War Reporting for Cowards
Chris Ayres
2003
“The movies, I thought, have got the soundtrack to war all wrong. War
isn't rock 'n' roll. It's got nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix or Richard
Wagner. War is nursery rhymes and early Madonna tracks. War is the
music from your childhood. Because war, when it's not making you kill or
be killed, turns you into an infant. For the past eight days, I'd been
living like a five-year-old — a nonexistence of daytime naps, mushy
food, and lavatory breaks. My adult life was back in Los Angeles with my
dirty dishes and credit card bills.”
Blogging is hard.
Well, it's not, it's actually kind of easy, in that you've got the complete freedom to write whatever you want, whenever you want, and spurt out as many opinions as you can muster. Somehow, though, the motivation to sit down for an hour, if that, and type out a hastily-written summary of a random book I've just read is really, really hard. Recently I've found it harder because I've stepped up my pace in book reading, amassing a pile of 'to review' books at a greater pace than I could possibly write. Still, the only way to soldier on, I find is to force myself to hammer at the keyboard until something legible comes out. It doesn't really matter what, it's just that I kind of rely on the momentum...
Though I was originally going to review George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons- Book One, of the Song of Ice and Fire series, I quickly realised that I could save time and effort by waiting until I'd read part two, whenever that might be. So, from fantastical fiction I switch to a more fascinating non-fiction, with the attention-grabbing title of War Reporting for Cowards, and it's snazzy orange cover.
I picked up the book many months ago, drawn in by the snazzy cover, the intriguing blurb, the gushing review quotes, and the desire to read something similar to Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Basically; a piece of non-fiction by a British journalist out of his element, hopefully containing humour and poignancy. Ayres tale promised to fulfill that potential as he described how a fairly useless foreign correspondent for The Times (of London, you know) somehow managed to volunteer to become a war reporter, hanging around in the desert with a bunch of US marines in Iraq. With a plot like that it would take a pretty crappy writer to make it boring, and thankfully, Ayres is fairly good. Like Toby Young, he portrays himself as a foppish, cumbersome Hugh Grant type, perfectly unsuited to combat in the desert. A fairly likable chap, Ayres essentially acts as the reader's viewpoint; as a thoroughly pampered and and untested child of the first world, experiencing things with a sense of wonder and horror easily perceived.
Well, it's not, it's actually kind of easy, in that you've got the complete freedom to write whatever you want, whenever you want, and spurt out as many opinions as you can muster. Somehow, though, the motivation to sit down for an hour, if that, and type out a hastily-written summary of a random book I've just read is really, really hard. Recently I've found it harder because I've stepped up my pace in book reading, amassing a pile of 'to review' books at a greater pace than I could possibly write. Still, the only way to soldier on, I find is to force myself to hammer at the keyboard until something legible comes out. It doesn't really matter what, it's just that I kind of rely on the momentum...
Though I was originally going to review George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons- Book One, of the Song of Ice and Fire series, I quickly realised that I could save time and effort by waiting until I'd read part two, whenever that might be. So, from fantastical fiction I switch to a more fascinating non-fiction, with the attention-grabbing title of War Reporting for Cowards, and it's snazzy orange cover.
I picked up the book many months ago, drawn in by the snazzy cover, the intriguing blurb, the gushing review quotes, and the desire to read something similar to Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. Basically; a piece of non-fiction by a British journalist out of his element, hopefully containing humour and poignancy. Ayres tale promised to fulfill that potential as he described how a fairly useless foreign correspondent for The Times (of London, you know) somehow managed to volunteer to become a war reporter, hanging around in the desert with a bunch of US marines in Iraq. With a plot like that it would take a pretty crappy writer to make it boring, and thankfully, Ayres is fairly good. Like Toby Young, he portrays himself as a foppish, cumbersome Hugh Grant type, perfectly unsuited to combat in the desert. A fairly likable chap, Ayres essentially acts as the reader's viewpoint; as a thoroughly pampered and and untested child of the first world, experiencing things with a sense of wonder and horror easily perceived.
What makes War Reporting... a likable, easy to read book is Ayres' honest, open prose, where he doesn't really overstate anyone's personality or give anyone included a movie star aura. The marines who he spends so much time with are very likable people; respectful, well-trained, occasionally grumpy but never mean. Ayres doesn't go into the book with an agenda, and doesn't attempt to editorialize his experiences in an argument for or against the war on Iraq. It's presented as morally ambiguous throughout, including the end of Ayres time at war and his guilt mixed with relief. If anything, it's the natural sequence of events that kept this book from being really great for me.
The author's sudden departure from the country seems to cut everything short, and doesn't really give Ayres enough time to comprehend or appreciate his experiences. One of the key points of the book is the realisation of just how insane it is to be a war correspondent, traveling along the front line with an army, except without any weapons, and the author's unexpected reluctance and guilt at leaving hints at a developing story that doesn't have the time to get going; but then, at the same time, remains more believable because of it. Ultimately I'd recommend War Reporting for Cowards to all but the most staunch anti-war people; as a compelling narrative of the surreal nature of war. It won't blow your mind, but it will lodge itself in there somewhere for a good long while.
The author's sudden departure from the country seems to cut everything short, and doesn't really give Ayres enough time to comprehend or appreciate his experiences. One of the key points of the book is the realisation of just how insane it is to be a war correspondent, traveling along the front line with an army, except without any weapons, and the author's unexpected reluctance and guilt at leaving hints at a developing story that doesn't have the time to get going; but then, at the same time, remains more believable because of it. Ultimately I'd recommend War Reporting for Cowards to all but the most staunch anti-war people; as a compelling narrative of the surreal nature of war. It won't blow your mind, but it will lodge itself in there somewhere for a good long while.
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