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  1. Robert Graves -- Good-Bye To All That

    This 1929 autobiographical work is indispensable for an understanding of how many British dealt with the memory of the Great War in the years that followed.

    The accounts of the chaos and confusion of military operations were vividly narrated, but did not come as a great surprise to me. I was more taken aback by the stories of allied mistreatment of German prisoners, with Graves picking out Canadian and Australian soldiers as especially notable for this behaviour.

    "Good-Bye To All That" is rich with memorable anecdote and imagery, such as tommies using machine gun cooling water to make tea, and incidents of the wartime absurd, like the story of Graves mistakenly being reported as dead, then receiving a communication from his commanding officer: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you are alive.”

    Nevertheless the horror of the war is never forgotten: “The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. He had been hit in 17 places.”

    #Books #RobertGraves #GoodByeToAllThat #Autobiography #BritishLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #History

  2. Robert Graves -- Good-Bye To All That

    This 1929 autobiographical work is indispensable for an understanding of how many British dealt with the memory of the Great War in the years that followed.

    The accounts of the chaos and confusion of military operations were vividly narrated, but did not come as a great surprise to me. I was more taken aback by the stories of allied mistreatment of German prisoners, with Graves picking out Canadian and Australian soldiers as especially notable for this behaviour.

    "Good-Bye To All That" is rich with memorable anecdote and imagery, such as tommies using machine gun cooling water to make tea, and incidents of the wartime absurd, like the story of Graves mistakenly being reported as dead, then receiving a communication from his commanding officer: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you are alive.”

    Nevertheless the horror of the war is never forgotten: “The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. He had been hit in 17 places.”

    #Books #RobertGraves #GoodByeToAllThat #Autobiography #BritishLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #History