The Warm Hands of Ghosts

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What happens when fantasy meets the First World War?

This month we read ‘The Warm Hands of Ghosts’ by Katherine Arden, a novel which follows Canadian nurse Laura Iven as she searches for her brother behind the lines in the militarised area known as the ‘Forbidden Zone’. The plot hinges around a mysterious character called Faland, who runs an elusive hotel with no set location that men find to drink and relax.

In the discussion we consider the fictional use of historical characters, whether the war began in 1917, and Chris’ new scale for measuring war-related novels.

References

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (1989-present)
Alice Winn, In Memoriam (2023)
Robert Graves, Good-bye To All That (1929)
Mary Borden, The Forbidden Zone (1929)
L. M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
The Battle of the Somme (1916)
R. H. Mottram, The Spanish Farm Trilogy (1930)
Lesley Glaister, Blasted Things (2020)
Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (1975)
Owen Davies, A Supernatural War (2018)
Lucifer (2016-2021)
Pierre Purseigle, Mobilisation, Sacrifice et Citoyenneté. Des communautés locales face à la guerre moderne. Angleterre – France, 1900-1918 (2013)
Rachel Duffett, The Stomach for Fighting (2012)
Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron (1995)
Pat Kelleher, Black Hand Gang (2010)

Other episodes

Blackadder

Was Blackadder Goes Forth the most powerful portrayal of the First World War ever put on television?

Fall of Eagles

How did the First World War bring down Europe’s great dynasties, and how did the BBC retell that story on screen?

War-Time In Our Street

What can a 1917 short story collection tell us about life on the British home front during the First World War?