One of the lingering things that has stood out to me in Brittain’s Testament of Youth is her sustained attraction to words. Over the course of the war, she continues to be drawn to books, to writing, to letters—even as she grows further disillusioned with meaning and goodness in the world around her. Her relationship to literature, especially, provides several connecting points with literary scholars: her ambivalence about “doing something” instead of pursuing academic study in the wake of disaster and suffering; the irresistible urge to go back to books that have shaped her in painful times; the sense of commitment to texts as something worth reading and attending to.

However, something I’ve noticed upon reading these later sections is that it seems like Brittain’s discussion of her relation to books often mirrors the overarching ethos of her story. Just as the author somehow manages to move in and out of her own story as a narrator—sometimes placing us in the perspective of the moment, sometimes stepping back to give greater insight—so do books serve both as a witness to her ongoing commitment to them and their changing roles in her life over time. It’s almost like she uses literature (in the broadest sense) as a character to reflect how she responds to experience. I’m not sure that makes sense, but I’m going to try to run with it.

This idea is evident, I hope, throughout Testament, but for the moment I’d like to focus on the earlier parts of Chapter VI, right after Roland dies. Part of me expected Brittain to discard her books in a dramatic flourish and refuse to keep reading after her world had lost all sense of meaning (maybe that would just be me). Instead, words/texts maintain a very real presence from the beginning. First of all, she sees fit to use her poem for Roland as the epigraph to this chapter—an indication that she has been able to give some substance to her loss in retrospect, despite its staying power in her life. Then, as she recounts the series of blurred memories from the days after his death, at least two significant references stand out: her remembrance of the biblical phrase, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jesus is the Word made flesh) and her echo of Rupert Brooke toward the end (a very important choice) (240). Both of these examples resonate so much because of the ambivalence she feels toward what they represent: her stance toward religion and her lingering sense that “the old joy” (241) of pre-war times is gone for good.

Section 2 of Chapter VI provides equally provocative instances of her relation to texts in a different way. When she begins to recount how Roland died, she opens with a comparison to Journey’s End (a drama, which is notable in and of itself—and also one after the war, which means her retrospective self is making this connection—even more interesting), then spends three paragraphs detailing the events. The next paragraph, though, begins, “That was all. There was no more to learn” (243), and that’s the last we see of books for the rest of this section; she reiterates at the end, “I knew I had learnt all that there was to know” (244). Who needs books when there’s nothing else to learn? However, she can’t stay away for long, because four pages later she’s turned their favorites into a shrine and turned them into her own sacred texts (248). This moment is also pretty fascinating because she both gives us a glimpse of what gave her solace at the time and how she has maintained her love for words, even if the ones she loves have changed. Her shift from Benson to Russell is telling, and her choice to reproduce entire paragraphs from each author is an effective way to, again, make these texts function as quasi-characters, able to speak for themselves instead of just giving us her impressions of them.

I’m eager to look more closely at how Brittain’s relation to literature continues to play out in the parts of the book we haven’t had time to discuss. It seems so integral to her way of perceiving the world, and yet it also has the potential to bring pain or lose the power it once had. This non-linear, progressive relationship with words gives life to Brittain’s story and helps her frame things that resist shape (her poetry is a good example of this—“May Morning” (268-269) is almost as heartbreaking as the commentary that follows it (270)). Regardless of how much she may struggle to continue to believe in the things words stand for, she remains committed to the hope that they can stand for something.