Articles of War: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Nick Arvin (Author) "THE BOY THEY CALLED HECK ARRIVED AT OMAHA BEACH IN August 1944..." (more)
Key Phrases: freckled man, George Tilson, Great War

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This fierce, compact tale of one grunt's war takes readers to the same time and place—the woods of northern France in 1944—where Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim was captured by the Germans. George Tilson, aka Heck, is another awkward, uncertain American 18-year-old mobilized from America's heartland to the European theater. Disembarked in Normandy, he meets a struggling French family: a one-armed painter; his daughter, Claire; and son, Ives. Claire nearly takes Heck's virginity, but he fumbles her seduction in a fit of fear. He's then trucked off to battle, where he experiences real panic under bombardment: "The noise was like nothing he had ever experienced before, a noise such as might be used to herald the beginning of a terrible new world." Heck is halfway through his nightmarish advance through a forest peppered with German snipers and booby traps before he fires his gun in anger, and that's only to kill the company dog. His second shot comes when his company sergeant, Conlee, an ex-foxhole mate and one of many to mark Heck as a coward, enlists him in an unexplained but horrifying mission. Arvin's first novel is an elegant, understated testament to the stoicism, accidental cowardice and occasional heroics of men under fire.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Arvin, inspired by his grandfathers’ service during World War II (one with American forces, the other with the German Army), captures the horrors of battle in his first novel. Leaving out the epic sweep of standard historical fiction, the author builds his narrative from one young soldier’s experience. Arvin is especially acute in his examination of the psychology of bravery when faced with devastation. His minimalist prose, which captures the panic, horror, carnage, and chaos of war, packs more emotional and descriptive punch than its simplicity would denote. Only the romantic subplot involving Heck and a French girl draws sustained critical fire, especially from The New York Times. But most agree that Articles of War is a timely, self-assured debut.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385512775
• ISBN-13: 978-0385512770
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #921,877 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bestiality of War: First Person Singular, April 22, 2005

By	Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In ARTICLES OF WAR Nick Arvin has, in this first Novel (he has previously published short stories under the name of 'In the Electric Eden: Stories') stepped into the echelon of writers who are able to credibly recreate the horrors of war without finding the need to justify the concept of war as a viable means for resolution of issues. This is an exceptional novel that relentlessly defines the passion, the fear, the atrocities, the visceral responses to the annhilation of fellow human beings, and places those responses squarely in the body of one terrified eighteen-year-old boy. The effect is devastating and the result is one of the most vehement antiwar novels ever written.

George Tilson, nicknamed 'Heck' because of his refusal to use profanity, is a simple Iowa boy who by draft enlists in the Army to please his newspaper publisher father. He has no political fervor, no adolescent need to prove his virility: Heck simply knows how to follow orders, place training camp in the role of playacting, and accept his shipment to Omaha Beach, Normandy in 1944. A loner by nature, Heck observes his environment, is shipped to various campaigns, and remains a passive severely frightened youth. Once he is in battle he is horrified by the killing, the strewn dead bodies, witnessing the implosion of a recruit from a land mine, the stinging deaths of fellow soldiers, the look in the eyes of dead Germans, discovering the bodies of French victims, inadvertently sludging through corpses, the decimation of the landscape, the filth of living in rain-gutted foxholes. At one point he encounters a French family who befriends him and he is shown kindness by the young Claire with whom he finds momentary solace in the caves of France, becoming tangent to his emerging sexuality yet fearful of fulfilling his desires. The little family disappears and his quests to find them again are useless. His encounter with Claire and her gift of a tiny silver music box are his constant attachments to hope, to the concept that he may survive to find Claire again.

The war eats Heck's soul and mind and eventually he follows the urge to find a way out of the battlefield by arranging his own gunshot wound to the wrist inflicted by a German sniper. This act of cowardice joined by his inability to find justice in the idea of war weakens Heck to the point that he is unable to eat without vomiting, and unable to hide from his shame of being a coward. Heck begins to harden after a certain incident and when he is assigned to a secret mission, he consents to go. The mission is to be a part of the firing squad that will execute deserter Pvt. Eddie D. Slovik, a mission that will forever haunt young Heck. (This incident is based on fact, as the author informs us at the beginning and end of the book.)

How Heck deals with all these inward damages inflicted upon him by the war forms the final chapters of this intense book. The war ends and Heck is so incapacitated by his guilt that he signs up for another tour of duty in France and it is during this tour that the unsettling events of the post-war effects take on significant meaning and draw an end to the story.

Nick Arvin writes in spare sentences, much the way his main character would process information. But that is not to say that Arvin cannot wax eloquent or burn images into our minds that become as indelible as the effects of the war on Heck. "Heck began to understand that this was hell: a rainy woods, a place of mud and standing water and deep cold, made complete by the explosions that forced you to burrow into the muck and lie in it and be glad for it....The damaged trees were stricken, ossified. When it rained the trees dripped, providing no protection. A fog was trapped or confused in the forest and dwelled there all day, at its thickest creating a white darkness. The mists seem to absorb the night, and eventually night reconquered the mists, and in this fashion the idea of sunlight was erased."

As poetic as the writing just quoted is, Arvin can also conjure the unimaginable. "At one time he had expected the war would go by like a snake whose tail he would eventually see, and that would be the end. But now he saw it to be more like a river that is always going by and of which one expects no end. One day he watched a GI urinate into the open mouth of a German corpse. The next day he entered a town recently abandoned by the Germans and found the body of an American soldier who had been literally crucified."

ARTICLES OF WAR places the reader in the midst of WW II and never spares a moment of grisly detail. For this Vet from another war, this book, more than most other novels about war, captures the harsh realities of battle on the line and in the minds of those sent to fight. If ever there were an antiwar statement in the form of brilliant prose, this is it. This is a tough book to read, but an inordinately important one, and an exceedingly fine novel by a gifted poet. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, April 05

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SO MUCH IN SUCH A LITTLE BOOK!, March 8, 2005

By	D. Blankenship (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This one, I admit, caught me off guard. I have not read a work this well written in some time now. This is bare bones stuff. I hate to compare this work with any others, but must admit that Red Badge of Courage kept popping into my mind. This work was just as haunting, just as sparse and just as well done. The story here alone is worth the read, but the real treat is the author's ability to write and write well! I admit to having rather archaic taste in writing, but do feel that most who love well written words will appreciate this one. The author's style does take me back. I strongly suspect that we will be hearing more from Mr. Arvin, anyway, I hope so. Highly and strongly recommend this one. Thank you Mr. Arvin!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gem, August 5, 2007

By	Mark Stevens (Denver) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Articles of War (Paperback)

This story is a gem. It's compact, serene, and powerful. The writing is clear and sober. The main character is wonderfully complex, given the spare story and brief time we get to spend with him. I'd rank this up there with "Going After Cacciato" or "Slaughterhouse Five" for best war novels ever. "Articles of War" is a finely-crafted portrait of reluctance. Sample of prose: "It began to rain, and he wanted in his tent listening to the drumming of it. Idly, he tried to remember the songs his mother would sing in the kitchen, but he could recall only a phrase or two. He'd never been able to carry a melody himself. In the mess tent at lunch he sat alone. Then he pulled on a plastic rain poncho and set off to find Albert, Ives, and Claire at the chateau. While he walked the rain slackened to a misting drizzle, then tapered to nothing. Low wraits of fog rose from the hollows of the land, looking solid and sulky and unlikely to retreat before the feeble sunlight that filtered through the ashen clouds." When war comes, the writing is no less blunt or observant. When hard choices must be made, the interior thoughts of "Heck" are gripping and vivid. Just when you think you've got the sense of this novel, the plot takes an interesting and fascinating turn and you have to agree that war, as the book so bluntly makes clear, is a universe unto itself. I'm glad I own a hardback. Nick Arvin is a fantastic writer.