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jiayuanc's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Absolutely brilliant. Fussell has done an excellent job surveying British and some American literature (poetry and memoirs, and fiction) and putting analysis with the historical context together.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
bobbo49's review against another edition
4.0
Fifteen years ago, when I returned to university for a teaching credential, I also took some upper level history classes just for the experience. One of those classes was on World War I, and the excellent professor taught the class through both non-fiction and literature; it was here that I first read Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and others. Somehow, we never were introduced to Fussell's award-winning work.
Fussell here revisits that war - and its successors - through that literature, in great depth and intimacy. He provides the background and context for each of the great writers, including their war service and experience. He uses passages from their writings to highlight the ways in which that first global conflict destroyed an entire generation in western Europe and changed the way the world thought about nation states and human life and destruction. An intense, deep and personalized view of war and remembrance; sometimes difficult reading, but filled with beautiful writings.
Fussell here revisits that war - and its successors - through that literature, in great depth and intimacy. He provides the background and context for each of the great writers, including their war service and experience. He uses passages from their writings to highlight the ways in which that first global conflict destroyed an entire generation in western Europe and changed the way the world thought about nation states and human life and destruction. An intense, deep and personalized view of war and remembrance; sometimes difficult reading, but filled with beautiful writings.
jamietr's review against another edition
I wanted to read this one because it is on Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books. I didn't really know what to expect going into it, but it turned out to be a very interesting look at how the Great War (and war more generally) shapes the narrative that emanates from it. From letters to stories to the way the news is reported, to the very language we use, much of it can be traced back to the Great War. Part of what I found interesting was the reality of the war versus the way the war was portrayed. This was an interesting, if at times, somewhat pedantic, read.
kellis22's review against another edition
5.0
An analysis of the influence WW1 had on literature. It is packed with first hand accounts, poetry, quotes, and rich historical accounts. I picked me up a copy at a local thrift store a few months ago, and it was just recently recommended to me by a friend. It sure helped me out with my WW1 presentation for AP Euro. Read it!
librarianonparade's review against another edition
5.0
It's almost impossible to overstate the importance of this book. It's definitely one of the landmark publications on Great War literature, and Fussell's arguments and conclusions are so lucid and compelling that you almost find it strange that no-one else thought of it before him.
Each chapter draws on a central theme found throughout the war poetry; the binary oppositions of 'us' and 'them', the troglodyte horrors of the trenches, the comparison of the war to theatre, the homoeroticism of soldiers as comrades and brothers, the pastoral imagery used as a contrast to the industrial machinery of war, the prevalence of myth and romance - and he uses an enormous swathe of literature to illustrate his points. I found upon finishing this book that I had a shopping list as long as my arm of books mentioned in these pages that I want to go on to read.
Fussell's central argument seems to be that WW1, more than any other war, was a literary war, both in the way that those who fought in it used literature as a tool to help them understand what was happening, but also in the way that we ourselves have to come to remember it. Most people's impressions of the Great War have not come from the history books; they've come from the literature that came out of the war - from Graves and Sassoon and Owen. Our very memories of that war have been shaped by literature: think of the very words we use on Remembrance Day from the poem by Laurence Binyon - 'at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them'.
Each chapter draws on a central theme found throughout the war poetry; the binary oppositions of 'us' and 'them', the troglodyte horrors of the trenches, the comparison of the war to theatre, the homoeroticism of soldiers as comrades and brothers, the pastoral imagery used as a contrast to the industrial machinery of war, the prevalence of myth and romance - and he uses an enormous swathe of literature to illustrate his points. I found upon finishing this book that I had a shopping list as long as my arm of books mentioned in these pages that I want to go on to read.
Fussell's central argument seems to be that WW1, more than any other war, was a literary war, both in the way that those who fought in it used literature as a tool to help them understand what was happening, but also in the way that we ourselves have to come to remember it. Most people's impressions of the Great War have not come from the history books; they've come from the literature that came out of the war - from Graves and Sassoon and Owen. Our very memories of that war have been shaped by literature: think of the very words we use on Remembrance Day from the poem by Laurence Binyon - 'at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them'.
enoughgaiety's review against another edition
5.0
A breathtakingly thorough study of the literary/imaginative culture surrounding the First World War. Thank God for Paul Fussell.
sar_p's review against another edition
4.0
This book is literary criticism, but does not read like one. I actually enjoyed reading this book - even though my eyes did glaze over when the author discussed books I did not know. This is also a good book to read if one is interested in the British and WWI. It's somewhere between a history and lit crit book, but without being boring!
oldpondnewfrog's review against another edition
4.0
This excavates the mood and culture of the Great War, at a time when men rode off to war on their bicycles. When the infantry company kicked a football as they charged, when they figured they'd be home by Christmas, and when Christmas came, they walked across No Man's Land the first year in the trenches and shook hands with their enemies.
"Never such innocence again."
Then men literally drowning in the November mud, the ground churned up by the week, or two, or three, of poorly-thought-out shelling preceding an offensive.
Poignancy and strange comfort in trench song about whereabouts of the battalion:
Most of the book concerns itself with a history of the literature of the war, but there's so much primary source material that something of the real details will out.
So when the author pulls out Lear despite no real need, it still affected me:
"Never such innocence again."
Then men literally drowning in the November mud, the ground churned up by the week, or two, or three, of poorly-thought-out shelling preceding an offensive.
Poignancy and strange comfort in trench song about whereabouts of the battalion:
It's hanging on the old barbed wire.So many strange and unbelievable details, like the "Field service post cards" that allowed you to cross out any sentences that don't apply. "I am quite well" the first. "I have received your letter/telegram/parcel." Millions of soldiers send them, because they're quick and easy.
I've seen 'em, I've seen 'em
Hanging on the old barbed wire
Most of the book concerns itself with a history of the literature of the war, but there's so much primary source material that something of the real details will out.
So when the author pulls out Lear despite no real need, it still affected me:
O, I have ta'enOften he goes too far from the trenches, too ridiculous:
Too little care of this
And it would seem to be the long e of Milton's Leaves that suggests to Carrington his sleepers.But he also digs up, and helps to explain, the humor that soldiers made of a dark place, the Wipers [Ypres] Times mocking the competition among nature-lovers back home to be the first to hear the signs of summer:
To the Editor.
Sir,
Whilst on my nocturnal rambles along the Menin Road last night, I am prepared to swear that I heard the cuckoo. Surely I am the first to hear it this season. Can any of your readers claim the same distinction?
A Lover of Nature
expendablemudge's review
5.0
Read for a history course at Southwest Texas State in the 1980s. It was a before-and-after book: Before the Great War was retronymed "World War One" in my database, after it was not. That by itself was a huge reorientation of my thinking.
A friend called this read to mind today, and I got to thinking about historiography and its pleasures, the mental laziness of accepting the nonce-words bandied about instead of seeking out the contemporaneous views and language..."Armistice Day" instead of "Veterans' Day," for example.
Paul Fussell's work was always linguistically exact and intellectually exacting. It was all the more formative for me because of that. I don't guess too many people will thunder out to grab copies of this sizable and dense tome. I call it a pity. The exercise for the brain would make it well worth the spondulix.
A friend called this read to mind today, and I got to thinking about historiography and its pleasures, the mental laziness of accepting the nonce-words bandied about instead of seeking out the contemporaneous views and language..."Armistice Day" instead of "Veterans' Day," for example.
Paul Fussell's work was always linguistically exact and intellectually exacting. It was all the more formative for me because of that. I don't guess too many people will thunder out to grab copies of this sizable and dense tome. I call it a pity. The exercise for the brain would make it well worth the spondulix.