Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Saturday, March 9, 2013

"Bush River" by Joyce Cary

"Bush River" by Joyce Cary (1939, 11 pages)


Irish Short Story Month III
March 1 to March 31



Joyce Cary (1888 to 1957, Derry, Ireland)


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Joyce Cary is a well known and highly regarded Anglo-Irish writer and artist.  His family had been landlords since the 1500s but they lost much of their property after the passage of the Irish Land Act in 1882.  Growing up he split his time between Ireland and Cromwell House in England.    He was a red cross orderly during the Balkan wars.  While in attendance at Oxford he became friends with the future husband of Katherine Mansfield, John Middleton Murry.   During WWI he served with a Nigerian Regiment fighting the Germans in Cameroon.  It is this experience he drew on in writing "Bush River".   His first and some of his subsequent novels were based on his experiences in Nigeria and he did draw criticism for what some saw as a patronizing portrayal of African soldiers.  I also somehow felt that in "Bush River" in the opening paragraph when he uses the expression "little brown soldier" to refer to an African assigned to a British Army unit.  Of course one of the very worse aspects of colonialism is using troops of the countries you rule to fight your wars for you and the British have used the Irish in this fashion for centuries.  The story is told in the first person by a young English officer.  He is totally devoted to his horse.  He does make several reference to little soldiers and suggests the Africans are less in control of themselves than the British.   He is given an assignment which if he completes he feels will get him a promotion.  He is to move a heavy cannon through the jungle across a river and put it in position to fire on the Germans.  The British feel it will terrify the African troops of the Germans who have never heard heavy cannons before.

Cary does do a good job of describing what it was like to drag the cannon through the bush, where there could be Germans behind every tree, to cross a dangerous river with your horse and to encounter Germans.


The biggest feeling I got from this story was the man's love for his horse.  I enjoyed reading it but see it as not a first rank story, not even close.  

I read this work in The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories edited by William Trevor.  




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