Scott Chantler’s Two Generals is more than a true story about friendship and loss in World War II. It’s also the story of Chantler’s own grandfather — one the author feels would mortify the man had he lived to read it. But as the author explains in the concluding pages, “we must hand [our families’ stories] down lest such delicate personal lines be lost among the broader strokes of history”, and it really is the “delicate personal lines” that come to the forefront in this story. Based on the diaries of his grandfather, Law Chantler, as well some letters sent home by Law’s friend, Jack Chrysler, the book centres on their friendship as fellow lieutenants in the Highland Light Infantry of Canada (the title comes from a photograph of themselves they sent home, labelled “just an informal shot of the two Generals”). Shipped across the Atlantic together, going through officer’s school and seeing their first battles together, Law and Jack shared both banal experiences and horrifying ones.
The book is at its best during the first half, when the emphasis is firmly on the former. Detailing the frustrations, dangers, and fleeting joys of Law and Jack’s training days, Chantler illustrates how the officers were drilled in various kinds of combat, as well as cliff-scaling, amphibious landings, and bicycle-riding (only the bicycles were held together with wing nuts, and tended to fall apart). Most remarkably, the infantrymen were often kept in the dark as to whether their next assignment was just another practice run or the real deal, and from this nerve-wracking situation Chantler crafts some excellently suspenseful sequences, evoking a palpable sense of anticipation and fear. Meanwhile, background information about the two men is elegantly weaved into the narrative, with the character of each man — as well as the steadfast nature of their friendship — coming through clearly.
The latter half of Two Generals feels schematic in comparison, with the book’s ostensible centrepiece, the battle at Normandy, passing by very quickly. Presumably Scott Chantler had less in the way of diaries and letters to work with from this period, and the effect is a shift to a more impersonal voice. Where it counts, however — and truly horrible events come to pass — the emotion always rings true. Here, excerpts from as well as visual allusions to Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” are used to enduring thematic effect, underscoring the purpose of the story — to commemorate the lost potential, as well as the actual deeds, of those who lost their lives in the Second World War.
Throughout, Chantler’s art is precise and clear, showcasing excellent attention to historical detail in terms of clothing, weapons and locations. And while he renders faces with few lines (the characters have black dots for eyes), the facial expressions are natural, recognizable, and sympathetic. Every now and then a lack of detail in the background makes itself felt, but it’s not distracting, and helps to keep the pages — which often have nine panels — from looking too busy.
The colouring scheme in this book is simple but effective: most panels are done in army green and grey, but those with any kind of traumatic dimension to them are done in red. The jacket design is also simple but fitting — with rounded corners and an elastic built in to keep the book shut, it looks and feels like an old fashioned notebook.
One weird — and slightly distracting — feature of the layouts is that the panels are placed just close enough to one another (with just the right size of white gutter between them) that you get that optical illusion where translucent grey dots appear at the juncture between four panels. And since the nature of this illusion is that you only get it at the edge of your vision, it does tend to draw your eye away from the image you’re focusing on. Otherwise, however, Chantler’s layouts are lucid and graceful, and excel at stretching out and emphasizing suspenseful moments.
With its focus on personal details and everyday realities, this book would fit in nicely with a high school 20th century history course, and would do particularly well in a Canadian classroom, since Chantler is careful to outline the problems that were unique to Canadian military endeavours. It’s also a fairly quick read, and could easily be covered in two classes — adding a bit of personal detail to a history lesson that every day has fewer veterans to corroborate it.
As for further reading, Scott Chantler outlines both his historical and visual sources in a note at the end — these encompassed interviews with veterans as well as the diaries and letters mentioned above — and he also kept a research blog, which is still accessible.
“Two Generals” is published by McLelland and Stewart, and is currently available in trade paperback.
