The Absolutist is a conscientious objector, one who refuses not only to be involved in the dirty business of taking arms against an enemy but also to help in any way the war effort by carrying out ancillary tasks. They were nicknamed Feather men....  (The notion of a white feather representing cowardice goes back to the 18th century, arising from the belief that a white feather in the tail of a game bird denoted poor quality. To 'show the white feather' was therefore to be 'unmanly)Tristan Sadler and Will Bancroft two fresh faced recruits meet in Aldershot as they prepare for life in the trenches, the defining image of World War 1. "In Aldershot they weren't teaching us how to fight, they were training us how to extend our lives for as long as possible"......

 

John Boyne's writing is magnificent as always, his scenes of young raw recruits standing like lambs to the slaughter, or waiting to be butchered by the enemy's machine gunfire, is heartbreaking to read...."We forget that we have very nearly died today as we wait to die again tomorrow"......"Each of us fell at a different point on the spectrum from pacifism to unremitting sadism"...... At the start of the story Tristan is travelling to Norwich to meet Will's sister and deliver some personal letters, he is also hoping to unburden himself by revealing a secret, a secret that he has held within him for many years. The narrative alternates between the start and finish of WW1 and those who survived returned home deeply traumatized  to a country unable to cope with  or indeed understand the repercussions of shell shock more commonly known today as PTSD...."Twenty boys. And only two came back. One who went mad and myself. But that doesn't mean we survived it. I don't think I did survive it. I may not be buried in a French field but I linger there"........

 

The Absolutist is about friendship, unrequited love, the morals of the time, and what happens if we try to live outside what society views as righteous and good. It is about the evil and brutality that humans can inflict on each other and in its graphic descriptions it illustrates what life (if we can call it that) was like for young men in the trenches...most would be lucky to survive more than 6 weeks....." I close my eyes for a moment . How long will it be, I wonder, two minutes, three, before I am over the sandbags too? Is my life to end tonight?"In the last chapter we meet Tristan as an old man, success as a writer has done little to ease his conscience or dampen the memory of those bygone days. The final sentence is probably one of the most poignant I have read for many years. A truly outstanding novel John Boyne once again asserts himself as not only a gifted author but possessing an uncanny understanding of the human spirit and what is to live. to love, and for that love never to be returned. Highly, highly recommended

I should start to say that the first world war is very unknown in the Netherlands. It's not that people don't know about it, but as we didn't play a part in it, it is apparently less important in History class. Since 2,5 years I've been going to college in Leuven, Belgium. That city has been burned to the ground in 1914, but luckily it has been rebuild after. The famous University Library was rebuild from donations from American Universities, if I recall correctly. In Flanders fields ...

 

The Absolutist is a book that tells yet another side of the war. A side I was not familiar with, I had never given it a thought, as luckily I have never been involved in a war. About having to fight even if you really don't want to. Not because you're a coward, but because you morally object and can't rectify it for yourself. I thought it was a very moving story.

 

Note: The Dutch title for this book is - translated- The White Feather. After reading this made a lot more sense to me, as I was completely unfamiliar with the expression.

My god, that was sad. It's not really a romance, more a tale of frustrated desire wrapped up in an indictment of the First World War, and it's beautifully done. It's a very understated novel; Boyne manages to capture the horror and despair of the trenches very clearly and without trying too hard to be graphic or shocking. I felt great empathy towards his characters, despite (or maybe because of) their flaws. I'm not sure if 'enjoyed' is the right word to use, but I read it start to finish without reading anything in between, so it has to be good. But certainly it's one of those novels where, right from the very start, you know it can't end well.

This story is about Tristan Sadler, a young veteran of World War 1 who is dealing with intense shame and guilt, a consequence of his involvement in the war. Told in the first person narrative by the main character, Tristan recounts how he and his best friend, Will Bancroft, faced an intense personal dilemma, some emotions had to kept secret and never displayed or shared with others. It took a huge amount of courage to fight their internal feelings and the war they were waging on the battle field that faced them.

The story opens in September 1919 with twenty one year old Tristan Sadler on a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to Marian, Will Bancroft’s sister. The story unfolds slowly and moves between the war and his visit with Marian. She slowly finds out the truth about her brother and what really happened to him. Tristan and Will had meet during basic training at Aldershot and they soon developed a close relationship that lasted till they served in the trenches of Picardy where Will was court-martialed for cowardice and executed on the battlefield in 1916.

Mr. Boyne prose concentrates on emotions throughout this wartime story which depicts primarily the relationship between the two soldiers. The brutal and very descriptive war scenes in general are told in the present tense and the narrative shifts to the past tense when Tristan reveals his true feelings to Marian.

This skillfully crafted and very thought provoking story builds tension and emotions till its bitter conclusion and the result is a very moving story that looks at war from a different perspective