Learning from History

Nicole Gilmer

As Richard Bausch’s novel Peace nears its end, Marson thinks to himself that “they were in this space together… having been faced with this something so far beyond their own worst expectations of themselves or of the world, even a world at war. It was a strange, sorrowful moment… [and he] had to work to put it down in himself” (122). This reflection shows the way in which Marson is concerned with understanding his situation and being able to “put it down in himself” so that it shapes the circumstances into something reasonable. Marson realizes that, although he has heard and read stories of war before, he was not prepared for what it meant to be involved in a war. He could not have foreseen the toll it would take on him or the mark it would leave on the land around him. Joyner, Asch, and Angelo are equally dumbfounded in the face of the horrors of war. Bausch is making the point that if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it; but that it’s often difficult to truly understand something you’ve not directly experienced.

This is why Mason finds it so important to be able to frame the war in a story that both he and others can be receptive to. The ability to effectively create this narrative is not one that is often possessed. For example, Asch’s grandfather had been in the First World War and told stories about it but still Asch was not prepared for the atrocities which he would witness during war. Marson too had been exposed to stories of war (he mentions having read The Red Badge of Courage) but found it entirely un-relatable when compared to the realities he experienced. It seems that true “Peace” may be attainable if relating war through a story were easier to do; if finding a way to “put it down” and properly capture all the unnecessary “strange, sorrowful moment[s]” were not so impossible.