The Watch is an
intensely emotional portrayal of war that will get underneath your skin. This
recent release by Indian-born New York-based author Joydeep Bhattacharya has made me
think more than any other book I’ve read recently. The interesting thing about
this intense novel is how it grew on me more the further I got into it, slowly turning
me from sceptic to convert.
The tension that carries the reader through The Watch is set up in the first
chapter, which is told through the eyes of a young Afghani girl come to bury
her brother’s body. The Antigone in this tale, this determined girl, whose
brother has recently died during an attack on a remote US military outpost,
finds herself sitting outside the army base at a stalemate with the soldiers
inside. She claims she just wants to give her brother a proper burial, but they
have orders to send the body to the capital to be paraded by the government as a
propaganda tool. Where this story really gets interesting is when you realise that
neither you the reader, nor the soldiers in the base know whether the girl is a
terrorist sent as a suicide bomber, or just a grieving sister.
This importance of this first chapter is not
immediately obvious, and I have to say, I found it hard to get into, and even
the second chapter was heavy going for someone who isn’t used to reading about
combat. I’m not generally a fan of military books, and it took me a while to
get past the harsh but no doubt realistic talk of the US troops. But each chapter
is narrated by a different character, and the third chapter is narrated by the more
sympathetic team medic. From this point the stories start to tie together, the
perspectives of each character interweaves interestingly. We start to get an
insight into the different characters, why they’re there, their fears and
histories, basically what brought them to this painfully harsh posting in the
desert, surrounded by hostile insurgents and citizens alike.
In the meantime, the landscape sets a stark
background for the drama as it unfolds, an alien land of dust storms and
looming mountains. The presence of this unknown woman, and the strength of her conviction
affects the soldiers in a way even the death of their friends in the fire-fight
didn’t. It makes them question the very nature of the war they’re fighting, and
we see this through the way even hardened soldiers start to question the
decisions of their superiors when it comes to their treatment of the girl.
Joydeep uses flash backs and dream sequences to let us look into the psyche of these
men, and what we see is often as much a challenge to the state of US culture
and the socio-economic concerns facing young men back home as it is of the war
they are fighting.
For me, the impact of this book was heightened by
the fact I finished it while half-watching the ANZAC day parade last week. The parallels between watching past servicemen and reading about the inner turmoil of soldiers in the present day made me pause. I
think that because this war in Afghanistan has divided people so thoroughly
it’s particularly interesting to read a book that doesn't glamorise
or validate war, but does give an insight into the motivations of the men who have
been sent to fight it. There can be no doubt that the extreme physical and emotional
conditions of war affect people in a dramatic way. This book allowed me to
contemplate this side of war in a way that I wouldn’t normally, seeing the
soldiers as men with different motivations and backgrounds, just as diverse as
those who have fought in every war. I recommend this novel wholeheartedly as serious
food for thought.
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