Paul Fussell: 1924-2012

The great literary scholar and cultural critic Paul Fussell died Wednesday at the age of 88.  Anyone who appreciates the folly of both war and modern life understands the significance of this loss, as Fussell made a name for himself in attacking both.  Though he was also renowned for his study of British authors such as Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift, as well as essays on diverse topics, Fussell gained fame as a wry commentator on war and its aftermath, especially when it pertained to peacetime.  

Fussell was a veteran of the Second World War, and his experiences of battle in France shaped his world view.  He witnessed death firsthand in its most graphic and its bloodiest manifestation, and he himself was wounded in the back and the legs.  Fussell learned firsthand the horrors of war and how they contradicted the glory and heroism associated with battle - the same visions of glory and heroism that led so many young men to their deaths in the First World War, described by many an observer as Western civilization's first attempt at mass suicide.  He was also particularly influenced by the incompetence of much of the Allied command on the battlefield and developed a healthy disrespect for authority.  His discovery of war as a source of irony led him to explore the literature that reflected the disillusionment that affected the British after World War I, and the result was the book "The Great War and Modern Memory,"  a winner of the National Book Award in 1975.  His 1989 book "Wartime" explored the effect of World War II soldiers and civilians and how they coped with the conflict through a development of  euphemism and denial.

The patriotic self-congratulation in America following World War II nauseated Fussell even more, as peacetime in a country untouched by bombs and bullets meant materialism, fatuous optimism, and political complacency.  It led to his acerbic and pointed criticisms of American civilization, many of which I have quoted here over the years.  I have noted before on this blog Fussell's thesis of his book "BAD Or, The Dumbing Of America" that Americans can be persuaded to accept as precious and beautiful anything empty, showy, pretentious, and childish.  His earlier book, "Class," dissected the subconscious class distinctions of the American status system, with  rather biting commentary on the class consciousness of Americans and the absurdities of how they establish themselves in classes and aspire to move up to a higher status.  My own conclusions about American life - particularly the vulgarities of the past thirty years - are, while not encouraging or re-assuring, the result of Fussell encouraging me through his own work to walk through America with my eyes open. The best lesson I learned from his cultural critiques was to identify such inconsistencies and bombard them with, as he put it, "criticism, complaint, satire and abuse."   And in doing so, one must look especially upward, for it's usually in the grandiose, the pompous, and the majestic where you find the phony and the preposterous.

Fussell was able to illuminate every topic he turned his attention to, from the Indianapolis 500 (an event he found himself inexplicably enjoying) to gun control (he suggested that all gun owners automatically be enrolled in a militia).  His travel commentary (not "tourism" - he loathed the idea of just going from one place to another to see the sights)  illuminated the landscapes of  France and the Balkans, among other places.  But he remained at his most effective in his war commentary.  I need only recall his essay "Thank God For the Atom Bomb," making the argument that dropping atomic bombs on Japan saved more lives (including his own) than it took, sparing American and British (and posibly Soviet) soldiers the horrors that would have come from a full-scale invasion of the Japanese home islands.  Those who argued against the uses of the bomb, Fussell pointed out, never fought in combat.

My own blog has been a poor attempt to emulate Fussell, which is probably why I need to quote him periodically to make my point.  But I did write him in February 1997 to tell him how much I enjoyed his book "BAD Or, the Dumbing of America," along with some of my own observations of BAD  (anything bad  that can be accepted as desirable and of great intrinsic value).  He sent me a postal card in return with the following note:

Many thanks for your energetic and most intelligent letter of [February] 7th.

It's nice to know that someone has gone more deeply into BAD than even I.

The best way I can pay tribute to Paul Fussell from here on is to continue exploring the realm of  BAD, as I have been doing.  And, thanks to the 2012 elections, there'll be plenty more of it.  As Fussell himself once said, BAD is what we're best at.  R.I.P.