Good-Bye to All That : An Autobiography

Rating:
Summary: Curiously lacking
Review: Unfortunatly, I have to disagree with most of the other reviewers. As suggested in the title I found "Goodbye to all that" curiously unsatisfying. Maybe this is the case because I read the edited edition which gives the 1929, the 1959 edition and comments by Grave's contemporaries. Again and again these comments correct Graves who freely admited of fictionalizing events so as to make the book more interesting and to get more money out of the whole business. If he wanted to write a fictional account he clearly should not have called the book "an autobiography"! This deeply angered fellow war-writers such as Sassoon, who also accused Graves of overplaying his role in getting Sassoon a medical board. With this background the book looses much of its fascination. Rather contemptible is also Grave's treatment of the colonial troops which shows a good deal of racism.

Rating:
Summary: A classic war memoir that doesn't begin soon enough
Review: When I first came to Good-Bye To All That I was expecting a memoir of WWI. I was surprised to find that the book is actually a complete autobiography--a complete history of an author's life up to that point. Because of this, slogging through the first hundred pages or so, which illustrate Graves' education at an English Boarding School, felt like trudging through waist-deep snow.

OK, perhaps I'm overstating things a little, but, needless to say, I was disappointed in the opening chapters of the book. Whatever merit might be present in them couldn't overcome my impatience to get on to the war story.

But once it got to the war years the book took off. Graves left Oxford before attending his first lecture to become an officer in the Royal Welch Fusilliers. Graves saw a lot of action in the trenches and was wounded several times, once so severely his family were notified prematurely of his death. During these years he also became a famous poet, taking the war as his primary subject matter, and beginning a career that would with him being one of the foremost writers of his generation.

In the first edition of the book, Graves explains that the book had to be written very rapidly in order to meet the publisher's deadline. What results from this is a direct and unadorned prose style. Combine this with Graves' amazing memory for vivid detail and the macabre horrors of trench warfare and you get a book that's often very morbid but very evocative.

While the book is at its best when it is describing warfare, the 'third act' of Graves' life--the post-war years when he worked as a poet and academic, and struggled through his first marriage--is very interesting as well. These episodes include some well-known characters, including visits with Thomas Hardy, T.E. Laurence, and a letter from G. B. S. What's best about the post-war section is its portrayal of Graves' shattered mindset, which leads ultimately to the disintegration of his first marriage and the need to finally say good-bye to you and to you and to you and to all that.

Ultimately, it's the war memories that stick in the mind. Flash forward ten years, and Graves' chilling images will still be lingering around in my mind. All in all, it's a great book that deserves its sterling reputation and you will not regret reading it.

Rating:
Summary: A classic war memoir that doesn't begin soon enough
Review: When I first came to Good-Bye To All That I was expecting a memoir of WWI. I was surprised to find that the book is actually a complete autobiography--a complete history of an author's life up to that point. Because of this, slogging through the first hundred pages or so, which illustrate Graves' education at an English Boarding School, felt like trudging through waist-deep snow.

OK, perhaps I'm overstating things a little, but, needless to say, I was disappointed in the opening chapters of the book. Whatever merit might be present in them couldn't overcome my impatience to get on to the war story.

But once it got to the war years the book took off. Graves left Oxford before attending his first lecture to become an officer in the Royal Welch Fusilliers. Graves saw a lot of action in the trenches and was wounded several times, once so severely his family were notified prematurely of his death. During these years he also became a famous poet, taking the war as his primary subject matter, and beginning a career that would with him being one of the foremost writers of his generation.

In the first edition of the book, Graves explains that the book had to be written very rapidly in order to meet the publisher's deadline. What results from this is a direct and unadorned prose style. Combine this with Graves' amazing memory for vivid detail and the macabre horrors of trench warfare and you get a book that's often very morbid but very evocative.

While the book is at its best when it is describing warfare, the 'third act' of Graves' life--the post-war years when he worked as a poet and academic, and struggled through his first marriage--is very interesting as well. These episodes include some well-known characters, including visits with Thomas Hardy, T.E. Laurence, and a letter from G. B. S. What's best about the post-war section is its portrayal of Graves' shattered mindset, which leads ultimately to the disintegration of his first marriage and the need to finally say good-bye to you and to you and to you and to all that.

Ultimately, it's the war memories that stick in the mind. Flash forward ten years, and Graves' chilling images will still be lingering around in my mind. All in all, it's a great book that deserves its sterling reputation and you will not regret reading it.

Rating:
Summary: How do two 18-year-olds go about killing each other?
Review: Written because Graves was out of money and threw in everythingfrom his life that he thought would make the book sell (e.g.,anecdotes about T.E. Lawrence), this is a great book for understandingthe terrible gulf that separates a public's enthusiasm for war and a soldier's actual experience of war. Trench warefare in World War I is different from a ground war in Kosovo but the basic idea is the same: a bunch of old guys in suits lead a cheering public to send their young men off to die. What is a clear-cut moral case to someone reading a newspaper at the breakfast table isn't so clear-cut to two 18-year-olds who are supposed to try to kill each other in the field.

The book also has some interesting portions about the life of a poet and a writer (hint: don't try it unless you were born rich and aristocratic) and a particularly funny anecdote about how Oxford wouldn't accept a thesis from Graves because it was not written in standard academic style.