The Absolutist

by John Boyne (Struik, R215)

Tristan Sadler, a book editor who fought in World War I, visits the family of his friend, Will Bancroft. A vicar’s son, Will trained with Tristan at Aldershot army camp, and was close to him, but something comes between the two.

Will ultimately chooses to become a conscientious objector, refusing to fight, thereby placing further stress on the already strained relationship. He is shot as a coward.

After the war, Tristan desperately wants to unburden himself to Will’s sister, Marian, telling her what happened in France, but he is too ashamed. Under the pretext of returning the young man’s letters to her, Tristan undertakes a trip to Norwich.

During the trip, he thinks back on the events which have brought him to this point and so we learn of his troubled background, a taboo relationship and of war-related themes, including alienation experienced by men in the trenches and by those who actually return from the war, but are unable to relate to the civilians who have not witnessed what they have.

The reader is gradually exposed to the inevitable in what I thought was a cleverly written book by the popular Irish author of The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas.

The climax is entirely suited to the novel, but an epilogue moves the reader into the late 1970s, allowing the author a useful device to explain away modern phrasing in his narrative. Unfortunately, this ending is a little incongruous and tends to detract from what has gone before. – Janine Magree