Winner of both the National Book Award for Arts and Letters and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, Paul Fussell's classic The Gr...
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Sep 17, 2011
Paul
rated it: 
A joke told during World War Two in England :
Man goes into a cafe, asks for the menu. He wants breakfast.
"I'll have bacon and mushrooms please."
Waiter says "Sorry sir, we haven't got any bacon or mushrooms, it's because of rationing."
"Okay, I'll have eggs on toast."
"Sorry sir, no eggs."
"No eggs? No bacon? What have you got then?"
"Well, we've got sausages. An More...
Man goes into a cafe, asks for the menu. He wants breakfast.
"I'll have bacon and mushrooms please."
Waiter says "Sorry sir, we haven't got any bacon or mushrooms, it's because of rationing."
"Okay, I'll have eggs on toast."
"Sorry sir, no eggs."
"No eggs? No bacon? What have you got then?"
"Well, we've got sausages. An More...
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Dec 15, 2007
Jennifer
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I attempted to catch up on WWII, after reading Fussell's fantastic book, The Great War and Modern Memory, but this one just didn't hold my attention. Alas, I'm just a WWI kind of reader...
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Dec 16, 2009
Brendan
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Fussell writes in the voice of your favorite cranky old-man professor. He also happens to be a veteran of World War II, and uses that experience to illuminate the life of GIs during the war and the literature they created. Wartime is a follow-up to Fussell's much better book on World War I, The Great War and Modern Memory. Its greatest strength, I think, is Fussell's refusal to submit to all the Greatest Generation sentimentality that obscures the reality, which is to say the horror and the stup
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Dec 02, 2010
Matthew
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Paul Fussell is clearly angry with the overt sentimentalism that surrounds our 'memory' of the Second World War. This book strips away some of the romantic glow years of platitude-spouting Remembrance Day-milking politicians and do-gooders have layered over the brutal truth: War is a dank hell of body parts, fear, lies, hatred, and manipulation.
Fussell does a good job in Wartime of using brutal examples of hypocrisy and violence to strip away the propaganda layered on the war over t More...
Fussell does a good job in Wartime of using brutal examples of hypocrisy and violence to strip away the propaganda layered on the war over t More...
Dec 04, 2009
Q
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I will quickly start with what I disliked: This book felt like a number of essays put together as chapters. While that in and of itself is not bad, unless the transitions are considered the book will not flow well chapter to chapter. That (IMHO) was the case here. So, my dislike is purely regarding style.
What I learned was that 'war is hell' (cliché and nearly meaningless) and for the cliché to be meaningful one must experience war.
But even more importantly, I learned that this More...
Jan 22, 2010
Martin
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"For the past fifty years the Allied War has been sanitized and romanticized almost beyond recognition by the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, and the bloodthirsty. I have tried to balance the scales."
With those two sentences Paul Fussell, a severely wounded Second World War veteran turned literary critic and scholar, ends the first paragraph of the preface in "Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War." It's a shattering book. More...
With those two sentences Paul Fussell, a severely wounded Second World War veteran turned literary critic and scholar, ends the first paragraph of the preface in "Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War." It's a shattering book. More...
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Jul 15, 2008
Tim
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A book that sometimes made me smile (as governments worked to deceive and soldiers wrote doggerel verse and learned to curse ever more freely), but mostly made me wince and cry at the foolishness and horrors of war. But Fussell's horrors are of a different sort than the violence we see in the movies. It seems Iraq, and the incompetence of waging war, is nothing new (Having just read new histories of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War - it may seem a particular milita
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 14, 2011
Shenanitims
rated it:
One of my favorite "war" books. Mainly because it strips war down to what it really is - destruction, and analyzes its effect of the world and culture. Gone are the Hollywood heroics of battle, replaced with a realistic view of maimed body parts, and tons of piss and feces. A warning though, this book will ruin your favorite WWII movies for you.
Feb 10, 2009
Nat
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It is enormously satisfying to read accounts of wartime deprivation and rationing, like those that are depicted in this book, and then drink an entire pot of rich, fragrant coffee and eat a pile of bacon and eggs, as I'm about to do right now.
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Dec 21, 2008
John
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I had to read this book for a college course and I hated it. It had trouble holding my attention and if I didnt have to write a paper on it I wouldnt of finished it.
May 27, 2011
Eric
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A frightening, honest, very very ugly account of what it means to be in battle and what it does to people's psyches.
Jun 30, 2010
Rpurcell10
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If you're looking for something to read to help you de-mythologize World War II, this is a really good place to start.
Jul 21, 2010
David
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Fussell is one of the best. Put this book with "The Lucifer Effect" for understanding the unthinkable.
Sep 23, 2010
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War by Paul Fussell (1990)
May 01, 2009
Wartime Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War by Paul Fussell (1989)
Oct 09, 2010
David
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too anecdotal, didn't finish. I'm sure books like this served effectively as myth shatterers when they were published, but in a blogging age where we are overwhelmed by the shear volume of opionion, it's hard not to want something a bit more grounded.
Jan 29, 2012
Natxo
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Un gran llibre. La guerra és cruel, inhumana, estúpida i no hi ha lloc per coses com l'honor, el deure o la dignitat d'una causa. La guerra és sang, fang, merda i llàgrimes. Aquest llibre explica tot allò que cap exèrcit no admetrà mai.
A banda dels darrers capítols sobre la literatura anglesa i americana en temps de guerra, la resta és monumental i molt recomanable, especialment per qui vulgui aprofondir sobre la WWII.
Molt bo.
A banda dels darrers capítols sobre la literatura anglesa i americana en temps de guerra, la resta és monumental i molt recomanable, especialment per qui vulgui aprofondir sobre la WWII.
Molt bo.
May 22, 2008
Rae
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Fussell discusses aspects of WWII not generally found in other sources including drinking, sexual behavior, books read, errors and military blunders, idioms, music, language and psychological behavior. This is forthright text and not for gentle readers...he uses first-source documents.
Dec 16, 2009
Brian
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A Pomona Alumn - really like his writing style and his approach - Great War and Modern Memory is a better book, but I chose this as a representative because of my passion for WW2 and I love the chapeter title "Drinking Far Too Much Fornicating Far to Little"
Jan 22, 2008
Clif
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The BEST book about the daily lives of WWII soldiers. The antithesis of Ken burns "The War" documentary, as it reverses the endless waiting in wartime from those at home to those on the front lines.
Dec 17, 2009
Jonathan
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Revealing the way WWII really was, the cruelty, blunders, wild rumours and real horrors.
May 15, 2008
mike
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Fussell punctures a lot of the rosy-colored views of WWII held by noncoms.
Feb 12, 2012
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