The hideous daily violence of war and the larger political beliefs that seem to make it necessary are the raw material that Barry uses to ask a more fundamental question: How does a person come to think for him- or herself? As one character says to Willie, “The curse of the world is people thinking thoughts that are only thoughts which have been given to them. Willie’s father is devoted to king and country while Willie must question many familiar assumptions as he develops the ability to hold his own opinion. The history of Ireland’s role in the Great War is not well remembered, and Barry is a master at embodying political issues in the hearts of his characters, with all the ambivalence and emotion of the human heart. One of the many truths revealed in this story is the way in which the relentless violence of war is fueled by such simple motivations. Like so many young men, he wants to please his father and prove himself a man. While many around him are willing to fight because of the promise of home rule for Ireland, such beliefs are still foggy in Willie’s young mind. Willie’s father is a policeman and is disappointed that his son cannot follow in his footsteps. Six feet is the height requirement for becoming a policeman.
Willie Dunne, brother of Annie from Barry’s previous novel Annie Dunne, joins the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at age seventeen because he is less than six feet tall. In A Long Long Way, Barry uses his exceptional gifts to tell the story of Ireland’s entry into the First World War through the heart and mind of one young soldier. Sebastian Barry knows this, and knows that the vast movement of history, politics, and war is a cloth woven of the threads of personal experience, of the ways in which we come to cherish personal beliefs.
History is made up of memory, and memory is a storyteller. READERS GUIDE Questions and Topics for Discussion
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