Conrad's War by Andrew Davies

First published: 1978

Type of work: Domestic realism/fantasy

Themes: Family, emotions, war, and coming-of-age

Time of work: After World War II, with flashbacks to the war years

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Somewhere in Britain, with imagined trips to wartime Germany and France

Principal Characters:

• Conrad Pike, a high-strung, rebellious young boy who dreams of heroic war exploits
• Joe Pike, his father, who is too busy as The Great Writer to give Conrad the attention he demands
• Towzer, Conrad’s lazy, smelly, faithful dog
• Florence Pike, Conrad’s little sister, who is primarily interested in dolls and sickness
• Mom, Conrad’s mother, a working woman who is seldom at home
• Ian Rowley, and
• Nigel Creamer, Conrad’s schoolmates, who become part of his war fantasy
• Parkin, and
• Mr. Harris, teacher and headmaster, respectively, of Conrad’s school, who also play roles in the fantasy

The Story

The first chapters of Conrad’s War present a novel of domestic realism, humorous and sharp. The work gradually moves into fantasy with frequent returns to the real world. The action and characters are seen from the child/protagonist’s point of view. Conrad Pike is a boy of about ten, growing up in post-World War II Britain, who is fascinated by war, violence, and killing as presented on television and in comic books. He is bored with school, where the work is not challenging and where no one will play army with him at playtime. At home, there is no one to share his passion for war games, either. His little sister, Florence, plays with dolls. His mother seldom appears.

It is to his father that Conrad looks for comradeship; wryly referred to by Conrad as The Great Writer, Joe Pike works at home. So absorbed is he in creating imaginary scenarios for his sentimental television scripts that all else is done in a haze. Conrad wants his father’s full attention and finds it maddening to get little or no response. He tries increasingly dramatic ways to gain that attention, such as jumping onto the dining table and shouting abuse. When his father still appears to take no notice, Conrad is enraged and vows to create his own world, one in which he is in charge.

He builds an armored tank out of wood, cardboard, and metal scraps. Strangely, the crudely assembled tank appears to become large and to look like a real tank. Conrad experiences a sense of unusual strength and competence and feels able to drive the tank. He imagines driving it through the living room wall. The next morning when he awakens he finds traces of diesel fuel on his pajama trousers; the war increasingly infiltrates his real life, and he becomes frightened. One night he finds himself on a night raid over Nuremberg. His father has joined him and looks to Conrad for leadership. The flight is extremely uncomfortable and terrifying, not at all like the war comics. Schoolmates and teachers from Conrad’s real life begin to have roles in his fantasy world, retaining their old characteristics but all being bested by Conrad.

During the times he returns to the real world, Conrad is increasingly confused and worried about what is happening to him. He often thinks that he would like to be simply a small boy again, cozy and safe in bed. Back in the fantasy, however, he feels exhilarated at his invincibility. He builds a wooden glider in which he and his father escape from Colditz Castle, where they have been prisoners of war. They make their way to France, and as they walk through the countryside, they find that they are wearing jackboots and speaking German. Conrad has become Kolonel Konrad, a German tank officer. He is given orders to fire on members of the French Resistance. People are afraid of him. He seems to be two different people, one of whom does not want to kill anybody. War was supposed to be glorious, as in the comics, but he is finding it serious and sad.

He becomes afraid of losing his real self and realizes that he must find a way to get back home to stay. When at last he reaches his house and finds his family gathered around the breakfast table, he tells them that he is tired of war. He announces his plan to become an electrician. When they look tender and triumphant at the news, he tells them that he will begin by making an electric chair.

Context

Conrad’s War has been Davies’ most praised children’s novel, receiving the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction in Britain and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award in the United States. It was written to amuse his own ten-year-old son, who shared many of Conrad’s characteristics. Davies’ subsequent children’s novels in the Marmalade Atkin series were written at the insistence of his daughter and portray a young girl just as fiercely independent and naughty as Conrad. The Marmalade stories became a successful children’s television series. In fact, some critics attribute the successful realism of the dialogue in Conrad’s War to Davies’ experience in writing dramatic scripts for theater and television.

The fantasy in this novel has reminded several writers of Monty Python. A connection has been made with the young adult novels of Daniel Manus Pinkwater, including his Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (1979). In that book, two boys who are browsing through comic books learn about mind control and become involved in a bizarre adventure.

In a short list of titles of war fiction for ten-to thirteen-year-olds, Conrad’s War has been linked with Marion D. Bauer’s Rain of Fire (1983). That book also has an antiwar message, but it is the protagonist’s brother who actually participates in the war. Nina Bawden’s Carrie’s War (1973) has a wartime setting and deals with “the precarious hold on reality of a child’s imaginings,” something also seen in Conrad’s War. The refreshingly frank humor of Conrad’s War may remind the reader of Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas (1973) and the best of Judy Blume. In his defiant attempts to achieve power in the world of adults, Conrad resembles Gilly in Katherine Paterson’s The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978). The frank, wry observations of adult behavior occur also in Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13-3/4 (1982). Conrad’s War is distinctive because of its robustly honest portrayal of a very amusing, believable, and memorable father and son relationship. The reader can be grateful that, in the end, Conrad remains true to himself. He may have learned that war is not child’s play, but his basic nature does not change. There is humor but also honesty in the ending.