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Lädt ... The Secret Battlevon A. P. Herbert
THE WAR ROOM (279) Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. A sad and moving story of the British infantry man's experience in the trenches of the First World War. A. P. Herbert's style is as calm and measured as the events he describes are horrible. Our hero is Harry, a delicate Oxford Scholar filled with fear and self-doubt but driven by a relentless need to conquer it. Through the lens of trenches in Gallipoli and France, the book looks at the "wind up" (what would now probably be called PTSD) and considers what constitutes courage, and how it differs from soldier to soldier. Zeige 4 von 4 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
In The Secret Battle A.P. Herbert tells the story of an idealistic, young officer called Harry Penrose. First in Gallipoli, then in the trenches of France, he is tested and brought to breaking point as he battles to retain the ideals of military glory, duty and courage amidst the daily grinding miseries of the trenches. It lays bare the real horrors of the First World War without melodrama or sensationalism. The author tells his tales not with indignant protest, but with a sad resignation making this a haunting and deeply moving book. Despite the glowing accolades it would later receive, when it was first published in 1919, just a few months after the Armistice, a war-weary public were not ready for a book that so fundamentally challenged the assumptions and beliefs on which the war had been fought. Because of that it never gained the status it really deserved and deserves. Ninety years on it has lost none of its freshness, relevance and poignancy, It remains an incredible touching story of what might happen to a gallant soldier borne down by stresses of war and challenges traditional perceptions of what constitutes courage. It also raises important questions over the justice or otherwise of executions in the First World War, a question that is now more than ever, an open matter of debate and contention. AUTHOR: Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971) was a novelist comedy writer, poet, humourist, MP and law reform activist. He also served in both World Wars. He was a regular contributor to the comic magazine Punch and his numerous books include The House by the River, The Water Gipsies, and The Singing Swan. He was knighted in 1945. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.912Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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The Secret Battle, published in 1919, might be the first of the British novels/memoirs of the First World War. It tells the story of a high strung young soldier called Harry Penrose who enlists in 1914 and is executed for cowardice in 1917. Herbert, who fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, vividly evokes the squalor of both theatres, more so than in some better known books. Penrose's slow approach to his inevitable fate is powerfully told.
In Britain much of what is generally believed about the First World War comes from the poems, plays, novels, and memoirs it produced (the latter categories indistinguishable in some cases). The notion of 'shot at dawn' is particularly widespread; of shell-shocked men being summarily shot for cowardice by a brutal military. This book lends much weight to that. Indeed, there was a man, Sub-Lieutenant Edwin Dyett, in Herbert's regiment who was shot for cowardice in 1917 and the circumstances of the case certainly raise the eyebrows of a civilian reader a century later.
But, if Herbert is telling Dyett's story, he certainly does so with plenty of poetic licence. And, as [a:John Terraine|225975|John Terraine|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1367005763p2/225975.jpg] explains in his excellent introduction, capital punishment was very rare in the British Army in World War One.
The Secret Battle is far better than some better known books. But, with the blend of memoir and novel which that war's literature generated, the reader must always question which, exactly, they are reading. ( )