Siegfried Sassoon went to the wars and tried to give an honest account of it. He was not in favour of the experience for normal humans and he gave a very influential account of his experience. A number of people thought it was a betrayal of the images they were fed by the establishment of the time....eminently readable. ( )

The second volume of Sassoon's fictionalized memoir covers a good bit of his military service during the First World War and concludes with his decision to write his famous soldier's statement, and the issuance of his statement and the initial reactions to it. Much easier and more engaging for me than the first volume, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, but the earlier book is necessary to appreciate the way Sasson's altar ego develops over the course of this volume. ( )

Sassoon's novel tells the story of his alter ego, George Sherston, during World War 1. It sparsely charts his progress from being a patriotic, newly commissioned Second Lieutenant, through trench warfare - including the Battle of the Somme - to disillusionment, an officer overwhelmed with the futility of the human sacrifice he and his men are forced to take part in. As anyone who knows something of Sassoon's own story might imagine, while recovering from injuries in the UK, Sherston begins to protest against the war, presenting the army with a challenge: how should they deal with him? Sassoon's novel is a powerful indictment of leadership during the Great War, presumably even more striking when it was first published in 1930, given the deferential culture of the age. ( )

This book follows directly from "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man" and follows George Sherston ( alias for Sassoon) as he heads to France to fight in the Great War. His battlefield experiences are compassionately documented and although his situation is slightly improved by the fact he is an officer and seems to escape the battlefield for interludes in England, he has much empathy for the hardships of the regular soldier and eventually questions the validity and futility of such a waste of life.
An easy to read memoir which will now see me off to read "Sherston's Progress" ( )

Het tweede deel van de memoires van de oorlogsdichter Siegfried Sassoon, dat direct aansluit op het eerste deel. Hij is aan de ene kant een zeer geschikte soldaat en officier. Hij is strijdlustig, competitief, en soms zelfs overmoedig. Lees verder.... ( )