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Product Description
The Second World War has been romanticized almost beyond recognition by 'the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, and the bloodthirsty.' In this readable and penetrating study, Paul Fussell goes behind the familiar diplomacy and heroics of history to examine the blunders, petty tyrannies, inconveniences, and deprivations that are many British and American people's memory of the War. There are lively sections on the role of drinking, tobacco, and sex in the war and on the home front; on propaganda; about writers and magazines who recorded the war or who attempted to keep aloft literary standards in a difficult time; on wartime slang and graphic recollections of the nightmare of combat. Written with a keen intelligence and deep emotion, Wartime is a worthy companion to Fussell's The Great War And Modern Memory , which won an American National Book Award and the National Critics Circle prize.
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First Sentence
Watching a newsreel or flipping through an illustrated magazine at the beginning of the American war, you were likely to encounter a memorable image: the newly invented jeep, an elegant, slim-barrelled 37-mm gun in tow, leaping over a hillock. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Watching a newsreel or flipping through an illustrated magazine at the beginning of the American war, you were likely to encounter a memorable image: the newly invented jeep, an elegant, slim-barrelled 37-mm gun in tow, leaping over a hillock. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One of your other reviewers suggests that this book nicely complements the film "Saving Private Ryan." I'm sure that its author would take exception to this characterization. What Fussell's book does so brilliantly--and courageously--is to undermine the very ethic of sacrificial heroism by which SPR, for all its lip service to the "horror" of war, is massively informed. If you want to compare Fussell's book to a film, the only appropriate one is "Catch-22," the greatest of modern anti-war films, informed by the kind of irony that Fussell values and in his own work exemplifies. I, in fact, am assigning Fussell's text in my university English course, "Modern War and Modern Irony," reading it along side Heller's novel, Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five," and Josef Skovecky's "The Republic of Whores." THAT's the company with which Fussell would be most comfortable, not with Spielberg.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I want to disagree with the three previous reviews, to defend Fussell's vision. One reviewer seems to be confusing "Wartime" with Fussell's memoir "Doing Battle." The former is not intended as a memoir but as an alternate history--an alternative to the kind of history represented by a book recommended by another of the reviewers, i.e.,, Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers." If Ambrose's book can be seen as a companion to Spielberg's romantic (and therefore disappointing) "Saving Private Ryan," then "Wartime" is parallel to--in fact is clearly inspired by--Heller's satirical "Catch-22." What Fussell and Heller have in common is that they both reject absolutely the work of the apologists of war--a category into which all three of these reviewers probably fit. What the reviewer who labels Fussell's book "unadulterated junk" seems to object to most is that Fussell, by training a literary critic, should have the presumption to write HISTORY. The reviewer suggests that, instead of reading Fussell, one should read anti-war novels, including Heller's "Catch-22." Here's what Heller had to say about Fussell's book: "No novel I have read surpasses its depiction of the awful human costs to all sides of modern warfare. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is unforgettable." What these reviewers find unFORGIVEable is that Mr. Fussell has, in writing this book, stepped outside the established conventions of historiography--that is why a book that to Heller and to me (another of those blasted literary types--YUCK!) is eminently readable appears to them "confused." They haven't yet learned how to read the sort of history Fussell is writing. THEY are confused, not Fussell. I suspect these reviewers would prefer the sort of history written by Kurt Vonnegut's Bertram Copeland Rumfoord. And Rumfoord's attitude toward Billy Pilgrim, whose very existence problematizes Rumfoord's "official" history of the bombing of Dresden, rather nicely parallels that of these three reviewers toward Fussell: "It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning" ("Slaughterhouse Five", pp. 191-92). The language Fussell is speaking is well worth learning. These reviewers should take a lesson.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I want to disagree with the three previous reviews, to defend Fussell's project. One reviewer seems to be confusing "Wartime" with Fussell's memoir "Doing Battle." The former is not intended as a memoir but as an alternate history--an alternative to the kind of history represented by a book recommended by another of the reviewers, i.e.,, Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers." If Ambrose's book can be seen as a companion to Spielberg's romantic (and therefore disappointing) "Saving Private Ryan," then "Wartime" is parallel to--in fact is clearly inspired by--Heller's satirical "Catch-22." What Fussell and Heller have in common is that they both reject absolutely the work of the apologists of war--a category into which all three of these reviewers probably fit. What the reviewer who labels Fussell's book "unadulterated junk" seems to object to most is that Fussell, by training a literary critic, should have the presumption to write HISTORY. The reviewer suggests that, instead of reading Fussell, one should read anti-war novels, including Heller's "Catch-22." Here's what Heller had to say about Fussell's book: "No novel I have read surpasses its depiction of the awful human costs to all sides of modern warfare. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it is unforgettable" (jacket blurb). What these reviewers find unFORGIVEable is that Mr. Fussell has, in writing this book, stepped outside the established conventions of historiography--that is why a book that to Heller and to me (another of those blasted literary types--YUCK!) is eminently readable appears to them "confused." They haven't yet learned how to read the sort of history Fussell is writing. It is THEY who are confused, not Fussell. I suspect these reviewers would prefer the sort of history written by Kurt Vonnegut's Bertram Copeland Rumfoord. And Rumfoord's attitude toward Billy Pilgrim, whose very existence problematizes Rumfoord's "official" history of the bombing of Dresden, rather nicely parallels that of these three reviewers toward Fussell: "It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person who would be better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning" ("Slaughterhouse Five"). The language Fussell is speaking is well worth learning. These reviewers should take a lesson.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A disappointing book.
I certainly agree with the two previous reviews. I think the main problem is that Fussell went into World War II as a young man with his head full of youthful misconceptions... Read more
Published on 15 Aug 1999
Supercilious, poor history
This book is largely written in a supercilious and arrogant fashion. Almost EVERYTHING about World War II is twisted, simplified and criticized. Read more
Published on 30 Jun 1999
Unadulterated Junk
Fussell's at it again; full of spleen and sarcasm and rarin' to bash holes in the soggiest paper bag he can find. Read more
Published on 17 Jun 1999
Completely eye-opening
I began this book not having any previous knowledge of Paul Fussell, save one essay of his that I had read for an English class, and was immediately astounded by the detail and... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 1998
Indispensable.
Perfect accessory to Saving Private Ryan. This is a compelling story of the stupidity and violence of war (by someone who was there, in very much the same position as Captain... Read more
Published on 23 Aug 1998
Powerful and human
I first encountered Fussell as the author of CLASS, one of my favorite books. I wondered, though, if Fussell was simply a detached, cynical observer of humanity, too removed from... Read more
Published on 29 July 1998
An essential volume in any balanced WWII library
Fussell has given us a breath of fresh air in the plethora of World War II literature. Anyone seeking a balanced view of that most important period would be well served by reading... Read more
Published on 12 Jun 1998
The best book I have read in a long while.
The book did what I want a book to do. It made sense; It was funny, readable, troubling and it sent me back to the drawing board. Read more
Published on 27 July 1996
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