This quote from crime novelist David Peace is maybe worth considering. He says:
Quote:
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"Crime is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and crime fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises crime and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."
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Substitute 'war' for 'crime' here & we have a nice encapsulation of the argument:
"
War is brutal, harrowing and devastating for everyone involved, and
war fiction should be every bit as brutal, harrowing and devastating as the violence of the reality it seeks to document. Anything less at best sanitises
war and its effects, at worst trivialises it. Anything more exploits other people's misery as purely vicarious entertainment. It is a very, very fine line."