Triage
UPDATE: see advice on Triage practice essays at:
www.screencast.com/users/DavidJEBaxter
It’s ALLLLLL there!
Scott Anderson is an American writer whose first novel, Triage achieved wide acclaim. Anderson’s portrait of Mark Walsh, a war photographer is imbued with a sense of realism, undoubtedly a result of Anderson’s own experiences as a journalist. In this book, Walsh returns to New York from a trip to photograph the conflict in Kurdistan (northern Iraq) suffering from shell-shock (traumatic shock syndrome). Only with the help of his Spanish girlfriend, Elena and – more importantly – her grandfather, the former “Fascist Father-Confessor” to Franco’s Spanish Civil War killers is Mark able to “find his way back” to those who love him.
Attached is an introductory PowerPoint to help you begin to develop your understanding of TriageIntro.
There’s also an interesting radio interview with an American War Correspondent photographer, Ashley Gilbertson, which you may like to listen to. The link is http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2009/01/lnl_20090121.mp3
Here’s an example of one of Mr Gilberston’s pictures: 
And part 3 of an extended interview with him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbdYmhWTktk&feature=related on You Tube.
Triage is a wonderful and complex novel. Part of its real magic is that it wears its clevernesses very lightly: it doesn’t read like a contrived series of conicidences or a cumbersome profusion of symbols that smash us round the heads until we get it!
It is a novel based around a plot device ages old: a love-triangle, of sorts. It’s not a romantic triangle, but since Elena loves Mark, and wants him back, and lost her father and grandfather (but doesn’t want him, she thinks!); since Mark is lost, but still in that haze has his love and need for Elena; and since Joaquin has lost Elena’s love and will do anything to recover her affections there’s clearly a structure dynamic whose links will help to explore and explain the actions of the three main characters. And the title starts by hinting to us that this pattern of threes characterises many aspects of the novel. It’s set in three places. Talzani has 3 tags. This simply acts as an indication to us that Anderson wants us to read his novel with interest and with care! It’s a novel about ideas, as well as about people.
You will enjoy this novel much more if you spend some time doing the background. Find out about the wars in Iraq and Kurdistan. Research the Spanish Civil War, and General Franco. Wikipedia is a good place to start.
We will begin our study with a series of questions that take you in some detail through the novel, its themes, its relationships and its contrivances (for want of a better word!)Triage Reading & Understanding
Once the “reading” part of the “Reading and Responding” study of Triage is done, it’s time to “respond”.
There are four possibilities that questions on this novel may ask you to consider: one will suggest you examine the characters and themes; a second will focus on the way the author’s values can be discerned through the text; a third examines the way the author constructs the text and the fourth looks at how different readers will approach the text.
Neil Davis, combat cameraman (biography is by Tim Bowden – it’s in the school library)
You can obtain the practice SAC topics here. There are two to choose from. A good starting point is to try to decide which of the four question types each is. You should also revise your understanding of the structure and organisation of an exposition of this type. There’s a guide here!
