Why Stay We Here? (Odyssey of a Canadian Officer in France in World War I) (review)

A quick survey of the best examples of Canadian First World War fiction would invariably include Peregrine Acland's All Else Is Folly (1929), Charles Yale Harrison's Generals Die in Bed (1930), Philip Child's God's Sparrows (1937), and Timothy Findley's The Wars (1977). Few would likely add George Godwin's autobiographical novel Why Stay We Here? (first published in 1930) to this list. If so, why does Godwin's little-known work warrant republication? The answer, according to Robert Stuart Thomson, the owner and editor of Godwin Books, lies in Godwin's Canadian perspective and his 'powerful and original statement about the war.'

The story is essentially Godwin's, as told through the fictional character of Stephen Craig, a British Columbia fruit farmer. There are the usual critiques of château generals, comments on the senselessness of the conflict, and the stereotypical depiction of Canadians as physically superior to their British counterparts. At the same time, Godwin/Craig offers an unusually perceptive and frank depiction of the soldier's world. Prostitution, venereal disease, unpalatable food, the importance of the rum ration, and the economic exploitation of soldiers by French and British civilians all receive thoughtful treatment alongside the other sights, sounds, and smells of war. The sudden destruction of a machine-gun emplacement by artillery further illustrates the randomness of death and the capacity of modern war to erase man and machine from the landscape as if neither had ever existed.

A reluctant soldier, Godwin/Craig enlists to ward off financial ruin and discovers that his fellow officers joined with equally diverse motives, ranging from adventure to escapism. One even declares his enjoyment of the war and his desire for it to continue. Despite these views, cynicism and fatalism pervade the ranks, especially towards religion, which Godwin/Craig concludes has no place at the front or in war. Yet Godwin/Craig also sheds light on the intense comradeship of the trenches which enabled men to continue. The battalion, he feels, has a soul 'made immortal by sacrifice and suffering,' and its pull is powerful enough for him to request a transfer back to his old unit when he is posted to a training school. The front may be hell, he reasons, but 'hell with friends, and so, no hell after all.'

Although, perhaps, not the equal of those works first mentioned, Why Stay We Here? is a powerful commentary, and its republication is not out of place. This new edition includes a fine preface by Reginald H. Roy, and Thomson's introduction provides the necessary context and background for Godwin's life and other works. The promised editorial notes are at times idiosyncratic, but for the most part offer welcome explanations for the numerous military acronyms and slang found throughout. There is further interesting information on Godwin, such as the revelation that his journal contains a detailed - but apparently unsuccessful - plan to murder his elder brother. Overall, however, the work could have benefited from more alert proofreading. The term 'wallah' (slang for a high-ranking official) is defined in two separate chapters, note 7 appears twice in the body of chapter 5, and a sequencing error puts half the notes in chapter 7 out of order. Finally, several notes refer to a non-existent map, and a diagram of Godwin's unit is also missing.