"The Return of the Soldier" by Rebecca West *****

> Originally published 1918

> Pseudonym, debut novel,

INTRODUCTION:

> "...brilliantly highlights the complexities of traditional gender roles, class tension, Freudian psycholgy, and a war unprecedented in the scope of its useless, violent slaughter

> Had flings with Charlie Chaplin, Lord Beaverbrook, H.G. Wells

> West was 26 and a new mother when she wrote this

> one of the very first novels to incorporate Freudian concepts

NOVEL:

> p.5...."...great faith in the imminence of the probable".....Chris in his youth
             ".....It was his hopeless hope that sometime he would have an experience that would act on his life like alchemy, turning to gold all the dark metals of events and from that revelation he would go on his way rich with an indistinguishable joy."....foreshadowing

> p.8..."....there was something about her of the wholesome, endearing heaviness of the ox or the trusted big dog.  She was repulsively furred with neglect and poverty, as even a good glove that has dropped down behind a bed in a hotel and has lain undisturbed for a day or two is repulsive when the chambermaid retrieves t from the dust and fluff.".....Jenny's description of  Margaret

> p.11..."...hated her as the rich hate the poor as insect things that will struggle out of the crannies which are their decent home and introduce ugliness to the light of day."

> p.46..."...He possessed in great measure the loveliness of young men, which is the loveliness of a spry foal or the sapling...".

> p.52..."there is no aesthetic reason for that border....Its use is purely philosophic; it proclaims that here we esteem only controlled beauty, that the wild will never have its way within our gates, that is must be delicate and decorated into felicity."

> p.53..."...a little image of  Chris' conception of women.  Exquisite we were according to our equipment, unflushed by appetite or passion, even noble passion, our small heads bent intently on the white flowers of luxury floating on the black waters of life.  He had known none other than us."...Chris' view of women

> p.62..."I was even willing to admit that this choice of what was to him reality out of all the appearances so copiously presented by the world, this adroit recovery of the dropped pearl of beauty, was the act of genius I had expected of him."....Jenny about Chrs latching on to his youth and first love

> p.64..."Embraces do not matter; they merely indicate the will to love........but disregard means that now there needs to be no straining of the eyes.......because theirs is such a union that they are no longer aware of the division of their flesh."

> p.67..."Indeed she had been generous to us all, for at her touch our lives had at last fallen into a pattern; she was the sober thread, the interweaving of which with our scattered magnificences had somewhat achieved the design which would not otherwise appear.  Perhaps even her dinginess was part of her generosity, for in order to ft into the pattern one has sometimes to forgo something of one's individual beauty."

> p.72..."Beautiful women of her type lose, in this matter of admiration alone, their otherwise tremendous sense of class distinction; they are obscurely aware that it is their civilizing mission to flash the jewel of their beauty before all men,  so that they shall desire it and work to get the wealth to buy it, and thus be seduced by a present appetite to a tilling of the earth that serves the future."

> Margaret's child and Kitty's child both died....Margaret believes that they both only had half a life because Chris was with the wrong woman.

> p.85..."I knew quite well that when one is adult, one must raise to one's lips the wine of truth, heedless that it is not sweet like milk, but draws the mouth with its strength, and celebrate its communion with reality, or else walk forever queer and small like a dwarf."

> LibraryThing Review: "Return of the Soldier" is a literary powerhouse in a small package! It is the incredibly moving story of a soldier returning home from war with amnesia, only recalling the love of his youth. However, it is so much more than just a movng story. This is a story about the ravages of war, the ravages of adulthood, the ravages of grief, and the power and responsibility which accompany the gift of loving someone. It is a treatise on womanhood, on social class, on prejudice, and on wisdom. And....this was a debut novel! Read it!