Wednesday, April 11, 2007

I Had Seen Castles

by Cynthia Rylant

“I Had Seen Castles” is the story of a young man, John Dante, who optimistically goes to war with dreams of glory and righteousness and returns with reality and nightmares. His attitude is familiar. I have read a number of books that had characters who felt the same way. Each war begins with the “Rah-rah-rah” attitude reminiscent of cheerleaders at a local high school football game. Everything is black and white. We are good. They are bad. We are right. They are wrong. Etc, etc, etc…

I feel anger when I read books like this. “Bull Run”, “Gone With The Wind”, “Platoon”, and many more stories all start out the same. They touch the patriotic streak we all seem to have and crucify anyone who speaks out against war as unpatriotic. The older I get, the angrier I become at the patriotic rhetoric. The truth always seems many wounded bodies away. Cynthia Rylant’s writing ability made me experience enough anger to keep me awake for hours. She is a true master at her craft.

Fifty years after the war, John Dante wrote his story of a young boy, himself, off to World War II. The boy’s mother took a job in a factory to try to shorten the war. The boy speaks of the ten-hour days she puts in, day after day, coming home exhausted. John acknowledges that she does all this to save him from going to war, but his only concern is his embarrassment at seeing her wear pants. This is the real enemy. Young people, so self-absorbed, cannot see beyond their own wants and needs. His mother sacrifices her life to save his, and he only sees what she wears. John blindly goes off to war a haze of patriotism to return stunned and empty from the terrors he had seen.

The most regrettable thing about “I Had Seen Castles” is that once that John realizes that Ginny, his first love, was right in questioning the value of war, he never tries to find her again. He is so wrapped up in himself that he cannot or will not look for her. How very sad.

Cynthia Rylant does a tremendous job pushing all the right emotional buttons. She is right to reserve this story for older students as younger students would not understand the release of lovemaking and the fighting to save your fellow soldiers concepts.

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