But there's too much of reality in this fiction for it to be purely make-believe. Too much reality... they say that about war. Reality blowing up in your face. The most "realistic" war movies often garner the highest praise. But the reality of war is in the unreality of it. In this war's case, the absolute insanity of it. 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. 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. In 1936, while reviewing the third of the trilogy, Sherston’s Progress, writer Howard Spring described the three books as ‘the most satisfying piece of autobiography to be published in our time. All the equipment of a novelist is Sassoon’s. But what novel could equal in fascination this true story?’ [4] Harold Nicolson wrote in the Daily Express that it was a book "of deep beauty and abiding significance. A book which will, I hope and believe, be read by millions." [3]

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is widely recognized as one of the greatest war novels ever written. It is the second in the George Sherston trilogy written by Siegfried Sassoon, a man known as one of the War poets. Largely autobiographical, it covers Sherston’s experience on the front lines as an officer, witnessing the deaths of his comrades, experiencing his own injuries and culminating with a written protest against the war while convalescing. In addition to the beautiful writing, there is a great deal of survivor’s remorse that oozes out of this book. Sherston is still in the Army and decorated so his superiors proceed cautiously. Sherston's intransigence begins to greatly anger the Colonel however. Eventually Sherston's friend David convinces him not to publish the manifesto It speaks volumes that Sassoon ends the chapter there with no further comment and he clearly did go on to ask the “silly questions”. Nowadays, many potential readers of Sassoon’s evocation of a pre-1914 rural idyll are put off by its title: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. A hunter of foxes? The book must be full of ignorant bullies and gruesome death! No Thank You. Sassoon’s publishers continue to print Spring’s assessment on the cover of the Complete Memoirs. [5] However, Sassoon’s text begs us to to ascertain to what extent it can be considered an ‘autobiography’.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] Published anonymously) Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (novel), Faber, 1930, (published under name Seigfried Sassoon) Coward-McCann, 1930, reprinted with illustrations by Barnett Freedman, Faber, 1966, Collier, 1969. This book contains the famous letter of denouncing the War. Succinct and clear, it must have sent shivers down the spines of the Big Wigs. Here is a decorated officer, highly popular telling them to stop, or at least announce the new directives (which Sassoon felt were dishonourable). The only action left to them was to send him to a mental hospital. And thus the end of this volume.

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.” Once released from the hospital, he stays with his Aunt Evelyn at her estate in the Weald, a famous area of woodlands and fields in the southeastern counties of England. He wanders about the grounds, noticing signs of wartime decay: the neglected stables, the overgrown garden. England has progressed from patriotic enthusiasm to fatigue and deprivation—but still, the vast majority of citizens express support for the war. 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.”That book’s sequel was also well received. The New Statesmancritic called Memoirs of an Infantry Officer“a document of intense and sensitive humanity.” In a review for the Times Literary Supplement,after Sassoon’s death, one critic wrote: “His one real masterpiece, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer… is consistently fresh. His self scrutiny is candid, critical, and humourous. … If Sassoon had written as well as this consistently, he would have been a figure of real stature. As it is, English literature has one great work from him almost by accident.”

George Sherston/Siegfried Sassoon has stirred up a fine mess, and now I am off to book three, Sherston’s Progress, the final volume in the trilogy, to find out if this protest makes the proper waves or if it is squashed before it can gain enough momentum to make a difference. In light of this, it might help us if we were to should acquaint ourselves some pertinent aspects of Sassoon’s earlier book, together with a discussion on the relationship between the writer’s own life experiences and those of his protagonist, George. In 1957 Sassoon became a convert to Catholicism, though for some time before his conversion, his spiritual concerns had been the predominant subject of his writing. These later religious poems are usually considered markedly inferior to those written between 1917 and 1920. Yet Sequences(published shortly before his conversion) has been praised by some critics. Derek Stanford, in Books and Bookmen,claimed that “the poems in Sequencesconstitute some of the most impressive religious poetry of this century.” The second volume in Siegfried Sassoon’s beloved trilogy, The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston , with a new introduction by celebrated historian Paul Fussell Slowly Sherston comes to hate the war and all of the meaningless death and destruction it brings. As he digs further and asks more questions he comes to believe that those in charge, the people for whom he and his friends are putting their lives on the line, are pursuing not a noble war of defense in the face of tyranny, but a war of aggrandizement and acquisition. Is this worth dying for? Is it worth killing for? Sherston knows the answer to these questions that his own heart gives, though he feels keenly the futility and alienation of his position should it ever become known. Still, he begins to tentatively travel in some of the anti-war circles of his day and formulates an idea that he must do something, anything, even if it is simply to state his opposition to the horrors continuing unless the Allies’ objectives become clear and open knowledge. He is not really a member of the anti-war intelligentsia though, and even his desire to act in some way outside of the military sphere is one fraught with internal conflict. He is still simply a soldier thinking of the needs of other soldiers and while it may be true that in the eyes of the anti-war protestors …there was no credit attached to the fact of having been at the front… for me it had been a supremely important experience. I am obliged to admit that if these anti-war enthusiasts hadn't happened to be likeable I might have secretly despised them.Though Raine gives some pertinent examples, he apparently takes Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man to be a volume of straight autobiography, completely disregarding its finer points. Also, one cannot help feeling that his critical judgment has been impaired by his dislike of the world of the fox-hunter, and his sympathy for the infantry officer’s stand against the war. You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’. [ 1] 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] There is another interesting comment by another of George’s superior officers: ”It was absolutely impossible, he asserted, for the War to end until it ended---well, until it ended as it ought to end.” Nonsensical on one hand, but perfectly honest on the other. He is as committed to the war ending “naturally” with a winner and a loser as Sassoon is for the war to end because it is absolute insanity to continue. More troublingly, perhaps, the relationship between Siegfried Sassoon and his character--the protagonist of the title, George Sherston--presents a central critical issue.

A highly decorated English soldier and an acclaimed poet and novelist, Siegfried Sassoon won fame for his trilogy of fictionalized autobiographies that wonderfully capture the vanishing idylls of Edwardian England and the brutal realities of war. 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. As I stepped over one of the Germans an impulse made me lift him up from the miserable ditch. Propped against the bank, his blond face was undisfigured, except by the mud which I wiped from his eyes and mouth with my coat sleeve. He'd evidently been killed while digging, for his tunic was knotted loosely about his shoulders. He didn't look to be more than 18. Hoisting him a little higher, I thought what a gentle face he had, and remembered that this was the first time I'd ever touched one of our enemies with my hands. Perhaps I had some dim sense of the futility which had put an end to this good-looking youth. Anyway I hadn't expected the battle of the Somme to be quite like this.”

I

This episode of a soldier/sportsman’s introduction to the realm of global politics ends up being quite humorous. Sherston wants to hit Lloyd George on the nose, and to “stop strangers in the street and ask them whether they realized that we ought to state our War Aims.” (209) Throughout the following period, Sherston is constantly bedeviled by incongruous doubts—not about his purpose, but about the annoying details. He is advised to meet leading pacifist “Thornton Tyrell” (Bertrand Russell). Should he first read the works of that famous philosopher and mathematician? He does eventually obtain one of Tyrell’s works, starts underlining what seem to be the important passages, consults the dictionary, scratches his head, and ends up casting it aside as a hopeless enterprise—the book is too “full of ideas.” By the way, the Goodreads’ description of this novel is highly misleading. It is a war memoir, not some dry bit of ranting, and even by the end it is the politicians rather than the generals who are being criticised.