The period before, during and after World War I is a fascinating period. So many world events conspired to change the face of the world map not only geographically but also socially and culturally as well. Many of the books I'm reading at the moment seem to revolve around this period, so I'm settling in for some interesting and entertaining reads. I recently finished Jody Shields's The Crimson Portrait, which is an unusual novel about a little known phenomenon of the First World War. At the center of the novel is the story of the collaboration between artists and surgeons in the treatment of those soldiers with devastating facial wounds. While they might be whole bodily, their faces have been ravaged.
Before I start, I should say that I've read a variety of reviews of the novel after the fact, and many of them are not favorable. The same can be said about Shields's first novel, The Fig Eater. I enjoyed them both, however. The Crimson Portrait does have its shortcomings. Not all the characters are especially likable. The pacing is on the slow side; she takes her time telling the story. And the ending is somewhat vague. I was willing to overlook these things. Or perhaps I saw them not as shortcomings but as important elements to tell the sort of story that has more going on under the surface than it appears. Shields's prose is elegant, but the story was unnerving in a variety of ways.
Catherine is a young war widow. She's in deep mourning for the husband she loved and lost, when her country home is requisitioned for the war effort. It will be turned into a hospital for recuperating soldiers, those with horrible facial wounds. Although she doesn't particularly want them there, it was a wish of her husband's that she honors. Catherine is from the privileged class, and Shields does an excellent job of portraying a not always very likable woman. She's sometimes spoiled and self-absorbed, but in her defense I suspect it is a fair depiction of what someone of that particular class of individuals might have been like. At times her behavior would rub me the wrong way, but other times I felt pity for the pain she felt at the loss of her husband.
The hospital is organized by Dr. McCleary, a surgeon who has come out of retirement. He was one of my favorite characters. Never married, he feels his own grief. Grief for what might have been in his youth, and grief for the men he wants to make whole again. He strives to make the lives of those broken soldiers bearable, something that might be impossible. Although we at first meet Dr. Kazanjian, a dental surgeon, and Anna Coleman, an American artist, in France, they are quickly sent to England to aid Dr. McCleary. Anna will document through her drawings the soldier's wounds as well as their treatments, which at the time were thought to be somewhat innovative (thankfully much has changed and improved since then). Later she will create masks for those soldiers whose faces cannot be fixed. Shields is meticulous in her descriptions of the medical aspect of the story.
Catherine catches glimpses of her dead husband everywhere. In a turn of the head, a shrug, the lighting of a cigarette. One soldier in particular, Julian, will capture her attention. Eventually she will fall in love with him, but during the story I was never sure whether it was Julian himself or the image of her dead husband that Catherine superimposes on him that motivates her. She obsesses over him, and through a deceitful act Julian's face will be remade into the image of her dead husband. Don't worry. I know I've given away some details, but really I've only scratched the surface and much has been left unsaid when it comes to plot and character interaction.
Not surprisingly everyone is this story has some kind of baggage. War wounds. Love wounds. Marital problems. Cultural problems. I mentioned that Catherine could be difficult to like, but she was not the only unlikable character to be honest. Many of the interactions between characters was also antagonistic and difficult. The people populating the novel are imperfect, in many cases embittered, struggling for a purpose. Given the circumstances under which they were thrown together I wasn't especially surprised. In some ways this is what I found unnerving--not just the physical wounds that the doctors were trying to treat (Shields doesn't do into graphic detail, but enough is said to work the imagination), but how the characters dealt with each other. I think Shields did this on purpose. There are some subtle and not so subtle themes that Shields undertakes in this story--love lost, found, turned away, suffering--both physical and mental, and the nature of identity (and not just the wounded soldiers). I mentioned there was a lot to mull over in this novel, and I feel as though I've only just skimmed the surface. I have a feeling that there are going to be a few things about the story that will continue to niggle at me for a while. Hopefully I'm not in the minority, but I'll be watching for Jody Shields's next novel.
By the way, the real life Anna Coleman Ladd and Varaztad Karanjian were the inspiration for this book. I read this for Annie's What's in a Name reading challenge.