Customer Reviews

Siegfried Sassoon : The Making of a War Poet, a Biography (1896-1918)

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I was stunned several years ago to realize there was no modern biography of Sassoon so I was really looking forward to this book and in the end I was really pleased with it. It is perhaps a little too detailed (descriptions of the personalities of Sassoon's schoolmasters, etc.) and she occasionally jumps around chronologically but Wilson does bring Sassoon to life. Rather than emphasizing his sexuality she puts it into context and she follows his emotional development through his poetry. She also does an excellent job sorting out the confusion of wartime events. I'm looking forward to the next volume of this biography and I'd like to read her bio of Charles Hamilton Sorley, another war poet.

The biography is artfully crafted with an entertaining balance between story and documentation. I found the level of detail fascinating and not at all constraining, very much like enjoying following brushstrokes in an impressionist landscape. The book broadened and deepened my appreciation of the man, the times, the War and the literary and cultural environment of the first two decades of 20th century Britain.

If Ms Wilson follows with further volumes of Sassoons biography, count me in as an enthusiastic reader!

I'm ashamed to admit I'm not much of a biography reader. I can actually count on one hand the number of bio's I've completed and they have all been rather fluffy. After reading Pat Barker's wonderful WWI trilogy I was moved to find out more about Sassoon and discovered this book through a library search. I was a bit daunted by its length but have managed to read almost all of it in a couple of weeks. It reads quite easily and has actually at times left me reluctant to put it down. I am inspired to read biographies of Dr.Rivers, Robert Ross, and Robert Graves. I have also begun a better appreciation of poetry in general. Ms.Wilson writes on the assumption that her readers have knowledge of the technical aspects of poetry which I definitely lack. But she can be forgiven that. I am looking forward to reading Sassoon's memoirs and fiction. I will definitely read other installments of this fascinating biography.

Ms Wilson needs to make up her mind whether to write a book of Literary Criticism or a biography. The book suffers from too much critical analysis of Sassoon's poetry and not enough about his life. Either he was an extremely boring and prosaic poet or Ms. Wilson needs to delve deeper into his intellectual and emotional development - really his cricket exploits and his hunting prowess does not lend anything to the very essence of his life. Ms. Wilson's prose is turgid and repetitive. An extremely disappointing work.