Dubious Glory

Dubious Glory: The Two World Wars and the Canadian Novelcombines literature and history to provide a lucid and engaging account of the remarkable transformations that have occurred in Canadian war fiction between 1915 and 1977. Beginning with a detailed focus on World War One fiction,Dubious Glorydelineates the ways in which Canadian writers use the romance genre both to justify and to glorify the actions of the Canadian solider in combat. Inevitably, the transition from the jingoistic romance of Ralph Connor’sThe Sky Pilot in NoMan’s Landto the stark realism of Colin McDougall’sExecutionreflects the profound changes found in Canadian war fiction after World War One. This study culminates in a sustained analysis of Timothy Findley’sThe Warsin which he returns to the Great War, a war that he perceives with irony, an irony tinged, nonetheless, with elements of romance.