The Truth in Storytelling

Blair Bailey

In the latter half of Richard Bausch’s Peace, the soldiers are feeling the heaviness of their situation as they sit on the mountain and listen to the volleying shots of the enemy’s guns. As Asch struggles to find meaning in his prayers, “Marson watched him and kept trying to pray. He could not find the words. Each time there was a volley, the sound of it and what it meant rose up in him, facing him, a wall against which his own soul could only collide in unbelief.” (121). this passage shows Marson’s attempt to comprehend what he is experiencing. In the past, Marson has relied on his words to make since of his surroundings and had the ability to tell good stories. Though in this instance, he fails to find the words.

Even earlier in the novel, Bausch mentions how Wagner trusted Marson because he was a storyteller. In regards to storytelling, there is a certain amount of trust that goes into the process. Not only does it require the listener to believe the story but the teller must believe in the story’s counsel. The chosen passage mentions that the sounds created a wall in him that “his own soul could only collide in unbelief. Marson knew what he was listening to over the hill but he could no longer use words to make since of it. What he was experiencing was so distant from what he could comprehend, that language itself could no longer connect him to his humanity. He sits blank and in disbelief as realizes that he cannot describe the closeness and realness of what is going.  He knew that no words that would make his story believable as he experienced it to any listener because he himself was in disbelief.

Bausch made it clear that storytelling plays an important role in connecting human experiences. It is used through the novel to bring a since of humanity and comfort to the soldiers. Though as the night gets harder and words have less meaning, Marson and his companions hold on to the idea that the words would help it all make since as Marson "kept trying to pray" in an attempted to sort through this undeniable truth.