Sherry S. (SherryKaraoke) - , reviewed Good-Bye to All That : An Autobiography (Anchor Books) on + 36 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
A brilliant evocation of the experiences of the author before and during and shortly after World War I. He seems to have known everybody from John Masefield to Siegfried Sassoon to T.E. Lawrence and writes cogently about a world in which poetry was a widespread and honored form of expression. Graves, probably most familiar in America as the author of I, Claudius, describes the terrible conditions of trench warfare and the resulting cynicism that pervades postwar Europe as a result.
From the cover:
"In this soldier's story, first published in 1929, poet Robert Graves traces the monumental loss of innocence that occurred as a result of World War I. Written after the war and as Graves was leaving England--he thought, forever--"Goodby to All That" bids farewell not only to his birthplace By the year of his departure, a way of life had ended, and England and the modern world would never be the same...this dramatic, poignant, and often wry memoir depicts all the horrors and disillusionment of the Great War...Paul Fussell has hailed [it] as 'the best memoir of the First World War'...[it] continues to earn its designation as a truly timeless classic."
"In this soldier's story, first published in 1929, poet Robert Graves traces the monumental loss of innocence that occurred as a result of World War I. Written after the war and as Graves was leaving England--he thought, forever--"Goodby to All That" bids farewell not only to his birthplace By the year of his departure, a way of life had ended, and England and the modern world would never be the same...this dramatic, poignant, and often wry memoir depicts all the horrors and disillusionment of the Great War...Paul Fussell has hailed [it] as 'the best memoir of the First World War'...[it] continues to earn its designation as a truly timeless classic."