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As they grow older and the war intensifies, both men enlist in the British Forces for very different reasons and are sent to fight in France. Their friendship continues under the disapproving eye of Major Glendinning who forbids his officers to associate with junior soldiers. Jerry deserts the army temporarily to search for his father who had gone missing on the battlefield.
On his return, he is sentenced to death as an example to other soldiers who may be considering desertion. Alec, as an officer, is ordered to instruct the firing squad or face the same fate himself for refusing to obey orders.
The men exchange farewells and to avoid prolonging the agony, Alec kills Jerry in his room. He is sentenced to death for defying authority and the novel ends with Alec writing while calmly awaiting death. Love versus Hatred 2. Friendship Relationships 3. Jennifer Johnston explores the theme of love versus hatred in an interesting way.
Alec Moore must experience a horrific test of love in the course of the novel. He narrates his tragic tale of a loveless childhood, which left him emotionally scarred. His mother is cruel, manipulative and full of hatred for her husband whom she regards as weak.
From childhood, Alec was goaded by his beautiful mother, who is portrayed as being without nurturing or loving instincts. Her actions, which are swift and dismissive, suggest her passionless nature. This rather ironic revelation indicates her unloving attitude towards her son. It appears as though she loves the perfection of the swans, their separateness from her and their uncomplicated, instinctive existence.
For her, human relationships are meaningless unless she can gain some kind of power or victory from such intimacy. She uses her allure, the pretence of love, to secure what she desires while underneath she seethes with rage. I have already said that. When she discovers the friendship between Alec and Jerry Crowe she moves swiftly to destroy it.
Not only is she averse to the mixing of the classes but she is also suspicious and aggrieved at the bond which exists between the boys. Her refusal to allow Alec to go away to school is not the result of her grief at their separation but because she would be left alone with a husband she detests. She uses her son in a most despicable way, as a buffer between herself and her husband. She brings her son to Europe not for the love of learning but as a means of dealing with his unsuitable friendship with Jerry.
Friendship Alec feels real affection for his father. He realises that his mother abuses his father but he is helpless to prevent it. He misjudges Alicia, only realising his mistake when it is too late to rectify it. It is interesting to note that Mr Moore deteriorates in the absence of his son.
The friendship which develops between Alec and Jerry is the only real love and affection which Alec experiences. However, he shares the same sad home life as Alec. Both Alec and Jerry are capable horsemen. They plan to somehow overcome their class barriers to breed and train horses together. War The images of hatred in the novel revolve around references to the First World War and the Irish Nationalist cause.
From the earliest moments in the novel, the impending war in Europe forms the backdrop to the feuding husband and wife. It is possible to argue that the hatred between Alicia and Frederick Moore is used as a compressed image of the hatred between the allied and enemy forces in the war.
The inferences to madness in the novel serve the same moral function as the images of war. They make the reader understand that love is the essential element to the survival of the world because without it there is only chaos, cruelty and hatred.
Their parting scene in the novel, though it seems superficial, is actually heart-rending. Both Jerry and Alec ridicule their mothers for their hypocritical show of grief as they go to war. The description of the war in the novel evokes a sense of horror in the reader. The trenches which Alec describes are a physical representation for the reader of humankind without the redemptive power of love.
It is like descending into the hell which he describes so well in the course of the novel. Alec embraces the friendship of Jerry, caring for his welfare and trying to buffer some of the abuse hurled at him by the officers. It seems that Alec and Jerry should become insensitive to feeling and the little kindnesses which make life bearable.
Peter Crawley. How Many Miles to Babylon? More from The Irish Times Books. Home energy upgrades are now more important than ever. The Dublin start-up making the future better with an appreciation for innovation. Subscriber Only. How Many Miles to Babylon presents issues of friendship, family, class and war. What makes the novel worthwhile is the fine writing style of the author.
Both the description of the desolation of Ireland as seen from the eyes of the impressionable youths and the experience on the fields of Flanders as it ends their innocence is well told. The story begins, however, with the complex tale of a friendship between two boys in Ireland prior to and during World War I. Alec, the son of Anglo-Irish parents grows up lonely and friendless on his parents' estate in Wicklow during the early years of the 20th century.
His parents have a difficult relationship and it is stated that "their only meeting place was the child. Alec's mother, who believes strongly in the class system of early twentieth century Ireland, discovers the friendship and forbids him to spend any more time with Jerry. Their friendship is one that transcends their differences in class and character. I found the psychology of the family triangle of Alec, his over-bearing mother and his deferential father to be the most interesting aspect of this slight novel.
Their friendship is continued in private until the outbreak of the First World War. Jerry signs up as his father is already in the British Army and the King's Shilling would be of great benefit to his mother. Alec feels no compulsion to sign up until his mother tells Alec that his father Fredrick is not his biological father and in that moment he is so frustrated with his mother he impulsively signs up.
In France the two friends are stationed together, but now divided by rank as well as class. They are commanded by Major Glendinning, a ruthless officer who shares Alec's mother's belief in the class system and divisions between rank, demanding that there be 'no flaw in the machinery'.
When Jerry learns that his father is missing, he leaves to find out what happened to his father leading to a tragic ending. While the end of the story is apparent from the opening pages, the complex and lyrical style of the author held my interest and kept me reading to discover the story behind the sad beginning. Another view of the tragic nature of the Great War, this short novel resonates with better and more substantial fictions and I would recommend readers turn, or return, to Erich Maria Remarque's magnificent All Quiet on the Western Front for the seminal version of this tragic turning point in World history.
Steve Middendorf. This is not a story about life in the trenches of World War I. This is a story about relationships that could not be. Friendships between people of widely separated classes. The young gentleman, Alexander and his groom, Jerry, who shared a love of horses, sent off together to the trenches of Flanders. They never felt a bombardment or saw a shot fired in anger.
Alexander was a gentle upper class boy who never grew up; his mother thought that sending him to war would make a man of him.
It did. Jerry was not a pacifist but he cared nothing for authority, or politics, or war; only for the horses. This, in the end got him the firing squad - to be led by his friend.
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