posted by Brit
Something for Remembrance Sunday, now. Poetry can do a lot of things, and this does a lot of them.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
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That's too much Brit, Sassoons story, the saddest of all.
ReplyDeleteIn a tiny borders village stands a memorial, the number of names carved on it greater than the present population. Those 5 years should never, ever be lost from Europe's memory, lest it starts all over again.
Poor man -- he had to bear survivor's guilt for so many lost companions. I believe many of those WW I volunteers like Sassoon thought they were going to a war akin to the Iliad -- the text they'd all been raised on in their grammar schools; the text that elevated the nobility of war and warriors. But those trenches, the shell shock, and the mustard gas bore little resemblance to the stylized battles of Trojans and Greeks. But perhaps some of the friendships there did mimic Achilles and Patroclus. Sassoon and Owen, for example.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it takes a woman to see it most clearly. Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth" gets my vote as best memoir of WW I.