Books Read in 2023 # 193 - Mental Illness Doesn't Work that Way
193.The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West - I read this entire 187 page book on the walk down and up from the library. So it's a fast read. It's got that going for it, but the rest of it? Meh. A soldier loses 15 years of his life and thinks he's still dating the same woman that he was with when he was 21. So she comes over and they spend a lot of time together despite the fact that his sister and wife are dismayed.
This is how he suffers from shell shock. So right away the bullshit detector turns on. Shell Shock (or PTSD) does not mean that you lose memories. It means that things trigger those memories and send you into a state of panic or fear. I mean that might not be the whole thing and I'm a layman here, but it definitely doesn't mean that you come out of the VA going "I really want to get ahold of Margaret. Who's this woman that you claim I'm married to?" And amnesia works more like in Memento where you can't make new memories. It doesn't erase 15 years.
But anyhow, everyone but Margaret worries about the guy. Margaret is just happy to have her old boyfriend back, especially since she remembers how they broke up. Of course, there's every chance that he could become a horrible snob like he did back in the day.
Anyhow, there's a bathos when Margaret goes into the dead son's room and remembers her own son. But then she takes the mementos out to the soldier (because not only has he gotten married in the past 15 years, but he also had a son who died). And then he comes back like a soldier because he's a soldier now. Get it? The soldier returns.
Then there are lines about how he's going to end up going back to the front now. Because his memory is back.
REALLY? SERIOUSLY?
Even if shell shock and amnesia works that way, you don't just get cured and go back to war. Even WWI military commanders wouldn't want a soldier who just got over massive trauma.
Anyhow, that's Rebecca West, a woman whose writing I've never really liked. This is a slight book and if I wasn't so annoyed with the bad literary mental illness depiction, I probably would have nothing to say.
This is how he suffers from shell shock. So right away the bullshit detector turns on. Shell Shock (or PTSD) does not mean that you lose memories. It means that things trigger those memories and send you into a state of panic or fear. I mean that might not be the whole thing and I'm a layman here, but it definitely doesn't mean that you come out of the VA going "I really want to get ahold of Margaret. Who's this woman that you claim I'm married to?" And amnesia works more like in Memento where you can't make new memories. It doesn't erase 15 years.
But anyhow, everyone but Margaret worries about the guy. Margaret is just happy to have her old boyfriend back, especially since she remembers how they broke up. Of course, there's every chance that he could become a horrible snob like he did back in the day.
Anyhow, there's a bathos when Margaret goes into the dead son's room and remembers her own son. But then she takes the mementos out to the soldier (because not only has he gotten married in the past 15 years, but he also had a son who died). And then he comes back like a soldier because he's a soldier now. Get it? The soldier returns.
Then there are lines about how he's going to end up going back to the front now. Because his memory is back.
REALLY? SERIOUSLY?
Even if shell shock and amnesia works that way, you don't just get cured and go back to war. Even WWI military commanders wouldn't want a soldier who just got over massive trauma.
Anyhow, that's Rebecca West, a woman whose writing I've never really liked. This is a slight book and if I wasn't so annoyed with the bad literary mental illness depiction, I probably would have nothing to say.