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Goodbye to All That (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

by Robert Graves (Author) "As a proof of my readiness to accept autobiographical convention, let me at once record my two earliest memories ..." (more)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (28 Sep 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141184590
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141184593
  • Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 12.9 x 1.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 6,356 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Graves, Robert
    #1 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Poetry & Poets > 20th Century
    #3 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Literary Studies > 20th Century

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Product Description

Product Description

In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and covers his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written.


About the Author

Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985) was a British poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for the historical novel I, Claudius and the critical study of myth and poetry The White Goddess.
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As a proof of my readiness to accept autobiographical convention, let me at once record my two earliest memories. Read the first page
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Goodbye to All That (Penguin Modern Classics)
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding WWI -period memoirs, 10 Feb 2002
By A Customer
Was Robert Graves' early life so remarkable that simply recording the facts was sufficient to create a classic? Or do his skills as a writer make the careful construction and delivery of this memoir seem effortless? Either way, the status of this work as a singularly powerful historical record is well deserved.

Graves' life, from middle class public school, to an officer in the trenches of WWI, and then an impoverished radical poet in post-war Oxford, seems like another world. Seemingly trivial details now seem bizarre, and life in the trenches under enemy fire (or gas attack) is hell on earth. Graves takes a factual, analytical, almost objective approach, recording public opinion and sentiment, and giving well-argued reasons for what now seems like military madness. This has the effect of hiding his own personal drama from the reader, so his anti-war feelings and eventual nervous collapse come as something of a surprise.

The book is not without its weaknesses. His time after the war seems to consist largely of name-dropping famous poets and encounters with Lawrence of Arabia, but seventy five years on there is limited interest in these figures, and instead we yearn for more characters such as Daisy, the daughter of a down-and-out who the Graveses temporarily adopted and gives us an insight unto life at the other end of the social spectrum, and regret that Graves did not record more of the social consequences of the radical socialism and feminism he and his wife adopted in what was still a conservative and socially claustrophobic society.

Graves toyed with turning his experiences into a novel. Ford Madox Ford did just that with the Parades End series. Some may find this allows a more considered approach of the same period, and where Graves gives us anecdote Ford leaves the reader with a deeper understanding. None of this, however, challenges the status of Goodbye to all That as an outstanding historical document of life in another age.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply brilliant, 27 Aug 2006
By Dark Jimbo (Hampshire, England) - See all my reviews
This really is one of the best accounts of the Great War that I've read. Given all that I've heard about this book, that wasn't so much of a surprise - what was, however, was that well before Graves joined the army about mid-way through the book I was already solidly engrossed.

Robert Graves writes with a real charm and gentle humour, belying an often quite scathing satirical leaning, and his account of his early home life and upbringing is beautiful, a real evocation of a time now lost forever. The fact that he's half-german heartbreakingly foreshadows later events, as he spends childhood holidays playing in fairytale German castles with German uncles and nephews, men he is destined one day to try to kill on the battlefields of France. It's a pertinent reminder of how close Britain and England were in the late 1800's, which makes the war all the more tragic.

The account of his time in France during the conflict, the greater part of the book, is simply brilliant - and considering what he goes through, it's hard to keep in mind that he was only in his early twenties, as I suppose so many of the soldiers were. The other reviews have covered this in more detail, so I'll skip on.

Once the war ends the book does lose drive and focus, but I get a sense that by this point Graves was simply weary of England and life in general - it must have been hard to find much that matched the passion and drama of the battlefield, where a generation faced things we can hardly imagine today. It does all evoke an interesting picture of how a country tries to adjust to life after such a war, however, before it starts becoming simply a list of which famous writers Graves met.

All in all, this is probably one of the best first-hand accounts of World War One that we're lucky enough to have - and if you have any interest at all in the subject, you simply owe it to yourself to read it at least once.

Oh, and I recommend reading it in conjunction with Seigfreid Sassoon's 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The stories overlap and parallel each other several times, and it's fascinating to read differing accounts of the same crucial events in the lives of these two men. Each book gives a whole new spin on the other - get the best of each by reading them together.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars required reading for all, 6 Sep 2004
By A Customer
Goodbye to All That is as important to the canon of Great War literature as Schindler's List is to the Holocaust. Honest, stark and shocking at times, it is all pulled together with wonderful skill by Robert Graves who seemed to have such natural skill as a writer. My abiding memory of the book, which I have read several times, is the sheer sense of duty, so indicitative of the age, displayed by Graves and his fellow soldiers.

A briliant place to start reading about the Great War and one you will return to again and again.

It is worth reading alone for the narrative structure and the demonstration of writing craft which is of a quality not found anywhere today.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A true classic
This is a very readable book that really brings to light the horrors of the trenches in the First World War. This book is known as a modern classic and for good reasons. Read more
Published 2 months ago by M. J. Leahy

5.0 out of 5 stars a great author
a classic read re WW1. This autobiography tells the story of graves pre, during and after the war. needs to read more than once to get into it, but truly fascinating.
Published 3 months ago by itchybeard

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Graves First World War Experiences
This is an excellent book. It captures the futility of war without being either nationalistic or political. Read more
Published 4 months ago by R. Rowland

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding autobiography
This is a truly fascinating insight into Robert Graves' early life. Among many other things, his description of the Battle of Loos in 1915 - one of the first major British... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mukisa

5.0 out of 5 stars war memoir
I read this primarily for my war literature A level exam in a couple of months, and found it far more riveting and moving account of life before, during and after the war than I... Read more
Published 5 months ago by rubbah

5.0 out of 5 stars Dead Souls Brought to Life
"Goodbye to all that" is simply one of the finest memoirs of the Great War. Odd that my other great favourite is "Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man" written by Graves great friend... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Bob Salter

5.0 out of 5 stars The War to end all wars . . .
With the increase of interest in the First World War recently it is to this book that many people should turn for a gripping, factual account of life before, during and after the... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2001 by W. Weinstein

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