Inspect Death Of A Hero Articulated By Richard Aldington Released As Ebook

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, 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 lifes 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 oldfashioned 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 Georges 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 doesnt spend a lot of time in glorification of soldiers 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 authors 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.
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 cant believe this country seems to have completely forgotten the unruly, modernist gem.
Or perhaps, I can believe it, because Aldington doesnt have anything positive to say about his motherland.


This book is a precocious and observant child who doesnt 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 heros 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, Its not so much the war that kills him but the idea of peace and his return to the so called normal life.


After announcing Winterbournes death, the book goes back in time to focus on his parents and grandparents in a sardonic take on the British society.
Its a merciless and very funny caricature of the aspiring British middle class, The reader might question what Winterbournes 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,

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