Distance Is Beauty: The Western War Aesthetic

"From the bell tower of the Cathedral the battle was only picturesque, fixed like a panorama of the Boer War in an old Illustrated London News. An aeroplane was parachuting supplies to an isolated post in the calcaire, those strange weather-eroded mountains on the Annam border that look like piles of pumice, and because it always returned to the same place for its glide, it might never have moved, and the parachute in the same spot, half-way to earth. From the plain the mortar-bursts rose unchangingly, the smoke as solid as stone, and in them market the flames burnt palely in the sunlight. The tiny figures of the parachutists moved in single file along the canals, but at this height they appeared stationary. Even the priest who sat in a corner of the tower never changed his position as he read in the breviary. The war was very tidy and clean at that distance." (Greene 46)

     This passage from the The Quiet American perfectly encapsulates the Western 'War Tourist' mentality.  Fowler's description of the fighting at Phat Diem turns war into a display of terrible beauty and oddly picturesque scenes. There is a disconcerting undertone present throughout the entire passage, as if the bloody truth is being obscured by a haze of ambiguity. Indeed, it is known that the intense trauma of being physically present in a war-zone often leads to the creation of screen memories. With this in mind, one begins to see that his description of the battle is not odd in the least, in fact, it is rather appropriate given the context in which the events are taking place.

     When dealing with massively violent events such as this one, distance is beauty and immersion is horror. Distance means watching magnificent tracers light up the night sky while hearing the muffled thump of outgoing shells exploding in the distance. Immersion means being inundated with the sickly sweet smell of death and hearing the blood-curdling screams and groans of the mortally wounded. At a distance, war is an abstraction, an idea. This safe detachment from personal risk makes it possible to recognize the strange aesthetic beauty of war. Indeed, there is something deeply poignant and disturbing in watching humanity tear itself apart with high explosives.