Memoirs of an Infantry Officer

Product Information

In much the same vein, it is difficult to gain full knowledge of George Sherston without you have read the book by the name of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. [2] In comparing ‘Memoirs of an Infantry Officer’ to that other great WWI novel, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, the title character George Sherston is more detached and reserved than Paul Baumer, the more innocent first person protagonist in Remarque’s book. While Remarque gets the nod as the better story teller, Sassoon is able to masterfully capture the incongruous feelings of despair and boredom on the front lines. Perhaps because he is a poet, Sassoon is not always as consistent in his story-telling but this is offset by the literary gems scattered throughout, such as this one in the midst of the Battle of the Somme "I was huddled up in a little dog-kennel of a dug-out reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles and trying to forget about the shells which were hurrying and hurrooshing overhead." At the end of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, we left George Sherston in the trenches, and for the bulk of this book that is where he remains. He is losing friends and acquaintances at a rapid clip. As Siegfried Sassoon sifts through his memories, while preparing to write this trilogy of the “fictionalized” version of his war experiences, I can’t even imagine the number of ghosts he must have stirred up. Faces blurred by time, and memories muddled by just the infinite number of men who passed through the scope of his war experiences. He remembers the nonchalance portrayed by many of these young men that never quite reaches their eyes as they try to maintain a stiff upper lip in the face of complete unthinkable carnage. The second volume in Siegfried Sassoon’s beloved trilogy, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston, with a new introduction by celebrated historian Paul Fussell

Another side note: it amuses me that the only part of the book where his paragraphing breaks down is a part containing the character based on Robert Graves. It is for a brief moment and never as bad, but seemed apt because the paragraphing in Goodbye to All That is so terrible. Exploring to the right I found young Fernby, whose demeanour was a contrast to the apathetic trio in the sand-bagged strong-point. Fernby had only been out from England for a few weeks but he appeared quite at home in his new surroundings. His face showed that he was exulting in the fact that he didn't feel afraid. He told me that no one knew what had happened on our right; the Royal Irish were believed to have failed. The life of "George Sherston" set out in this book is very different from the extended adolescence described in the first part of the trilogy; this second part taking in The Great War and the author's gradual conversion from a patriot accepting the "received wisdom" of the day, to an anti-war activist.Brian Finney, The Inner I. British Literary Autobiography of the Twentieth Century (London, 1985), p. 172. It is actually a very simple belief. I have convinced myself that, as long as I am in the middle of reading a book, I can’t die, which would leave me extremely vulnerable whenever I finish a book except for, because I’m no dummy, I’m always in the middle of three different books. Hopefully, it will be many years before my theory is put to the test. I perfectly understand Sherston’s desire to finish reading Thomas Hardy. Departing with a book unfinished would create afterlife anxiety for me in whatever realm is beyond. Published anonymously) Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (novel), Faber & Gwyer, 1928, Coward, 1929, new edition, Faber, 1954. Dunning had been the first to leave our trench; had shouted 'Cheerio' and been killed at once." I can't stop thinking about this line, nor the fact that "Dunning" was a real person named Thomas Conning. (seated in front: http://www.sjp.org.uk/uploads/1/6/5/7...).

I can remember a pair of hands (nationality unknown) which protruded from the soaked ashen soil like the roots of a tree turned upside down; one hand seemed to be pointing at the sky with an accusing gesture. Each time I passed that place the protest of those fingers became more expressive of an appeal to God in defiance of those who made the War. Who made the War? I laughed hysterically as the thought passed through my mud-stained mind. But I only laughed mentally, for my box of Stokes gun ammunition left me no breath to spare for an angry guffaw. And the dead were the dead; this was no time to be pitying them or asking silly questions about their outraged lives. Such sights must be taken for granted, I thought, as I gasped and slithered and stumbled with my disconsolate crew. Floating on the surface of the flooded trench was the mask of a human face which had detached itself from the skull.” He doesn’t want to be rescued from his situation, as he is in it by choice. But his friend Cromlech materializes with important news. It turns out Cromlech has spoken with relevant officials and helped to arrange that his case be treated as a medical one. A “big bug” at the War Office has gotten involved, and they will refuse to court-martial him. For Sherston this is a let-down of sorts, but on the other hand, he has made his statement, and he won’t have to go to prison. Waves of relief wash over him. My guesstimate is that Sassoon wanted the freedom fiction provides. You can fudge facts. Change names, dates, places. Not worry about whether you're getting it "right" or, if speaking about sensitive issues which could implicate other people, you can say—Hey, I made it all up!Sassoon was writing for a generation that was still trying to adjust to the aftermath of the ‘Great War’, a generation that thought it knew about military strategy and hardware, even if only through popular pro-war publications and gossip. Consequently, our author takes much of his reader’s factual knowledge for granted: his intention is to lead us into the heart of one soldier’s experience. In his first days at the hospital, Sherston ponders his nation’s involvement in the war. “I cannot claim that my thoughts were clear or consistent. I did, however, become definitely critical and inquiring about the War.” (187) His experience at Nutwood Manor reinforces these critical thoughts. Although the resident lord and lady do everything they can to care for their four convalescing officers, “Lady Asterix” complacently believes they should be happy to have done their duty and will be rewarded in the afterlife. Sherston does his best to suppress rude thoughts of disagreement, but the difference in their attitudes becomes increasingly apparent. Lady Asterix happens to be present when Sherston opens a letter informing him that two good friends in his battalion have been killed. When he blurts out the news, the lady serenely says, “But they are safe and happy now.” Shell-twisted and dismembered, the Germans maintained the violent attitudes in which they had died. The British had mostly been killed by bullets or bombs, so they looked more resigned. But I can remember a pair of hands (nationality unknown) which protruded from ths soaked ashen soil like the roots of a tree turned upside down; one hand seemed to be pointing at the sky with an accusing gesture. Each time I passed the place the protest of those fingers became more expressive of an appeal to God in defiance of those who made the war. Who made the War?”

This book covers the really interesting period of Sassoon’s life. It’s an effective contrast to the events and settings described in Fox Hunting. I get the feeling that it is closer to being directly autobiographical than the first book of the trilogy, too. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is actually the second book in a series of fictionalized memoirs about the character George Sherston, essentially a psuedonym for Sassoon himself. Sassoon, who was Jewish and labored under the German name "Siegfried" during a time when this was very inconvenient to him, joked that his life might have been easier if he had been called George. George Sherston is a version of Sassoon whose existence is marginally less complicated, but whose life in the infantry during the First World War borrows very heavily from Sassoon's own. Sassoon based the book upon his war diaries of the period. Classic WW I memoir thinly disguised as fiction in which 'George Sherston' is the pseudonym for Sassoon. It begins several months into Sherston's tour of duty in France and covers his combat experiences and changing attitude towards the war.This is still one of the more effective accounts of life in the trenches and ,even eighty-three years after it's initial publication, an effective and visceral read. Highly recommended for those interested in the so-called "Great War" and the experiences of those who fought in it. One of the best in my opinion. Sherston’s trilogy Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, supposedly written in the first person by ‘George Sherston’ and first published in 1930, forms the second of a trilogy of books which eventually appeared within one volume under the overarching title The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston. [ 3] More and more, as the Somme campaign drags on, Sherston struggles with a sense of helplessness in the face of interminable war. One evening he takes a stroll, watching the pale orange beams of the sun streaming down on a fading, melancholy landscape. “For me that evening expressed the indeterminate tragedy which was moving, with agony on agony, toward the autumn.” (82) As a solitary observer, he can do nothing to stop the war, he feels, but only observe an Armageddon that surpasses understanding.After the war, Sassoon became involved in Labour Party politics, lectured on pacifism, and continued to write. His most successful works of this period were his trilogy of autobiographical novels, The Memoirs of George Sherston.In these, he gave a thinly-fictionalized account, with little changed except names, of his wartime experiences, contrasting them with his nostalgic memories of country life before the war and recounting the growth of his pacifist feelings. Some have maintained that Sassoon’s best work is his prose, particularly the first two Sherston novels. Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Manwas described by a critic for the Springfield Republicanas “a novel of wholly fresh and delightful content,” and Robert Littrell of Bookmancalled it “a singular and a strangely beautiful book.”