First Theatre Troupe: Success

Well, a strong opening to our theatre sports competition today, with Cristal, Mariya & Ann acting the "Lobscheid" section. Be ready the rest of you to have your shot of glory on Monday: email your fellow cast-members to be sure not to leave you holding the bag....
The tension is killing me.

Update: watching the theatrical presentations this class has already added dimensions to my conceptual experience of the novel. I hope the same for you.
Update 2: I found this link to a BBC screenplay of "A Man Could Stand Up." -- the Parade's End project will quite conceivably come to cinematic fruition.

Term Paper

The Term Essay is open topic, and is due April 6th in my Department mailbox(*). For the inevitable excuses or good-reasons-exclusive-of-those-exceptions-published-in-the-syllabus, there is a buffer period wherein late penalties will be waived until noon Monday, April 16th. (**)
The Open Topic will incorporate at least two of the primary course texts and be organised around central course themes. It is not required but advised that an outline of your paper or a draught of your thesis paragraph be discussed in advance of the due date with the Lecturer in Office Hours.

Update: I have added an option for a creative scholarly paper. For this option, you would detail strict failure standards for my written approval, and submit by the deadline a crative alternative to the full-length essay accompanied by a three-to-four page (i.e. a thousand word)scholarly justification for your project.
Update II; See here for more detail.
(*) Changed from April 4th in lecture, to match the previously published Syllabus.
(**) This is the last minutes so no more room to negotiate!
Update III: Assignment Deadlines.
There is a four percent per day late penalty for assignments, documented medical or bereavement leave excepted. For medical exemptions, provide a letter from a physician on letterhead which declares his or her medical judgement that illness or injury prevented work on the essay. The letter must cover the entire period over which the assignment was scheduled and may be verified by

Battle of the Somme: "Lions led by Donkeys."

Following our class presentation last week on the Battle of the Somme, here is reflection onlast year's anniversary or that "worst battle ever fought."

On the Somme, some 73,000 British dead were never identified; at Verdun, the "unknown" are buried in regiments.
Paul Stanway.

Canada Day this year is the 91st Anniversary of the the Somme. The Canadian Press news wire leads with this story:

OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General Michaelle Jean began Canada Day celebrations Saturday by taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the National War Memorial. The event marked the 90th anniversary of the Battles of the Somme and Beaumont-Hamel. It was "very, very moving," Harper later said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

From the centre-left CBC to the centre right Edmonton Sun, an ideological range of Canadian media support my idea that WWI is loathed irrespective of a person's view toward war in general.

On Canada Day in 1916, some 100,000 soldiers of the British Empire climbed out of their trenches near the River Somme in northern France and advanced at walking pace towards the German line - only to meet death on a mind-boggling, industrial scale, in a futile contest that would redefine the meaning of slaughter. By the end of the day the British forces had suffered 60,000 casualties, including 20,000 dead - Canadians among them. At Beaumont-Hamel, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment was cut to pieces by the German machine-guns, with more than 700 casualties in half an hour.

An interesting video reflection of the battle itself can be found on the BBC as well as a useful study into the origins of WWI. There is also a meaningful article on Britain's Oldest WWI survivor as well as this remarkable contemporaneous letter. There are powerful memorials being held in the north of France by the British.

Revisionist accounts of the Somme are also available, in fairness sake, including an article with an audio recording of the son of the man responsible for the unimaginable carnage effected -- at a place, it must be said, against Haig's judgement -- merely to distract from an imbecilic French military action elsewhere.
I did find this one passage arresting, resonant with our Forester text:

Were Haig and his generals really "donkeys"? The evidence suggests not. Haig lost 58 of his fellow generals, killed or dying of wounds while leading from the front during the four years of war. Three died in the Somme in the first few days. So the General Melchett image of Blackadder - of arrogant Generals safe back at headquarters - is unfounded. They were brave...

Literary Modernist Diction

A recent article elaborates one cause of elevated diction in High Modernist literature is one James Miller's "Is Bad Writing Necessary" and can be read online at the Lingua Franca mirror site here.

Theatre Sports

Be ready for your Parade's End performances beginning this Monday: the judges are all ready and the Glenfiddich & chocolate truffles are safe backstage. We'll fit everyone comfortably in over the next week or so, and still have good time for detailed lectures the novel, indivdual presentations, and then moving into Vile Bodies. Oh, yes, we have the last five minutes of Regeneration to view as well, and a discussion of the issues that its script of Patricia Barker's novel raises.

WWI TV on Trench warfare

A great tip from classfellow D.S.

Just wanted to send you this link to a great show about the trenches I watched this afternoon....a great review of how the trenches were built and what a terrible placement (geographically - visually laid out in the show) that the Allies had at Ypres, and how it was pure British patriotism / stoicism / stubbornness that kept the Western line against all odds.

World War I in the news: Victoria Cross

A great story reported in the weekend's Toronto Globe & Mail about the upcoming 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge. The Victoria Cross, the highest reward for military bravery in the Commonwealth, will apparently be again made available to Canadians in April when Her Majesty hands the Victoria Cross to our Prime Minister.

The medals are made from the bronze of cannon at a fort captured during the Crimean War.

The revival of the VC is a testament to the persistence of veterans' groups – notably the Royal Canadian Legion – which for years lobbied the federal government to reinstate it as Canada's foremost decoration for military valour. The VC was shunned in 1972 [i.e. by the Pierre Trudeau Liberals] when the government created a new Canadian honours system that neglected that the country might be at war again. The new system included military honours for meritorious service and bravery but nothing specifically for rare instances of military valour.