Customer Reviews

This Is The Schoolroom

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This predates his very good WWII writing "Three Corvettes." I could write that this is a British version of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" with a happier ending. Published in September/October 1939(overshadowed by the start of War) it came out almost a year before Ernest Hemingway's Spanish Civil War novel was published in July 1940.
Partly autobiographical, Monsarrat graduated with a honors degree in law in 1931 from Trinity College Cambridge and worked in a Nottingham solicitor's office for two years before moving to London to become a freelance writer. Some of his 1930's terminology and slang may be unfamiliar, particularly with non-UK readers but wikipedia and google are useful resources which may be helpful. His description of the Cotswolds is beautiful, and there are some rather clever phrases like: "And though of course one must guard against too high a degree of specialization-you remember the definition of a specialist? 'A man who learns more and more about less and less, until finally he knows everything about nothing.'"
I admire his low-key but perceptive realism, avoiding melodrama. Courage & Reason, not Fear & Rage.