Harold Speakman (1888–1928)

Perhaps Harold Speakman's finest work. A summer walking around Ireland with a cart pulled by a lively donkey named Grania. Speakman's journey occurs during the first year of the Irish Free State, and documents his encounters with many notable Republicans, and common people from a broad spectrum of political and social backgrounds. The author is in fine form, both in terms of his description of landscape and personalities, as well as providing the reader with a finely tuned insight into the times, and the flow of life.… (más)

A bit dated in terms of style, this semi-autobiographical novel was Speakman's only published novel. It's primary value is in how the author characterizes his personal development with respect to his art. The title comes from Hamlet "This Above All, To Thine Own Self Be True". My emphasis is placed upon seeing and being true to one's self, one's inner vision. It's primary value today is with respect to Speakman's 'fictional' representation of his life in an attic apartment on South Washington Square in the late 1910s, his thoughts on the Great War, and his relationship with his soon to be wife, Ms. Russell Lindsay.… (más)

Harold Speakman served as 1st Lieutenant, 83rd "Ohio" Division, 332nd Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Platoon, Company F (with only American regiment on Italian front of WWI). The book follows his company from the American Midwest, across the Atlantic, by train over the English countryside, to billeting in a small french village in the Marne. Thereafter, detached from the 83rd Division, the 332nd moves via Marseilles to Italy, where it is stationed near Verona before participating in the final offensive against the Austrians across the Piave River Valley, between Venice and Vittorio-Veneto, until the Armistice.

After the war, his battalion was ordered to Montenegro in the Balkans for peace keeping duty, and to insure delivery of two shiploads of flour from the Bay of Cattaro to Niegosh and Cettinje. At the time, Montenegro was torn by civil war between "Revolutionists" seeking an independent republic and Serbian backed "Federalists" backing absorption into the first Yugoslavian state.

Marching up a steep, winding trail from Cattaro to Niegosh, the Americans meet a large force of Revolutionists seeking protection from advancing Federalist forces. They are given protection, food, and lodging in return for giving up their arms and assisting with unloading flour from the supply ships.

This book is a tribute to the positive and indomitable American spirit of the age. Its uniqueness comes, somewhat, in that, though written by a soldier at the front in wartime, there are no detailed combat scenes, only a reflection of a soldier upon how grand it is to be alive, and the potential for transcendence of the tyranny and small mindedness which had spawned the War To End All Wars.… (más)