits at his desk and dreams of glory:

“Yet ever ‘twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.”

George has no illusions about all that. He goes to war out of a sense of conviction that it’s the right thing to do. The reader, through Aldington, learns that even if it was the right thing to do, George, and millions of others, were let down catastrophically by those by whom they were led, politicians and generals and, to an extent, by their womenfolk alike.

I though this novel was a piece of sustained writing whose cumulative effect was tremendous and terrific – and I use those words carefully.

[Zoë Sierens · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Ksenia Bliznets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Маловідомий, якщо порівнювати з книгами Ремарка та Гемінґвея, роман про Першу світову війну. "Смерть героя" - антивоєнний роман і Річард Олдінгтон обрав цікаву подачу, завдяки чому зміг не тільки зобразити всі жахи війни, але й психологічні проблеми військових, посттравматичний стресовий розлад, проблеми в стосунках між військовими та цивільними. Щиро кажучи, таке читання саме зараз за наших умов для багатьох може виявитися травматичним і депресивним, тому я намагалася не забувати про причини й характер нинішньої війни, щоб відчувати різницю між настроями як військових, так і цивільних...

Але водночас це і досить саркастичне змалювання нещирого й зашкарублого вищого суспільства, а також прогресивні, або принаймні провокуючі роздуми про фемінізм, вільні стосунки, гомосексуалізм.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really oddly written war book but ultimately very moving. The first 2/3 is a wackily, sometimes salaciously written set up for who the guy is and how Victorian and Edwardian England formed him and society in all manner of dysfuncitonal ways which make war possible. The last 1/3 is our man George in the war itself and it's some of the best writing I've read on the pointless savagery and mind and nerve destroying, soul crushing nature of the whole thing. A weird but stimulating and sickening read.

[Ivan Markovskyi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Lost generation. How many times did you hear this definition in regards of people who in their youth went through the battles of World War I and were never the same as a result? Struggles of those young men were commemorated in works of many authors, most noticeable, Hemingway and Remarque. Even though those novels are undeniably classic, as far as I remember they never explore the reasons behind the tragedy of this generation, only consequences and everyday life`s misery of lifeless men and women. Richard Aldington was the first who introduced the term, and for me, the one who goes full way to explain, why this generation was doomed long before the war.

Death of a Hero spends a lot of time exploring and condemning failings of the old-fashioned British society starting from the imposing of broken and dishonest model of family and relationship between men and women and ending with patriotism and mindset of being the cog in the Imperial machine. George Winterbourne, whose life and death is the focus of the novel, is the young artist, intelligent and sensitive person, whose life was slowly ruined from the very beginning. Combination of low key family abuse and manipulation, an education system that values unquestioning following of orders and not an individuality, abandoning of the hypocritical concepts of a relationship without working alternatives – all of those things shaped George`s character into this introverted, reserved person, that was deeply disillusioned in the world and the majority of people. The observation of humanity at its lowest during the war was just the last straw that eventually drives him to the possible suicide.

Death of the Hero has one of the most brutal and terrifying depictions of war that I can recall. Aldington doesn`t spend a lot of time in glorification of soldier`s brotherhood like Remarque or in the introspection about heroism and life during the war as Hemingway did. He just depicts war from the perspective of one lonely man, that never fits anywhere during peace and whose will for life was just sucked out of him in the cold muddy trenches of the Western Front. The most depressing thing of all here is the fact that this was supposed to be the War to end all wars. But again, Aldington close his novel with the poem, realization, that all this pain and suffering and death was for nothing. Since World War I we saw multiple lost generations and unfortunately, this will happen again.

I want to acknowledge the style of writing on this novel, that Aldington himself describes as jazz novel. I enjoy it a lot, it is fluent and filled with pages of author`s introspection between the story itself. It reminds me of my own rare attempts on writing so I feel connected with this manner.
In conclusion, I think that Death of a Hero is a great novel with a lot of depth, interesting analysis of the society of its historical period, progressive viewpoint on its issues and powerful antiwar message.

[Bobiczdoh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Книга состоит
- на 75% из биопроблем;
- на 25% из тягот войны, превозмогания, бессмысленной резни etc.

Читать про проблемы воспитания детей молодыми английскими парами, чья сексуальная жизнь была испохаблена викторианским обществом, про прогрессивных девушек XX века, которые смотрят на измену сквозь пальцы (если изменяют не им), про эстетствующих художников-супрематистов и прочих было, мягко говоря, уныло.
Олдингтон явно описывает свою жизнь, сгущая краски при изображении отрицательных черт близких ему людей, и выставляя своего героя жертвой обстоятельств.
Язык автора хорош, постоянно проскакивают интересные мысли, которые хочется распечатать и повесить на стену, но сама тема первых трёх четвертей романа меня не цепляет никак.

Последняя же четверть написана на отлично. Те же "На западном фронте без перемен" Ремарка, с видом со стороны противоположного окопа.

[Jeff Lacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is about George Winterbourne who is drafted into the British Army during WWI, and as an infantryman, is sent to the Western Front, France, to fight and survive as best he can in the trenches. Due to attrition he becomes a lieutenant along the front lines. During battle in the trenches as they are beating back retreating German troops out of their trenches, George, seeing many of his troops dead astound him, pushes himself up to run and gunned down by German machine gun.

Great characterization. It makes the development of the plot inevitable, believable, authentic. Makes one think about the lunacy of trench warfare. However, to war generally, the novel makes intelligent, thought provoking points about the sanity of war by nations, and how war changes the soldiers fighting it.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 2/3 of this book were hard going, a lot of seemingly unnecessary family history. I understand that Aldington was illustrating how WWI changed family, life and that lots of families were left without a younger generation to inherit and continue family names and traditions.
Once the narrative got to the war it was very engaging and Aldington was skilled in emerging the reader in the action.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about British society of the XIXth - beggining of XXth century and about the 1st World War. The author shows how terrible it was to be a soldier. The book was really impressive. I gave 5 stars to it 'cause i like the way Aldington expresses human emotions. But you should be ready - the story is quite depressive and sad.

[Mark McKenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I nearly added this to the 'books I gave up on' list. I should have added this to the 'books I gave up on' list. Very disappointing. On the back it describes it as honest, chilling, brilliantly satirical, scathing, impossible to ignore... I'd describe it as pretentious, distracted, longwinded, or simply notverygood.

[legolasik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book despite the tinge of misogyny (well, maybe not a tinge, because the specific attitude to women almost made me drop the book in the beginning). But it was worthwhile, still. This book is everything I think about the world today.

[Glass River]

On 11 October 2012, David Cameron announced his government’s plans for a ‘truly national commemoration’ of the start of the First World War, to climax, at the centennial moment, of the first day of conflict, 4 August 2014. There was, said the prime minister, ‘something captivating’ about ‘stories of the First World War’. Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier to have fought in the ‘war called great’, died in July 2009. His verdict was, to the end, bleak. It was, he said, ‘organised murder’. The best writers of the time concurred, although it took some time for the bruises of the First World War to come to the literary surface. Aldington’s novel, along with Graves’ memoir Goodbye to All That, and Remarque’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT all appeared within a few months of each other in 1928–9. One reads these books not to revisit, in some Goyaesque sense, ‘the horrors of war’ (though there is plenty of that), but in search of an answer to the vexing question: why did men as sensible as Graves, Remarque and Aldington throw themselves so voluntarily into this global meat grinder? It is not a question they found easy to answer themselves.
Death of a Hero is less a novel than a symptom of what was not yet called post-traumatic stress disorder. The 1920s gave it the lovelier name ‘neurasthenia’. Aldington, bohemian by nature, began his literary career as a poet. Unlike many of his peers (Rosenberg, Owen, Sorley) he survived the trenches, gas, and shell shock. Survived, that is, after a fashion. A patriot when he joined up to fight for king and country, he lost his belief in the trenches. ‘Nationalism’, he discovered, ‘is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.’ Kings, kaisers, tsars, and nations simply weren’t worth sixteen million lives. The pointlessness of it all imbued him with a sense of cosmic despair – he claimed to have attempted suicide twice while serving (courageously). For the rest of his life he maintained, ‘There are two kinds of men: those who have been to the front and those who haven’t’. It was his personal heart of darkness.
‘Kill the hero’, instructed Zola. Field Marshal General Haig and Kaiser Wilhelm had done that for the writers of Europe. Aldington began writing Death of a Hero, his first novel, almost the day the war finished. It would not see print until 1929. Transparently autobiographical, it tells, via an unnamed narrator, the story of George Winterbourne. It opens bleakly: ‘The casualty lists went on appearing for a long time after the Armistice – last spasms of Europe’s severed arteries.’ On this bloody list is the name of the novel’s hero. The narrative spins back from this prelude. George was born middle-class into a family with the generic middle-class woes – a professionally unachieving father and a snobbish, dissatisfied mother. But he is a ‘gentleman’. Defying his heritage, he hangs out in pre-war London with the leading lights of art and literature – he is himself artistic. He and his lover marry, with the understanding that the union will be ‘open’ – or adulterous, as their parents’ stuffy generation would call it. George volunteers, in the spirit of Rupert Brooke-like patriotism, when General Kitchener points his finger. Fighting a war will be simpler, he expects, than his private life, which, in the way of ‘open unions’, has become rather tangled. In the trenches George discovers the real enemy is not ‘the Hun’ but England – ‘a country where there are so many old fools and so few young ones’. Wholly disillusioned as armistice approaches, he hurls himself into a hail of machine-gun fire: ‘The universe exploded darkly into oblivion’.
Chatto (who had just rejected LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER) agreed to publish Aldington only if he submitted his text to some savage blue pencilling. Aldington insisted on asterisks to mark the f****ing ‘mutilation’. He gave as his reason: ‘it is better for the book to appear mutilated than for me to say what I don’t believe’.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinarily powerful & thorough literary & popular examination of the First World War by the controversial writer Richard Aldington. Published in 1928-29, Aldington dealt with so many subjective issues of that war and its preludes & preambles, that I found myself astonished at the intensity and depth of his despair at, & contempt for, the driving forces behind the outbreak and the longevity of a war that achieved so little but cost so much. If only the politicians, statesmen, newspaper editors, & other 'leaders' of a public living with a false & distorted view of exactlty 'what was what', had told the truth.
Aldington uses a character, George Winterbourne, as his 'hero', as he tells his story; his childhood, youth, education, love affairs...& his terrible experiences on the Western Front. It is grim & relentless, but as complete a picture of one, unexceptional man's life & death in that so-called 'Golden Age' as any I have ever read, & is unique for its verbal assaults on some cliched, modern (post-1945) tropes about the role of women in not alienating themselves from their fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, sweethearts et al. by not even beginning to grasp what a progressive moment it was for women in the Western world, when millions of men were 'out of their way'...& the road ahead was full of opportunities, while the 'glorious dead' mouldered in their graves (the lucky ones?) or waited for the second act just 20 years later.
The First World War was a god-send for women, wasn't it? But I remember all my many, maiden great-aunts & their spinster friends, enjoying so much the absence of so many insufferably, boorish men...while they enjoyed their lives, investigating murders, writing vacuous poems and painting insipid works of art...unchallenged by the men who had marched away...and had never returned home again...or if they did, only as hollowed-out survivors, their minds ever-disturbed, their hearts shriven & their sacrifices made empty gestures on war memorials & rolls of honour.

[Ken Ryu · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Winterborne is caught between two worlds. The Victorian/Edwardian Age and the impending war to end all wars. Women are gaining confidence and exploring the modern age in England. One of these women is Elizabeth, George's first love. She rejects the traditional role of a woman as a wife and mother and convinces George that their relationship can be open and without those expectations. Traditions and customs die hard, and when Elizabeth believes she is pregnant, George and Elizabeth decide to tie the knot. They later discover that Elizabeth is not pregnant and revert back to the idea of an open marriage.

One of Elizabeth's friends Fanny is also liberal and more experienced than either George or Elizabeth. George and Fanny will have a brief romance, with the year 1914 looming.

The Great War breaks out and George is drafted into the service. Though he could have gone through the officers ranks, he decides that he wants to be one of the regulars. The war is a slog and the conditions are rough. The soldiers are living in trenches, while being barraged by heavy artillery, poison gas and machine gun fire.

The book is excellent. It is told by an unnamed comrade of George who met him during the war. This writer finds a level of humanity and sophistication in George that is lacking in many of the enlisted men. He tells George's life story from a distance of years from the war. He reflects on the end of the Victorian age, the trauma of WWI, and the question of the liberalization of male-female relationships with George was the central figure. Aldington was in the Great War, and the scenes are vivid and filled with interesting details. Aldington predicts the fall of the British Empire and the onset of a new modern world where war and technology will bring radical changes to society and life. Yes, "Death of a Hero" is a war book, but it goes beyond. It tells of a loss of innocence and an entry into a brave, new world. The book is told with poetic language, satire and poignance.

[ivlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is such a cliche to describe books as people, but sometimes, when you get your hands on a book that is "absolutely yours", it is impossible to avoid such a comparison. When one only reads the first pages of the preface and thinks about an unconditional acceptance of the author's position, then isn't it similar to the moment when one meets a new person and instantly knows one likes them? The first impression might be false of course or fundamentally wrong. In order to reveal your misconception about a person, one needs to spend a little more time with them. Here, one needs to continue reading the book.

"The Death of a Hero" is proof that the first impression turned out to be correct. Aldington's thoughts, as they say, are "to the point". These creatures, these people, are amazing. They are presented in a different way, their problems somewhat different, but the essence remains the same. Look at George and Elizabeth's behaviour, the discussion of sex and gender, family and relationships. Give them any gadgets - aren't they our contemporaries? And the extremes condemned by Aldington, that solely exist because the previous generation sometimes rushed to some opposite extremes? That's also a familiar problem.

Without the "peace", it would be impossible to understand the "war". The death of a character at the very beginning of the novel is unlikely to be forgotten and the scheme works. While already knowing in advance what all the events would lead to, one is forced to watch the slow accumulation of the events, the burden of existence which becomes unbearable for George. He is a strong character, who could've gotten out were he given another chance. But even strong characters have the right to refuse the fight. It's for the best perhaps to end one's life this way.

[zunggg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third part of this book is terrific war writing, capturing trench warfare in all its tedium and terror, and giving a desolate account of how "shell shock" ruined so many of the combatants. Aldington's satire bites hard against the chattering classes back home, but the predominant tone is an elegiac helplessness in the face of the war's industrialised carnage.

The first two parts are like a much more superficial "Way of all Flesh", excoriating the Victorians for their moral (especially sexual) cant and hypocrisy and in effect locating all the blame for the war therein. Here the writing lacks nuance and sometimes seems juvenile, with frequent resort to italics and other emphatic devices. There are occasional good descriptive passages, especially of nature, but in general it's an Angry Young Man polemic without any depth that cannot justify its 200+ pages.

The framing device of a narrator who gets to know the titular "hero" shortly before he dies is implausible and I'm not sure why Aldington didn't just go with omniscient third person.

I believe you could actually skip the first two parts of "Death of a Hero" entirely and just enjoy the third for what it is, a brilliant and horrifying rendition of life in the trenches.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The living must protect themselves from the dead, especially the intrusive dead." (page 1)

An excellent sentence that. Isn't every ghost story an attempt on our part, those of us who go on living, to reassure ourselves that there is a difference between those who are living and those who are no longer with us, the dearly departed? What's remarkable about this novel with its central character, George Winterbourne, are precisely the ways in which four other characters react to his departure from this life, from their world, and in an extended sense, from our world.

The narrator describes each in brief details which should excite the average reader: The Father- "he had spent his life avoiding realities so he took refuge, upon hearing the news of his son's death, in a drivelling religiosity. The Mother- "She found the news of George's death somehow stimulating, especially erotically stimulating. She was in the habit of dramatizing her life and this added to that effort." Death always adds a note to every drama. The Wife and Fanny, the Mistress. They were both good friends and took the death of George in stride, as modern young women are wont to do.

[LateStarter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better in the end than I initially thought. Pace picked up in part three, with horrors of daily grind in the trenches described in detail. Writing seldom gets in the way of the story, and some sections of the book are perfect candidates for A-level English study.
Use of Patrick Hamilton-style Capitals is also noticeable, though handled more subtly. Mood is generally handled well, with a change in the character towards the end, but the author repeatedly states that Winterbourne finds it hard to find vestiges of his old self in his current state, so maybe that self-reflection constructs the new Winterbourne.
Exhaustion is a huge theme at the end, taking over as a main plot feature and held accountable for George's final actions and colouring his vision.
All in all, a very lonely book, also for the reader, as George is isolated and detached, and has no friends to confide in, except the uninvolved narrator who hardly ever features in the story.
Several rare words, sentence constructions and word orders stopped me in my tracks, and were duly added to my collection.

[Evgeniia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lately I like to read books with a little or almost without fable. Or when the story is reversed, i.e. when first pages of a book tell about main events, about what has happened and the whole plot in short words and then there is a narration about previous events. Usually in the beginning we can know that the main character died in some circumstances and then we read about how he has been living before the fatal point. When there is no plot or some interesting story I pay more attention to words, quotes, thoughts and hidden meanings put into them. And I love to "catch" ideas in books. And I must add in books I've read recently I found many ideas I share. I like to read about society oppositions and stereotypes, about people who defend their opinions. Though such characters usually are called weird and strange and they usually die in the end, because society can't come to terms with "not like all the others" or "not like all the others" can't come to terms with society.
"Death of a Hero" is a sad, but very wise book.

[Vasyl Shymanskyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Якось символічно ця книга потрапила мені в руки в 100 роковини заверешення Першої світової війни.

Цей твір став для мене на одному щаблі з "Поверненням" Ремарка. Плавний, меланхолійний, навіть трохи сонний перебіг подій у перших частинах підводить тебе до своєрідного струсу, зламу, яким став початок війни для головного героя. І та безвихідь, з якою він стикається... Щось як у "Мартіна Ідена". А втім прочитайте, чесно.

І стільки аналогій з нашою, українською, реальністю, що просто з болем усвідомлюєш наскільки правдива теза про циклічність історії. Аж сумно стає, що ми ніяк не можемо вирватися з цього зачарованого кола.

ПС. Кляті радянські передмови, де в біографію автора вліплять ледь не весь переказ твору. Зарікаюсь їх читати перед самим твором. Тільки опісля.

ППС. Цікавий факт: одна з найбільших концентрацій слова "гомосексуаліст" у тексті з усіх книжок, які я читав. Твір написаний у 1929! році у Франції і виданий у 1988! році в СРСР. Там хоч нікого не розстріляли за таке?

[Linda Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t remember who or what directed me to this book. It had to be retrieved from the stacks of the central library and sent to our little branch. It is an original from 1929 and still has the old borrower’s card in the back.

I have read a number of books about the First World War because I wanted to know more about the war my grandfather fought in, a man I never knew. He survived the war but died prematurely from pneumonia that was attributed to him being gased. Aldington vividly describes the brutality of the trenches, the gas attacks, the constant bombardments, the layers that years of fighting leave as you fight over the same piece of ground for months, years. But that is at the end of the book. We learn on the first page that our hero is dead. Aldington takes us back through his life, his loves and leads us back to the death of our hero. If you are interested in this period of history, dig out this book and read it.

[Michael]

DNF.

I approached it with the expectation that it will be strictly about WWI. However, the author decided to thoroughly whip Victorian Britain before. I thought "OK, that's a jolly good idea - show me the roots of the society and who's to blame for the mess". But it dragged and dragged and dragged on. Then it dragged on more, more and then some. By the time I approached the end of the George's childhood, I decided to google the plot.

It turned out that only the last third was about the trenches themselves. I have nothing against it, but I'm not that interersted in the British society of the 1900-10s. Hence, DNF.

This time no rating as there's nothing wrong with the book - just not my cup of tea.

[Beáta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Gilbert az egyik könyvében ír Aldington regényéről és akkor feljegyeztem magamnak, hogy majd elolvasom.
Ez most megtörtént és igaz, hogy lassan haladtam a könyvvel, de nagyon tetszett. Nem egy könnyű olvasmány, de nagyon tetszett.
A könyv elején találunk egy tanulmányt a szerzőről és a regényről, ezt is érdemes elolvasni.
Tetszett, hogy miközben megismertem főhősünk, George Winterbourne élettörténetét az író olyan
kérdésekkel is foglalkozott, amelyek ma is aktuálisak. Ilyenkor mindig megdöbbenek, hogy nincs új
a nap alatt, 100 éve is ugyanolyan problémákkal küzdöttek az emberek, országok, nemzetek, mint napjainkban...