David Jones (1895-1974)

Why me?

In this particular case, why is this soldier on duty at The Crucifixion and not that one?

More generally, why did some soldiers sign up for the first world war and find themselves in units sent into action on their first day at the front while others, signing up on the same day, found themselves transferred to garrison duties?

Why me? What impossible string of accidents and co-incidences caused me to be here at that particular place and time?

This extract from ‘The Fatigue’ answer that question. It begins a long way away in a guarded room. Anonymous decision makers make their decisions for reasons that are hidden, influenced by anything from bad wine, a broken heating system or a cold draft. It’s not personal. They didn’t choose you for a reason related to ‘who’ you are. But gradually the results of each decision pick up momentum. There’s an increase in the rhythm as the decisions move inexorably closer to their final unintended target.

It’s the best answer to ‘why me’ that I know.

A Note on Pronunciation

Jones’s writing is characterised by his use of non-English words. With the Anglo-Saxon and Welsh I’m reasonably sure how close i am with the pronunciation but with Latin I have no idea. Jones was at pains to point out that ‘inconspicious’ in this extract was not a misprint for inconspicuous.

‘The Fatigue’ was published in ‘The Sleeping Lord and Other Fragments’ (Faber). I’ve used this version and read the last third or so of ‘The Fatigue’ . In the magnificent new edition of ‘The Grail Mass and other works’ (Bloomsbury Academic) what I have read is presented as a self contained section. In this version it ends

Partee-party, halt.
Party-stand fast men detailed-
re-mainder- steady!
Middle watch-to quarters-Dismiss

David Jones (1895-1974) has been described as ‘the forgotten British Modernist’. But he was a genre all to himself, a modernist who loved Malory, a catholic who was fascinated by the Matter of Britain and the symbolism and liturgy of the mass. No one blurred the distinction between poetry and prose, or calls the distinction into account more thoroughly than he did.

'In Parenthesis' is probably unique, certainly my vote for the best book to come out of the first world war, but whether it’s prose, or poetry or poetic prose I don’t know and honestly don’t care.

The Hunt is taken from ‘The Sleeping Lord and Other Fragments’. Jones notes, at the end, that is part of an incomplete attempt based the Medieval Welsh tale Culhwch and Olwen…a significant part of which tells of the hunting of the great boar Twyrth by all the war bands of the Island led by Arthur.