has ever happened to us. And these narratives of exotic experi-
ence may have the most power over us of all, because we can't
challenge their authenticity with the evidence of our own senses.
We can't say to H. G. Wells, "No, it wasn't like that when
Martians landed in my backyard."

Most Americans living in this decade have not directly experi-
enced war, have not fought at the front, or been invaded, oc-
cupied, or bombed at home, so our narratives of war are par-
ticularly potent in shaping our imagination, indeed our very
memory, of war. And since how we imagine (or remember, or
forget) war has a great deal to do with our propensity to make war,
the question occurs, What is it in our literature of war, in our
modern cultural memory of war, that has led us in this century to
make war again and again, and to export our organized violence
to just about every corner of the world?

In her recent collection of essays, Prisons We Choose to Live
Inside, Doris Lessing writes:

I think it is sentimental to discuss the subject of war, or peace,
without acknowledging that a great many people enjoy war--not
only the idea of it, but the fighting itself. In my time I have sat
through many many hours listening to people talking about war, the
prevention of war, the awfulness of war, with it never once being
mentioned that for large numbers of people the idea of war is
exciting, and that when a war is over they may say it was the best time
in their lives. This may be true even of people whose experiences in
war were terrible, and which ruined their lives. People who have
lived through a war know that as it approaches, an at first secret,
unacknowledged elation begins, as if an almost inaudible drum is
beating . . . an awful, illicit, violent excitement is abroad. Then the
elation becomes too strong to be ignored or overlooked: then every-
one is possessed by it. ¹

Our war literature of this century, or at least that selection of it
that we have come to know as our literature on the subject, is
permeated, I think, with this "secret, unacknowledged elation"
at the thought of war, with the conviction that war is exciting and
that soldiers experience in combat uniquely profound and in-
tense emotions and relationships. Initially, I was shocked at the

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