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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Personal narratives of a British officer on the Western front during World War I.
About the Author
Siegfried Sassoon was born in 1886 and educated at Clare College, Cambridge. He served in the trenches during the First World War, where he began to write the poems for which he is remembered. Despatched as 'shell-shocked' to hospital, he organised public protest against the war. His poetry initially met with little response, but his reputation grew steadily in the following decades. Apart from the War Poems of 1919, he published eight volumes of verse during his lifetime. But it is as a novelist and autobiographer that he is perhaps better known. Sassoon's semi-autobiographical trilogy, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (1928), Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936), was outstandingly successful. He published several more volumes of autobiography, including Siegfried's Journey (1945), before his death in 1967.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is a classic of WW1 fiction. Largely based on Sassoon's real-life experiences, it is a detailed account of one soldier's life in the trenches of France. It recounts, in the guise of Sassoon's alter-ego, George Sherston, Sassoon's transition from the eagerly patriotic "happy warrior" to the angry anti-war poet (although Sherston is denied the experience of being a poet). The book recounts Sassoon's happy time spent at the Fourth Army School in Flixecourt, the loss of his friend "Dick Tiltwood" (Sassoon's pseudonym for David Thomas), his attempts at revenge on the Germans for Tiltwood's death and his decision to protest against the continuation of the War. The novel continues where "Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man" left off, and is the second of the Sherston trilogy. Although a fictional account of Sassoon's experiences, this book nevertheless presents a clear picture of what life was like for some of the soldiers on the Western Front.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although the language has, perhaps, become a little dated, this is a wonderfully humane and earnest book. A fictionalised account of Sassoon's war and to be read alongside Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That. Highly recommended from a social and literary viewpoint, you'll be able to spot characters such as Graves and Bertrand Russsell who are thinly veiled behind the fiction. This volume takes us to the point at which Sassoon (or Sherston as he is here) was admitted to Craiglockhart Hospital where, effectively, his war ended. Includes wonderful accounts of a serene English life before the aftermath and scale of the Great War's tragedy was fully revealed.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Memoir in the tradition of Graves and Orwell
30 Aug 2002
Format:Paperback
Siegfreid Sassoon's wonderful war memoir is thinly disguised as the story of George Sherston. Based solely on Sassoon's life in the trenches of WWI, it recounts the horror and scale of carnage that occurred. More importantly it shows the emotionally scars that the survivors carried with them as a result of exposure.
Sherston (Sassoon) was a rather spoiled and pampered young upper class Englishman. The war changed all that. Confronted with death, destruction and idiotic leadership from the High Command you sense the inner turmoil of Sherston.
Relieved when he is not involved with the fighting he is driven by guilt over the loss of the soldiers in his battalion. Consequently when his platoon is on the line he takes great risks in reconaissance of the German positions.
The effects of non-stop total war, stupid leadership and the complete contrast between England and the trenches (only a few hundred miles apart) is staggering to Sassoon. Sassoon becomes anti-war and considers becoming an objector, but his obvious connection to his comrades and loyalty to them wins out in the end. He hates the war but won't abandon his comrades in the field.
This is a great war memoir written by a poet who survived and was changed for life by his experiences in it.
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful
While time ticks blank
30 Aug 2001
Format:Paperback
I already knew Siegfried from his poetry. Little did I know or suspect what a madman he was on the battlefield. Makes the poetry read a bit differently. He led raid after raid (and voluntarily!), possibly hurling more havoc and grenades on the enemy than any other single soldier. Luckily he was on our side. Toward the end of the war this highly decorated soldier begins to have his doubts about the madness of it all but few practiced it with more gusto. I first read about his heroics in Graves' Goodbye to All That(which is another excellent war memoir,& which also features a strange meeting at Oxford with that other legend you have probably heard of, T.E. Lawrence), both books will give you the war experience from the insiders who lived it. I would make a quick mention of the best war book of them all All Quiet on The Western Front but you read that already I'm certain, as well as that gem by Hemingway A Farewell to Arms. Graves and Sasson belong in that company.
....Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts/
Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended.
(from Sassoon poem "Wirers")
....Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts/
Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery ended.
(from Sassoon poem "Wirers")
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful
One of the greatest prose artists ever
30 Oct 2001
Format:Paperback
Even if you are not a student of history or the First World War this is an interesting read. Sassoon paints pictures with his words which not only perfectly describe his surroundings but also give the reader a unique glimpse into the mind of a man suffering, yet unable to help those around him.
This book is important historically not only because it is a first-hand account of almost the whole of The Great War, but because it is a record of a psuedo-successful personal revolt against the British Military establishment, as well as giving the reader the author's experiences with meeting some very famous people, including winston churchill.
This book is important historically not only because it is a first-hand account of almost the whole of The Great War, but because it is a record of a psuedo-successful personal revolt against the British Military establishment, as well as giving the reader the author's experiences with meeting some very famous people, including winston churchill.
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