Customer Reviews

Goodbye To All That

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I came upon 'Goodbye to All That' relatively late in life. I had enjoyed his fictional biography of Claudius, but here was Graves, speaking to me of his own youth, across a gap of more than seventy years, with a candour one hardly dares hope for in contemporary autobiography. Yes, he had loved, both men and women, and he dared admit it. He writes, not just with courage but humility, of his harrowing years on the Western front, which saw the wholesale slaughter of most of his generation. Along with fellow poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, he gave the lie to the 'honourable death' for King and Country. Despite their valour, the friends he lost had been slaughtered like cattle led to an abbatoir, and he spares us nothing of their suffering. A truly courageous book in every sense. I can't speak for the audio rendering, but its disappearance from the bookshelf would be a tragic 'Goodbye to All That' indeed.

Along with Sigfried Sassoon's "Memoirs of an Infantry Soldier" and Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front", Graves' personal account of poetic inspiration in a background of horror is World War I's best first-hand chronicle ever compiled. The realism and power behind this book are electrical. Graves' coolness in the trenches while composing sonnets and seeking a blissful state of mind is almost disturbing when contrasting it with the demonic state of destruction and death. His unnerving pace and tranquil descriptions seem to underline an innocence lost in years past.

Robert Graves book is at one level a memoir and at another level a manifesto for the Lost Generation, disillusioned by the carnage and stupidity of World War I. Devastating in is portrayal of the British Establishment. Compelling in its picture of young poets like Sigfried Sassoon. The audiobook version is simply riveting, turning a drive from Washington, DC to NYC and back on a crowded I-95 into a distinct pleasure. Even traffic jams were transformed into a delightful chance to hear more of the story.

Robert Graves' autobiography is a classic. The text itself requires no further review from me. This audio version is based on the 1957 2nd edition of Graves' book. The reading by Sean Barrett is simply splendid. Very expressive without being overly demonstrative. Barrett's voice characterizations are good, but his range of accents is truly remarkable: not just English, but Welsh, Irish, Canadian, Australian. You will be impressed. There are no distracting special effects or music; the text stands on its own merits. I often hear mispronunciations when I listen to audiobooks. I heard none here, and there are 10 cassettes. I would not have anticipated a couple of Barrett's pronunciations, but I have acquired such a respect for his accuracy and reliability that I assume that I am the one whose pronunciation is incorrect. Highly recommended.

Robert Graves simply and elegantly recounts his experiences as a young, (initally) idealistic officer in the British Army. A friend of Sigfried Sasson and Wilfred Owens, Graves, in my opinion, is the better writer of the lot. His writing is so lucid, we feel the impulsiveness as he enlists (and receives a comission, as was his due to his place in Edwardian society), and we also gradually come to understand the pointlessness of the carnage and the horrors of the war.

The book is at its most moving, however, as Graves re-tells of his leave back to England - the comparisons to Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front are erie - I was particularly moved by part where Graves remembers the family of a deceased friend he was visiting, the mother pacing the house at all hours of the night ... it really made the human costs of the war feel suddenly very personal.

As other reviewers have mentioned, it is an excellent memoir of the war, and in my opinion, the best first - hand account of the war in the west.

A sad commentary on our society that only the audio versions of this book are available. 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 Great War. Mr Graves documents the pastoral quiet of England in the early part of the twentieth century and abruptly descends to recounting, in cold detail, the dreadful slaughter of the trenches. Through some of the most famous battles in history he survives, physically more or less intact but from the dry words; modest, English, reserved, we glimpse the true weight of the burden that such memories impose on their carriers and understand better the terrible toll that the War levied on all the nations of Europe.

I have been aware of this book with its' familiar title since childhood but I only recently read it. I feared it would be a dull dry-as-dirt retelling of war stories of forgotten dead men. I was pleasantly surprised. The book is not at all dull but
presents Graves war experience in an exciting fast pased way. I had to skim the first part about his childhood. Every biography has a dull childhood section dealing with the subject's juvenile trails and tribulations and conflicts with family members. I find these universally uninteresting.

Graves was 17 when the war started and volunteered for officer candidate school within days. He became a lieutenant in the Royal Welch Guards and eventually was promoted to captain in charge of his own company of infantry by age 21. Unlike
our present system where college is mandatory prerequisite for a young man seeking to become an officer, social standing determined that Graves would become an officer rather than an enlisted man.

Graves participates in several trench warfare battles. Trench warfare as Graves describes is a monotonous and dirty business. Rats are everywhere. Groundwater seeps relentlessly into living and fighting spaces. The men live in warrens of chambers cut into ground branching away from the main trenches. To break up
the monotony and to show that he's not a coward, Graves often volunteers for scout duty. He sneaks into no mans land at night to assess the enemy. On occasion the senior officers order suicidal attacks in which every man of the company must go over the top and charge fortified machine gun positions. Graves
tells of one attack in which his company was ordered to take part. Three companies go before his and each is destroyed with 100% casualties wounded or killed. Graves and his men are crouching poised at the top step of their trench waiting for their turn to attack when the attack is suddenly called off. In a later attack Graves is wounded by shrapnel and left for dead for over 24 hours before receiving medical attention. He recovers fully from these wounds but is assigned to training duty after his recovery.

Later parts of the book deal with Graves' first marriage, his education at Oxford, a failed attempt at shopkeeping and a post war teaching position in Cairo. I found these of less interest than the war scenes. Graves lived to age 90 and went on the write the immensely entertaining I, Claudius and over a hundred other books.