Flanders Book

FLANDERS, Patricia Anthony's Lost Novel of WWI
April 2, France, Reserve Area

Dear Bobby, Yesterday my new Captain Miller, ordered me to go with the new subaltern...After an hour's pleasant stroll, we came upon what looked like a crude bar ditch, with a few soldiers lining one side and peering off across an orchard.

Right then the lieutenant throws himself down, yelling, "Four in! Four in!" The Tommies lining the ditch begin to shout "Hed doon.!" And then I heard wasps buzzing.

The Lieutenant waved frantically. "Yer bloody ignorant Yank! Fritz is four in!"

I dived headfirst into the ditch. Soldiers and packs and curses were propelled every which way. When we got untangled, I saw that the lieutenant was ordering me to ready my rifle, which I did. There were only a few Boche and they were lurking about the trees in the apple orchard, plinking at us haphazardly. My first shot dropped one, an outcome which took me by utter surprise. I saw the helmet sail off the German boy's head. I saw him go down. Regret so overwhelmed me, I nearly vomited...


Early issue German Helmet, WWI

Prologue

Can't you hear an old man telling Travis to stay home? I can. I can see a grizzled veteran of the American Civil War talking to him, telling him he can't know what war is, but the old man knows. He's seen the Elephant.

That old man has crossed fields into volleys of rifled musketry. He has seen the lines of men disappear in the enfilading fire of canister. Some say old men forget. This old man does not. But not even he can know what waits in Europe, how efficient man has made weapons. Not even the makers of the weapons know how quickly and precisely these new weapons can kill so well, so completely, to destroy a regular army in less than six months of war. But it will happen. And once more, once the truth comes out, the world will be shocked and amazed. In this war they will wonder what happened to a generation, simply gone, dead, forever absent.

All the generals, the adjutants, the staff, will follow tactics far outstripped by modern weapons. And they will not understand how that could happen. They never have. They never will. It's the men you know. They hesitated. They did not push the advantage. That's it isn't it? That is what the battle reports will say. That is what they always say. What they say when the dead are counted. It was a rum show, wasn't it? Oh, yes. A bad show.

I can hear him talking to Travis. I can tell Travis isn't listening. Can't you? You ask God if there's not something to stop it. Then you ask where is God? This old man is not the creation of Patricia Anthony, but mine. These images in what I have labeled the Prologue are all images that Anthony has stirred in me. Anthony and the men I have known like that old man whose voice I hear whispering in my ear, those few from the war to end all wars, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. I wonder if I will live to know more old men from wars not yet fought. But I doubt I will, for I am growing to be among the old. It may well be that men younger than me will one day tell me, "Old man, you do not understand."

Welcome to the war, Travis Lee Stanhope, faithful writer of letters to younger brother Bobby back home in Harper, Texas. You're a good boy to write home and let the folks know you're fine. Couldn't wait to get to the war, could you? Couldn't wait until Uncle Sam pointed his finger at you and said he wanted you. Well, Son. I guess you weren't the first. You won't be the last. Too afraid it will all be over before you get there, aren't you? But you could have waited. It's going to be a long war. Won't be too many apples on those trees too long.


Flanders after artillery bombardment--these orchards bear no apples

Funny, isn't it? That German boy you dropped. Yes, a boy. Just like you're a boy. Wouldn't be surprised if he was fresh off the farm just like you. Except, he don't wear the same uniform you do. Got that funny spiked helmet that you sailed off his head.

Well, son. You're good with that rifle. Those Brits will make a sniper out of you. You've got plenty of killing ahead of you. You remember old Nathan Bedford Forrest. Well he was right. War means fightin' and fightin' means killin'. I worry you don't have the stomach for it. I think you're figurin' it out pretty fast. But they're not gonna let you go home.

Historical Background

On August 4, 1914, the German Army invaded Belgium. The territory included the former country of Flanders. Generally known as Flanders Fields, the primary battles fought there were First and Second Ypres, and Passchendale. British and French forces rushed to repel the German invasion. Fighting in the area lasted almost to the end of the war in 1918. Over one million men died on these fields.

Remembrance

What happened here is commemorated by the well known poem by John McRae, "In Flanders Fields." It has stood the test of time in portraying the restlessness of the dead who lie under row after row of crosses and stars of David.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Poppy Fields in Flanders, where they shall not sleep though these flowers grow

The Sad Story of What Happened to a Book

This was a book that took the critics by surprise. It was good. And it was different. For this was a book on war in the trenches of WWI, not that it was the first, of course. People expected work of this stature by men. However, this was written by a woman, Patricia Anthony, a Professor of English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Of course, Pat Barker took the Booker Prize for The Ghost Road, the final volume of The Regeneration Trilogy: Regeneration; The Eye in the Door; The Ghost Road.

Yet for all critical acclaim achieved by Patricia Anthony, the book was a commercial failure. It tanked. If it had been theatre, the advances would have been "We bombed in New Haven."

Perhaps Patricia Anthony's novel Flanders was doomed from the beginning. Anthony had been known as a science fiction writer. Ace was her publisher. On a perfectly beautifully designed dust jacket, the ACE SCIENCE FICTION imprint was prominently displayed on the spine. Perhaps science fiction readers picked up copies of Flanders flipped through it, said, "Huh?" and put it back on the shelf. Readers of historical fiction do not make their selections from the science fiction shelves.

Ms. Anthony, in Flanders wrote a masterpiece of historical fiction concerning trench warfare in World War One. It is probably one of the most curious books on the shelves of my library. It is a first printing, first edition, and it is signed by Ms. Anthony. It is worth practically nothing to the book collector. For this remarkable novel never found a reading audience. But I consider it a treasure that was lost, that I found.

The strange thing is this. Anthony was hailed by critics as one of America's newest and strongest writers. Flanders was almost universally acclaimed. Critics most often compared it as a novel equal in power to All Quiet on the Western Front.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, January 3, 1947, Ms. Anthony spent several years in Brazil as an English teacher. Ms. Anthony was teaching creative writing at SMU in Texas when Flanders was published. I happened to catch her on The Today Show. It was a remarkable interview. Published in 1998, it was a NYTimes Notable Book. Critics praised it to the skies. But nobody read it. As a seller, it was a flop.

It is a sad thing when a book this good cannot find a readership. I can only chalk it up to pure damned bad marketing. Pat Barker was fortunate to have written the Regeneration novels in Great Britain published by a House that had the good sense to market it as it should have been.

The Book Report

This is an epistolary novel. It consists of letters written by Travis Lee Stanhope to his younger brother Bobby back home in Texas. One of the first ones is quoted above. Like many Americans, Travis Lee volunteered to fight with the British Army before America went "over there."

Travis Lee is no Texas cowboy. Nor is he a West Texas Cotton Farmer. He's educated. He was attending medical school. He could have avoided the fracas. But he volunteered to go. I guess that's one way to see Europe. In Travis' mind the war would be short, perhaps six months at the most.

Travis Lee finds France beautiful in the spring of 1916. Away from the trenches, it certainly is. However, Travis Lee finds a different world once he's on the front lines. It is Hell. It is madness. It is day after day of useless deaths.

Travis Lee's skill is as a marksman. He is a sharpshooter. In other words, he is a sniper. And he is very good at his work. But he doesn't like what his duties require him to do.

Sleep is a constant nightmare for Travis Lee. At night his dreams are filled with the faces of the men he has killed and his comrades with whom he served who have been slaughtered in senseless attacks through barbed wire into nests of entrenched machine guns. Anthony's description of his dreams are hallucinatory, swirling episodes of horror. Death is a pretty girl in a calico dress wandering through a cemetery.

That Anthony portrays death as a supernatural figure should not be considered unusual. Men on the field witnessed visions. The war created an entire mythology of folklore. It was a time when British forces could say that Angels hovered over them during the retreat from Mons in 1914 and it was completely accepted.

Even more bizarre were the outright fictions, such as the ghosts of the archers of Agincourt who put themselves between their modern brethren and loosed arrows into German troops. Mysterious arrows that left no wounds. That little gem was an outright fiction published in a magazine as "The Mysterious Bowmen," by Arthur Machen. You might remember him as the author of "The Great God Pan" and a number of other horror and fantasy stories.

No, Anthony did not merely insert a "ghost story" into Flanders as Ace promoters announced. Anthony, in my opinion had done her research. She could read The Great War and Modern Memory as easily as I can today. Paul Fussell wrote it in 1975. This is another layer of authenticity that Anthony produces within the pages of this book.

As in all wars, there are men with whom Travis Lee serves, who revel in the killing. Pierre Le Blanc, a mad French Canadian represents that category of soldier. Le Blanc is not content to kill the enemy but even civilians in nearby villages. But it is Stanhope who becomes the suspect because of his bouts of binge drinking when even he is unaware of his actions. But it's the drinking that helps him forget the faces of the men he's wiped from the face of the earth, the faces of his dead comrades.

When sober, Travis Lee recites Keats and Shelley for his Captain who loves poetry as well, but he is an officer despised for his Jewishness. Travis Lee is caught in a quagmire of war, incapable of escape until the last bullet is fired.

Recessional

What of Patricia Anthony? Previously the author of six acclaimed science fiction novels, Anthony broke with Ace following Flanders. After three years at SMU she left her post to become a screenwriter. Although on several projects, not one has been greenlighted. Anthony completed an eighth novel in 2006. She hasn't found a publisher. Perhaps she feels her life did not turn out as she planned it.

Her science fiction novels were:

Cold Allies (1992)
Brother Termite (1993)
Conscience of the Beagle (1993)
Happy Policeman (1994)
Cradle of Splendor (1996)
God's Fires (1997)

James Cameron bought the writes to "Brother Termite" in 2003. The project has never gotten off the ground. There was even a screen treatment written for Flanders with a "small" producer. Nope. Didn't happen.

Yet, When Anthony left science fiction behind with Flanders she didn't return to the genre. Greg Johnson who frequently reviews for the SF Site and The New York Review of Science Fiction wrote:

"The only connection to SF is the Ace Science Fiction imprint on the cover, and the author's previous work. Conventional publishing wisdom would suggest that what Anthony is doing here is the equivalent of career suicide. Science fiction readers, they would say, won't read Flanders because it isn't science fiction. Mainstream readers will stay away because the author has been identified with SF. The result would be a book that falls through the cracks, and fails to find an audience."

While this magnificent book fell through the cracks,I beg to differ with Greg Johnson. Anthony may have signed an agreement with ACE, Anthony didn't commit career suicide. Was she under contract to ACE, effectively barring her from seeking another publisher? I don't know. I've not found the answer to that question. Of some small note the subsequent publication of Flanders in paperback appeared under the Berkley imprint. Sales improved. However, sales never matched critical acclaim.

Now, Flanders is a print on demand item in the Berkley catalog. That's a shame. This is one of the best overlooked books of the 20th Century. Find it. Read it. You can pick up a first edition hardback with dust jacket for as little as $1.00. Send Ms. Anthony a letter thanking her. She might appreciate it. Flanders is a lost American classic. It is time it was found.

ADDENDUM: I am sad to report that Patricia Anthony died on August 2, 2013. This review was edited and updated for members of goodreads group "Around WWI" This group has been established in observance of the Centenary of World War One. Should you be interested in joining the group, simply e-mail me of your interest. I serve as a group moderator in the company of Kris Rabberman and Kalliope. Any of us can assist you in joining this group.

Additional Material:

Review, Publishers Weekly, May 4, 1998:

Worlds at War, An interview with Patricia Anthony, Barcelona Review:

From the Barcelonareview.com, regarding Flanders:

Your work is habitually labeled as science fiction or speculative fiction. How does labeling affect you as a writer?

To be frank, it destroyed my career.

Flanders, Patricia Anthony, Novels:

The Great War and Modern Memory: The Illustrated Edition; Ch. 4. Myth, Ritual, and Romance; Sterling Publishing Company, NY, NY 2009

See My good friend Jeffrey Keeten's excellent review of this novel at JK's Review of Flanders