Testament of Youth

Testament of Youth is a book written by Vera Brittain, and is the 3rd of the 4 books which I purchased for Nora this past Christmas.  I finished reading it a few weeks ago.

It is hard to fully articulate all that I have felt and thought about as I read this book. While it is similar to The Golden Notebook, which I read previously to this, similar in that it is written by a woman, and that it is about a time in history that I did not live, (in this case from 1900 to 1925), it is as if it was written by someone from an entirely different world. I guess one might say it reflects an era during which woman were hardly recognized as people let alone people with ideas and talents, yet also an era that enabled women to experience the world and the world to see just what they were capable of as it was an era which ended with the most horrific of wars, World War 1.  And, finally, an era in which the phrase The Lost Generation was coined, as, not only did millions of young people die, but for those that survived, a mixture of guilt and "what-might-have-been" was an ever present cloud which infiltrated every aspect of the rest of their lives.  Yet, strangely, perhaps it was only because of such monumental loss and suffering, could women such as Vera Brittain emerged, and then inspired that next generation of women as I discovered in the Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.  I was certainly not conscious of the details of these books when I purchased them for Nora, but I am very happy that I read them in succession. 

Testament of Youth is the autobiography narrated by a young woman who escaped the structure and strictures of the Victorian Age by going to college (to learn), and volunteering to serve as a nurse's aide during WW1, only to return to life after the war having lost her betrothed, her closest friends, and her brother to find that while she had been dramatically changed by her experiences, society and the norms of the time had not completely followed suit. Over the course of my reading it, I became immersed in a world both long gone in its description of the obvious prejudices concerning women and their role in society, but also so detailed as written by Brittain that I became her, felt her joys and sorrows, lived her life despite the obvious distance in time and experience between us.  It inspires me to wonder if I could ever write something that can transport my readers as she did for me. She has set a very high bar for me to aspire to in terms of my own efforts at writing.

But what is truly amazing to me is how in the intervening 100 years, while so much has changed, some fundamental concepts have not.  Consider this:

"There is still, I think, not enough recognition by teachers of the fact that the desire to think - which is fundamentally a moral problem - must be induced before the power is developed. Most people, whether men or women, wish above all else to be comfortable, and thought, is a pre-eminently uncomfortable process; it brings to the individual far more suffering than happiness in a semi-civilised world which still goes to war, still encourages the production of unwanted of children by exhausted mothers, and still compels married partners who hate another to live together in the name of morality."

Now, it may be clear that the last part of this quote might come from a woman seeking more happiness in life than a nice house, prosperous husband and a few kids to cook, sew and care for, and, along with the efforts of other women like her, actually accomplished the goal of creating an environment in which the stimulation of the mind and soul for a woman became an actual thing, but the part about couples staying together did not automatically follow (it wasn't that long ago that divorced woman had no rights to property from a marriage so divorce was an exclusive option for the man), and certainly inspiring independent thought is still a goal that faces obstacles from all varieties of institutions, religious, political, and cultural alike.    

In 100 years, and despite some amazing advances in the areas of transportation, communication, education, knowledge, and medicine, we are still neck deep in some of the vestiges of the tribalism that centralized power within one gender and one race, and which led to 2 World Wars during which thought and reason were put aside for violence and hatred. 

What is more disturbing, is that even after the death and destruction of WW1, Brittain reflects on those who did not suffer as others did.  She is amazed, during one of a number of reprieves from the war when she was able to travel back to her home in England when she was faced with what she described as the petty complaints about a lack of meat or butter, as compared to the suffering of the soldiers she attended to, and then later, the utter deprivations which were foisted upon the populations of the losers of the war. She becomes more and more aware of how retribution and revenge against the losers of WW1, is not only a rejection of the morals that she believed the winning side stood for, but the exact opposite course which should be followed, yet, she feared, would be followed by the "old men" in charge who led the world into the destruction of The Great War, and who, by not changing their base premises, would lead to another destructive conflict.  

Another aspect of Brittain's story, is her ability to tell her story years later (Testament of Youth was written many years after the events), and yet still reveal her growth as a person as if it is happening live as she writes.  She allows her character to evolve right before the reader's eyes even though the story it about herself.  The experiences which lead to her embrace of pacifism are not surprising after the fact, yet are not obvious as the evolution of this philosophy occurs.  I guess one might say that her logical path to pacifism was built on a foundation of emotions guided by real life events, all of which strikes a note within me in regards to my own thoughts of the glorification of war and violence that I see in our world today.

When I hear of everyday Americans who are stockpiling weapons and ammunition for the coming revolution, as they describe it in almost gleeful terms, I wonder just how far removed we are from the attitudes that led to WW1 and WW2.  Those who advocated for war in those situations were able to demonize those on the other side, were able to convince entire populations that God and justice and morality were on their side, even when bombs and destruction reigned down from the skies on civilians on both sides.  At least in those wars, the enemy were people who spoke other languages, followed other cultural norms.  Today's revolutionaries, at least in America, seem to have decided that other citizens of America and/or the United States Government are the enemy.  They don't seem to realize that the people they will be targeting through the scopes of their guns are those who have volunteered to serve in the US Army, or their state's National Guard, or perhaps even their neighbors who are local police officers.  While I have never served in a war, never experienced the horror as described by Brittain, I am just as convinced that war is very rarely the answer to conflict resolution, and equally amazed that so many Americans today have decided that it is OK to shoot or kill a fellow American over a myriad of disagreements or mistakes or misunderstandings.

Finally, the book reminded me multiple times of the people who have been complaining about having to wear a mask during a pandemic, to save the lives of their elderly and sick neighbors, family and friends.  People who don't seem to want to experience any type of discomfort in a cause which will help our country defeat a virus that has killed more people than any other calamity that has faced our country.  But worse, I wonder if the open disregard for the health and lives of those who are still dying, 1500 to 2000 per day, is simply because they are the old and sick among us.

Would there be such vaccine and mask resistance if 1500 children were dying every day?  Would people be more likely to do whatever it takes to prevent the loss of so many young lives?  What saddens me is that we very well might have far less push back against the government and medical community if it was children that were dying.  In fact, I would suggest that there would be criticism against both those entities for not doing enough, if it was those under 12 that were dying in our communities.  

The thought that we might be a bit less willing to sacrifice our youth for the "freedom" to disregard even the most minimal of health requests might be true is unnerving for me to suggest, but I have heard far too many comments suggesting or intimating that the loss of the old or sick is acceptable. Or worse, is their own fault for being old or sick.  

The Testament of Youth, more than anything, laments the loss of life and hope that Vera Brittain and those of her generation experienced.  While I am sure that 50 years from now, there will be books and stories written by those who experienced the worst of the Covid pandemic, I wonder if there will be the same sense of loss associated with this time in history, or if there will be those who wondered why we cared so much, were willing to sacrifice some material and economic goals to save a million old and sick people in America. Let's hope that the future America has not fully embraced the concept of survival of the fittest, but rather marks the unwillingness of those who did the least to prevent death, who seemed to encourage practices that led to more death, as far less patriotic than they consider themselves today.