The Absolutist by John Boyne

Many novels, poems and histories of the First World War are dominated by the bravery of the soldiers on the battlefields. Latterly the emphasis has moved to dissent, and John Boyne’s timely novel explores this theme. A defining moment in history is seen through the eyes of one man’s individual experience of the horror and suffering in the killing fields of northern France.

It is 1919. Tristan Sadler, on the eve of his 21st birthday, takes a train from London to Norwich to return some letters written during the war by Marian to her brother and his friend William Bancroft.

Will and Tristan first became close when they trained side by side in Aldershot. They were then sent to the front, where they were overwhelmed by the horror and suffering.

When a young German was shot in cold blood by a British soldier in front of him, Will refused to continue fighting, was accused of cowardness and executed by a firing squad, leaving his family back home disgraced and ashamed.

Walking round Norwich, Tristan remembers the brutal nature of their training which, nonetheless, was for him “an intensely heightened experience” which brought moments of self-discovery, joy and pain and an awareness of his sexuality. But it is the dehumanising nature of war that changed the two men, each in different ways.

With his simple and direct style, Boyne brings alive, with great tenderness, the loneliness and terror facing the soldiers trapped in a nightmare from which they could not escape.

The novel is a topical and timely reminder of our present war in Afghanistan and the soldiers who have yet to face the aftermath of this conflict.