Goodbye to All That (Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

The best parts of the book are those dealing with his dreadful time in school, he time serving in the war, and his various friendships. Some of those friendships sneak up on you. He writes at length of a literature professor at school named George Mallory who profoundly molded his reading and literary sensibilities. He writes for page after page about "George," but it isn't until he begin a chapter with the words, "George Mallory did something better than lend me books: he too me climbing on Snowdon in the school vacation." It wasn't until that moment that I realized that George Mallory the literature instructor was THAT George Mallory, the famous mountain climber who attempted Everest (and perhaps conquered it) "because it is there." George becomes one of Graves's greatest friends, and even serves as best man in his wedding. The other friendship I found fascinating, perhaps because the man himself remains one of the most mystifying characters of the 20th century, was T. E. Lawrence. As Lawrence removed himself from the public eye more and more in the 1920s and 1930s, being in 1920 perhaps one of the most famous individuals in the British Empire, he changed personas from Lawrence of Arabia to Private Shaw, reenlisting in the Army as an auto mechanic. Graves remained a good friend of his throughout the entire period, and wrote one of the first serious biographies of Lawrence. I enjoyed one passage where he is in Lawrence's quarters at (I think) Cambridge, eyeing the manuscript of Lawrence's own war memoirs, what would eventually become THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM (Graves would be one of a select few to receive a copy of the first privately printed edition, which remains one of the great published books of the 20th century, with expensively reproduced drawings and illustrations--subsequent editions remove most of the illustrations).

But the heart of the book is the account of his experiences at the front. Although this war produced a disproportionate amount of great literature, I personally believe that the two greatest literary monuments to the Great War (unless one also includes Lawrence's THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM) are Graves's memoir and the poetry of Wilfrid Owen. The sections of the book dealing with the war seem to alternate between the startling everyday to the nightmarish. In many sections the mood seems to be straight out of Dante's PURGATORIO, at the worst his INFERNO. But throughout, the story is carried forward by Graves's relentlessly honest pen. Although Graves's wrote an absolutely stunning number of books, in particular the two Claudius novels, this fine volume just might be his greatest work.

More than the war, however, Graves' topic is the passing of an era: the class-ridden and naïve culture of the Edwardian upper classes, a culture did not survive the war. Graves came from a landed family and received a classic boarding-school education. Even in the trenches officers like Graves had personal servants and took offense when they had to dine with officers of `the wrong sort' (promoted from the lower classes).

Graves' narrative itself barely survives the end of the war; the post-war chapters seem listless and shell-shocked, emotionally detached. The battles he survived are written about with precision, gravity, and emotional impact; but Graves' marriage and the birth of his children seem like newspaper reports. Surprisingly, he doesn't even talk of his poetry much. This, surely, is not a defect of the book but a genuine reflection of his feelings at the time: After the War, nothing meant much to him.

Graves' literary style is very matter-of-fact--the opposite of the imagistic, adjective-driven language one might expect of a poet. Instead, he had a gift for the right details: in only a sentence or two, by careful description, he can perfectly describe a fellow-soldier or give the exact sense of `being there' in battle. The book is a remarkable achievement worth reading even for those who may be glad the old days were left behind.

This is Robert Graves' tell all autobiography, or at least the "revised second edition" which doesn't quite tell all. At the time of writing Graves was only 33 yet already had about 30 publications to his name, mostly poetry collections & essays. He had rubbed shoulders with such writers as Edward Marsh, Robert Frost, Siegfried Sasson, T.E. Lawrence, Ezra Pound & Edith Sitwell. Graves had served as a Royal Welsh Fusiler for almost the entire duration of WW1 & been severely wounded, even pronounced dead, before being demobilized. After the war Graves went on to receive his B Litt. degree from Oxford & eventually found a position as the Professor of English Literature at the Royal Egyptian University in Cairo. All this & numerous other stories, events & anecdote are given here in full detail.

Goodbye To All That is most famous for it's graphic & realistic depiction of life in the trenches of WW1. Graves goes into all the details of his military experience. We aren't spared a single battle or a single death. He captures the horror & awe of the war with a roughness that made the book one of the most popular written accounts of WW1. We are presented with scenes of atrocities, suicides, murders & heroic rescues one after another until we can almost feel the emotional change that Graves himself felt as he went from innocent schoolboy to professional soldier. The physical & emotional damage caused by this change are themes that Graves would return to again & again for the remainder of his life.

Oddly enough the man who is most famous as a romantic poet talks very little of his poetry in his autobiography. Despite having several volumes of poetry published by this time, Graves turns away from this & spends more time dealing with the war & problems both on the front & at home in England. Poetry, romance & even love seemed to play a very little part in Graves' life during these years. He mentions his 1st wife Nancy only near the end of the book & offers us only a one dimensional image of her as the devout feminist whom he loved but whom he probably shouldn't have married. Laura Riding doesn't appear in the book at all despite the fact that Graves had known her for 3 years by the time he wrote Goodbye. Other writers or poets who do turn up tend to be there only fleetingly to provide a particular anecdote or to justify Graves' opinion of them. Graves seldom goes into any great depth about their works or their personalities.

Overall, Goodbye To All That is a odd book that sits on the fence between a typical war book & a biography of a literary man. It can't be placed neatly into either category & this is what makes it such interesting reading for the fans of either type. Graves stands out as one of the few literary men who could display his intelligence & education even while dishing out the most brutal scenes of warfare.