After the War

A wonderful read from a man who taught expository writing at Harvard, After the War is one of those special books you settle into and enjoy -- like wearing a comfortable old sweater on a chilly day. I discovered After the War about 12 years ago, read it a couple times, and loaned my only copy. It never returned. I missed it. Knowing my proclivity for loaning favorites - there are some books I must have bought 6 times and still do not possess - this time I bought 2 copies. One is already on loan. Hope to keep at least one for a while.

I decided to pull this book off the shelf and re-read it after 10+ years. After the War is a sprawling narrative covering many years with a multitude of interesting characters and poignant tales. The book takes place in post-World War I Tennessee and captures all the idiosyncrasies and growing pains of both the country and its characters during that time. The narrator, Paul Alexander, is a Greek immigrant who was raised in Belgium, served in the trenches of the Great War, was wounded and lost two very dear friends. His perspective, observations and journey through life are what drive this book as Paul is many things - sympathetic, frustrating, stubborn, disarming, naïve - as his life unfolds in this narrative. This is a big, dense, magnificent novel and if you can find the time, is well worth the read - as are all of Marius' books.

Sensitively portraying the aftereffects of World War I on the people of Bourbonville, Tennessee, this robust, dramatic novel is a triumphant celebration of the power of writing to create whole worlds and then lead the reader in exploring them. Spanning the years from 1890 - 1930, the novel moves back and forth in time, leisurely building detail upon detail until an entire community, several generations of its important families, its important businesses, and its religious and social organizations spring to life, tied together, as small communities often are, by custom, gossip, and a shared past, not all of it pretty. As the war wreaks its changes on the fabric of society, the author explores life's big themes--what makes life meaningful, how we connect with each other, how we deal with death of loved ones, and how we face the future--adding an extra dimension through the symbolism of Greek legends, especially that of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. Main character Paul Alexander (formerly Kephalopoulos), a Greek by birth and Belgian by education and social preference, arrives in Bourbonville, not fully recovered from a head wound received during the early days of the war. Through Paul, an outsider who speaks to the ghosts of his two best friends, the reader comes to know a variety of local characters--a grassroots industrialist who runs the car works foundry for the local railroad, a leading family whose members realize that their agrarian way of life is ending, a delightful moonshiner, the last of the family doctors who were truly part of the family, a brilliant black man whose technical achievements as a member of the French armed forces gave him a taste of life denied him in postwar Tennessee, and various members of Paul's own family back in Greece. Weaving together such diverse topics as the Spanish American War and the battle for Cuba, the early anti-war movement, the growth of railroads and industry, the early women's movement, the Ku Klux Klan (easily the most dramatic part of the book), strikes and the labor movement, Bolshevism, evangelical frenzy, and the interest in foreign travel, the novel is an expansive treatment of some of the early influences on 20th century thinking, and, as such, is fascinating. Its comprehensive thematic development is equally striking. It is somewhat less successful in its characterizations, which are not always consistent, and in its melodrama, which while emotionally seductive, tend to divide the book into separate and somewhat disconnected units. Still, for those who enjoy big books which offer a treatment of equally big ideas, this is a captivating novel, great fun to read. Mary Whipple

This is one of the finest books I have read in some time. The book traces the life of Paul Alexander, a Greek by birth who fought as a member of the Belgian army during World War I. Wounded during the war, he comes to America and obtains employment as a chemist for a railroad car manufacturer in the small town of Bourbonville, Tennessee. In Bourbonville, he progresses from being the town curiousity to being a friend, father, business leader and farmer as he mentally recovers from his shattering war experiences. Instead of telling the story in a strictly linear fashion, Marius flips effortlessly back and forth from Paul's days as a university student in Belgium and his post-war life in Bourbonville. Marius is subtle enough to tell the reader just enough background to explain Paul's actions and emotions. We learn of Paul's complex family history, his friendships with Guy and Bernal, two university students, and of his first love, an older woman employed as a dressmaker. What we are not told much of are the horrors of his wartime experience, other than that he watched all his university friends die one by one in combat, and that he himself was badly wounded at Antwerp. Much of the book is a description of how he comes to terms with his wartime experiences, having watched the disintegration of all that was familiar to him. When we first meet Paul, he dwells in the past because he cannot conceive of a future. The ghosts of Guy and Bernal follow him in his post war experiences, both comforting him and haunting him at times. In the end, when he has internally resolved the conflicts of his early family troubles and his wartime memories, and truly comes to appreciate his life in the present tense, Guy and Bernal bid him farewell. The astonishing thing about this book his how well it ties together the threads of many different plot lines and themes. This book is as much about life in the South at the beginning of the century as it is about the ravages of war. The themes of racial tension, religion, xenophobia, intolerance in its many forms and the effect of industrial development in the South are all explored and weaved together seamlessly. The characters are beautifully developed and their stories told with a true Southern flourish. This is a moving and powerful book.