Fly Away Peter by David Malouf:"Jim saw that he had been living, before he came here, in a state of dangerous innocence... He had been blind."

"Jim saw that he had been living, before he came here, in a state of dangerous innocence... He had been blind." What did Jim mean and how does it relate the overall point of the novel.
'Fly Away Peter', by David Malouf, is essentially a novel examining life; it charts Jim's loss of innocence as he confronts the brutality of war and the truth of human nature. On his arrival to the trenches it is as if Jim has opened his eyes for the first time, and only now has truly seen the harsh and glaring reality that he was so distanced from in the lush, shady paradise of the sanctuary. It is the sto…