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A review by oldpondnewfrog
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
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