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I've always held @TimeNowBlog in high regard. Peter Molin's survey and grasp of war writing is dauntingly sharp.
Somehow I missed this excellent piece about the spectrum of war writing from "raw" to "cooked" (side note: "raw" is "war" backwards).
1/ https://acolytesofwar.com/2016/08/14/war-writing-the-raw-and-the-cooked/
Somehow I missed this excellent piece about the spectrum of war writing from "raw" to "cooked" (side note: "raw" is "war" backwards).
1/ https://acolytesofwar.com/2016/08/14/war-writing-the-raw-and-the-cooked/
I appreciate how he notes that raw/cooked isn't pejorative or complimentary, and the breakdown here of what's "raw" (and by implication what's "cooked") is helpful.
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In looking at Have Snakes, Need Birds, I got in the habit of seeing it through the blue/red spectrum lens from @bvanreet's essay below (postulated by his friend and fellow Brian @Brian_Castner). I say it's a blue book with streaks of red.
https://brianvanreet.com/2019/01/11/the-red-and-the-blue-writing-war-in-a-divided-america
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https://brianvanreet.com/2019/01/11/the-red-and-the-blue-writing-war-in-a-divided-america
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There's some of the standard jawing and fighting and combat and convoys and IEDs and shit, but a lot of it strives to be less traditional and more contemplative or metaphysical.
(My WIP Hills Hide Mountains isn't war writing, I don't think.)
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(My WIP Hills Hide Mountains isn't war writing, I don't think.)
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Now I can add raw/cooked to red/blue and I'm picturing two axes and a graph (caveman image below).
HSNB would be in the upper right quadrant. How far? Who knows. I feel like most war writing would be upper left or bottom right.
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HSNB would be in the upper right quadrant. How far? Who knows. I feel like most war writing would be upper left or bottom right.
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But what would a cooked red book be? Or blue and raw?
Are there other spectra we could add, complicating the picture, or is that an inherently cooked blue thing to even think?
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Are there other spectra we could add, complicating the picture, or is that an inherently cooked blue thing to even think?
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I guess my point is that there's a lot more going on in war writing than SEAL memoirs or introspective crud that never gains any altitude out of the mud in which it is born.
As surely as the people who serve, the writing of war contains multitudes.
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As surely as the people who serve, the writing of war contains multitudes.
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