Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (2014 Reading Challenge)

[Nigeyb]

BYT 2014 Reading Challenge: World War 1 Centenary


2014 will mark 100 years since the start of the First World War. Here at BYT we plan to mark the war and its consequences by reading 12 books that should give anyone who reads them a better understanding of the First World War.

The First World War was a turning point in world history. It claimed the lives of over 16 million people across the globe and had a huge impact on those who experienced it. The war and its consequences shaped much of the twentieth century, and the impact of it can still be felt today.

The BYT 2014 Reading Challenge will be our way of helping to remember those who lived, fought and served during the years 1914-18.

There's a thread for each of the 12 books.

Welcome to the thread for...



Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
(Category: Memoir Allies)

You can read the books in any order. Whilst you're reading them, or after you've finished, come and share your thoughts and feelings, ask questions, and generally get involved. The more we all participate, the richer and more fulfilling the discussions will be for us all. Here's to a stimulating, informative, and enjoyable BYT 2014 Reading Challenge.

[Val]

I have read this one before and thought it was very powerful, particularly the WW1 section. He articulates his thoughts and feelings in a way that gentlemen were not really brought up to do then.

[Nigeyb]

I agree Val. This is also one of three books that I have already read - though I intend to read them all again.

It was about 20 years ago that I read Goodbye to All That and, like you, I thought it was very powerful.

I've also read Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham, which I am delighted got voted as one of our choices. It is a really wonderful book that gives a completely different perspective on the conflict, and more generally on the grubby but essential business of spying. I cannot wait to find out what other BYTers make of it.

I have also read Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain, actually around the same time as Goodbye to All That, which I also thought was very powerful and once again another enlightening and different perspective on the War. I don't remember much about it and look forward to reading it again.

Having just read The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties, 1919-1940, and whilst in the midst of Bright Young People: The Rise and Fall of a Generation 1918-1940, and having read a few other books about the between-the-wars era (thanks to this wonderful group), it seems to me that WW1 was such a defining moment in both UK and global history - so much was changed forever. In many ways the twentieth century starts in 1914 and the repercussions continued through the rest of the century.

I am so pleased we're doing this challenge, and I feel that we'll all gain a lot as we read the twelve books and augment our learning and insights with other books, documentaries etc.

[Jan C]

I read this in college but I'll re-read it, too.

I read Ashenden before also but am not sure if I'll re-read that. Although it was excellent.

[Nigeyb]

I am going to start with Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.


At the same time I'm going to read The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry.

I don't normally like reading two books at once, but I think that I can just dip in and out The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry whilst also focussing on Goodbye to All That. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm really looking forward to re-reading this. As I say above, I don't remember much about it, just - like Val - that I thought it was very powerful.

It's great to be underway with the challenge.

[Nigeyb]

Goodbye to All That was according to the short prologue by Robert Graves, written in great haste, at a time when an he was 34 years old.

"It was my bitter leave-taking of England"

Apparently he didn't care what anyone thought of him, he'd been arrested for murder, he'd alienated most of his friendships, so it appears that it was written in a state of some agitation.

I'm only 36 pages in but the immediacy of the writing shines through. We're going at a breakneck speed through his family background and into his (obviously very unhappy) schooldays at Charterhouse. Another tale of relative impoverishment compared with many of the other boys that reminds me of George Orwell's essay Such, Such Were The Joys in Books v. Cigarettes which is a wince-inducing account of the brutality of St Cyprians (Orwell's prep school). I may be assuming too much as I'm just at the start of his Charterhouse days but it's not looking good.

I was also pondering the title of the book. Written just as he is leaving England, and whilst splitting up from his wife, in addition to the other issues he was contended with (see previous paragraph) and I assumed it was all related to the life changes he was experiencing when writing the book.

Apparently it goes even deeper....

The title may also point to the passing of an old order following the cataclysm of the First World War; the inadequacies of patriotism, the rise of atheism, feminism, socialism and pacifism, the changes to traditional married life, and not least the emergence of new styles of literary expression, are all treated in the work, bearing as they did directly on Graves' life.

So perhaps a broader review of the complete end of an era?

So far, so superb.

[Nigeyb]

Four out of five of the young officers in the trenches with Robert Graves had either German mothers or naturalised German fathers. By enlisting early these men had avoided internment. Many had relatives on the other side. Amazing, another indication of the madness of the Great War. I wonder how often family member could be fighting family member.

Whilst guarding and meeting resentful German internees, Robert Graves states that he could never have foreseen the time when these internees would be bitterly envied by forcibly-enlisted Englishmen for being kept safe until the war ended.

He also notes the intense anti-German feeling that had begun to run high in Britain; shops with German names being raided; and even German women made to feel they were personally responsible for the alleged Belgian atrocities.

It's these little details that bring home the madness and horror of the conflict.

[Nigeyb]

I've just read Robert Graves's account of his first few months in France. There are so many little details that bring the day-to-day life of him, and his regiment, to life: the gallows humour, the values of the soldiers, the disillusionment with the war and the staff and yet the loyalty to their officers, the lice, the food, the other privations. It's all there in this excellent memoir.

I'm about a third of the way through Goodbye to All That now and being reminded of why I thought it was such a good book the first time I read it.

A splendid choice for the Memoir Allies category.

I am looking forward to reading what other people make of this book.

[Nigeyb]

I'd just read about Loos in Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves.


I then came across this Soldiers' song in The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry

'I wore a tunic'

I wore a tunic
A dirty khaki-tunic
And you wore civilian clothes
We fought and bled at Loos
While you were on the booze,
The booze that no one here knows.
Oh, you were with the wenches
While we were in the trenches
Facing the German foe.
Oh, you were a-slacking
While we were attacking
Down the Menin Road

Funnily enough, during the horror of Loos, and as described by Robert Graves, one of the things that helped him through it was brandy. He also mentioned that all the soldiers had a ration of spirits just before a battle to help give them courage - so the line about the booze is not strictly true. Although there might have been different arrangements across different regiments.

Goodbye to All That is an amazing memoir. For such a short volume Robert Graves packs in so much information and detail, and is really brings alive day-to-day trench life with all its attendant horrors, boredom, pettiness, depravation, cameraderie and humour.

[Nigeyb]

This poem, that formed the basis of The Dug Out Siegfried Sassoon is not reproduced in full in Goodbye to All That so I sought it out.

Robert Graves describes it as the most heartbreaking poem of the war. Graves first read it in a letter from his friend Siegfried Sassoon who had been shot in the head on the same day that his mother in law died from Spanish flu.

Here's the letter/poem...


24 July 1918

American Red Cross Hospital, No. 22
98-99 Lancaster Gate, W.2

Dear Roberto,

I’d timed my death in action to the minute
(The Nation with my deathly verses in it).
The day told off—13—(the month July)—
The picture planned—O Threshold of the dark!
And then, the quivering songster failed to die
Because the bloody Bullet missed its mark.

Here I am; they would send me back—
Kind M.O. at Base; Sassoon’s morale grown slack;
Swallowed all his proud high thoughts and acquiesced.
O Gate of Lancaster, O Blightyland the Blessed.

No visitors allowed
Since Friends arrived in crowd—
Jabber—Gesture—Jabber—Gesture—Nerves went phut and
failed
After the first afternoon when MarshMoonStreetMeiklejohn
ArdoursandenduranSitwellitis prevailed,
Caused complications and set my brain a-hop;
Sleeplessexasperuicide, O Jesu make it stop!

But yesterday afternoon my reasoning Rivers ran solemnly in,
With peace in the pools of his spectacled eyes and a wisely
omnipotent grin;
And I fished in that steady grey stream and decided that I
After all am no longer the Worm that refuses to die.
But a gallant and glorious lyrical soldjer;
Bolder and bolder; as he gets older;
Shouting “Back to the Front
For a scrimmaging Stunt.”
(I wish the weather wouldn’t keep on getting colder.)

Yes, you can touch my Banker when you need him.
Why keep a Jewish friend unless you bleed him?

Oh yes, he’s doing very well and sleeps from Two till Four.
And there was Jolly Otterleen a knocking at the door,
But Matron says she mustn’t, not however loud she knocks
(Though she’s bags of golden Daisies and some Raspberries in a
box),
Be admitted to the wonderful and wild and wobbly-witted
sarcastic soldier-poet with a plaster on his crown,
Who pretends he doesn’t know it (he’s the Topic of the Town).

My God, my God, I’m so excited; I’ve just had a letter
From Stable who’s commanding the Twenty-Fifth Battalion.
And my company, he tells me, doing better and better,
Pinched six Saxons after lunch,
And bagged machine-guns by the bunch.

But I—wasn’t there—
O blast it isn’t fair,
Because they’ll all be wondering why
Dotty Captain wasn’t standing by
When they came marching home.

But I don’t care; I made them love me
Although they didn’t want to do it, and I’ve sent them a
glorious Gramophone and God send you back to me
Over the green eviscerating sea—
And I’m ill and afraid to go back to them because those
five-nines are so damned awful.
When you think of them all bursting and you’re lying on your
bed,
With the books you loved and longed for on the table; and your
head
All crammed with village verses about Daffodils and Geese—
… O Jesu make it cease … .

O Rivers please take me. And make me
Go back to the war till it break me.
Some day my brain will go BANG,
And they’ll say what lovely faces were
The soldier-lads he sang

Does this break your heart? What do I care?

Sassons

What an appalling mix of resignation, fear, despair, and black humour.

[Nigeyb]

I'm into the last 30 pages or so, and will write a proper review when I finish it completely, for now though, I'll just mention this was a very good starting point (along with the Poetry) to kick off our WW1 reading challenge.

The war is over and Robert Graves is studying at Oxford, following some time with his family at Harlech. The war's aftermath still looms large though....

He knows it will be years before he can face anything but a quiet country life. His disabilities were many: he could not use a telephone, he felt sick everytime he travelled by train, and to see more than two new people in a single day prevented him from sleeping.

Imagine how many ex-soldiers were also experiencing this appalling post-traumatic stress.

My father in law told me about his father who after WW1 spent the rest of his life in a sanatorium having had a breakdown a year or so after the armistice. One day he didn't return from his allotment and when his wife went to investigate she found that he had dug a trench and was sitting in it shaking. After that he was committed and never left the sanatorium.

[Jan C]

That's a sad story. Warehousing was often easier than treatment. They've come a long way in the treatment of PTSD and yet, possibly not so much. Our veteran suicide rate is +22 a day. Either they don't know how to reach out, are afraid to ask for help. Or possibly more often don't get the right kind of help. There's a trick to finding the right mixture of therapy and medication. And many people give up before finding the mixture.

[Nigeyb]

I've finished Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves now.


Here's my review...

It is as a document of World War One that this book really shines. Robert Graves includes a wealth of little details that bring the day-to-day life of him, and his regiment, to life: the gallows humour, the values of the soldiers, the disillusionment with the war and the staff and yet the loyalty to their officers, the lice, the food, the other privations. It's all there in this excellent memoir. Robert Graves also captures the tragedy and waste of the conflict - friends and fellow soldiers dying or getting wounded all the time. Extraordinary luck means that Robert Graves beat the odds and managed to survive but not without injuries and many brushes with death.

Goodbye to All That was written in 1929, when Robert Graves was 33 years old. Although primarily known as a memoir about Robert Graves' experience of World War One, in which he served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, the book opens with his family background, childhood, and education, before - at the outbreak of World War One - he enlists. The book also details his life for the ten years after World War One.

Goodbye to All That is an amazing memoir. For such a short volume Robert Graves packs in so much information and detail, and the book really brings alive day-to-day trench life with all its attendant horrors, boredom, pettiness, depravation, cameraderie and humour. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what life was like in the trenches.

I look forward to hearing what other BYTers make of this book.

[Judy]

Great review, Nigeyb. I've just finished reading this and agree with you that it is a vivid portrayal of the tragedy and waste - I was surprised to see many reviews at Goodreads commenting that there is too much 'stiff upper lip', because to me the matter of factness is part of the book's greatness. Often no comment is needed about how Graves was feeling.

The Penguin edition I read was 'revised' by Graves in 1957 - after looking up some reviews, I've found it is widely held that he not only revised but censored it. For instance, he cut out all the material about his relationship with Laura Riding which broke up his marriage... because they had split up by then and so he didn't want to mention her. I don't know how different the war sections in the two editions are, though, if at all - has anyone here read the original version?

I see there was a reissue of the original text in 1995 with annotations by his nephew, Richard Perceval Graves, but this appears to be very expensive - however, the original text is also being issued on Kindle in May, with an introduction by former poet laureate Andrew Motion.

[Judy]

Thanks to Nigeyb for posting that letter-poem by Sassoon - I've just found an interesting article saying that originally Graves had included this whole poem in the book, but Sassoon was furious about it and forced him to hold up publication in order to remove the poem, as he had never intended it for publication.

Sassoon was also very angry about a passage about his mother trying to contact his brother, who had been killed in the war, through spiritualists - she wasn't named but he still didn't want it in. It's said in the article that this whole controversy led to the final break between the two - but in 'Goodbye to All That' Graves says they had already broken with each other, so I'm slightly confused by this.

I read Sassoon's memoirs many years ago but it might be interesting to revisit Memoirs of an Infantry Officer and see how his account differs - however, I think I'll give his first volume Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man a miss, as I remember that it really is what the title suggests and has an awful lot about fox hunting.

[Nigeyb]

Like you Judy I read Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man. I remember thinking it was a good read though can't really remember much about it.

Thanks for all that information on the Graves-Sassoon relationship. I didn't know any of that, except what Graves mentions in the book, and it is all very interesting.

[Roisin]

Just started this and loving it. Forgotten how well he writes. Wonderful!

[Erin]

A beautiful and melancholy look at the realities of trench warfare. I loved the Welsh dialect, and the tracing of his friendship with Sassoon. I found the relationship between Robert and Nancy quite fascinating, and wondered to what extent their experiences of the war (his frontline time and her experience of relative freedom) contributed to the breakdown of the marriage. Its a theme I would particularly like to explore further, the way that the war changed expectations and relationships between men and women, so would gladly receive suggestions. I read Storm of Steel straight after, which complemented it beautifully.

[Roisin]

It is interesting that you say that, because I've just read a section where Graves says that he was expected to believe in patriarchy and that men and their decisions ruled over women. WW1 I think was pivotal in spearheading the change in attitudes to roles of men and women, I suspect just not in Britain, but in other countries too.

[Roisin]

It is on my book list to read, but wiki says of this book


'Authors such as Rebecca West used her work to produce literature that supported revolution. For instance, her 1916 novel, The Return of the Soldier, examined the psychoanalytical conditions of war and the resulting impact on returning soldiers. Furthermore, it provided a strong commentary on feminist discourse that allowed women to reimagine Britain as a space where they could gain cultural capital and privilege.[25]'

So you might want to read that. I read recently a Dorothy L Sayers book, The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club'. This is post WW1 and is very, very funny. It has some interesting commentary on the relationships of men and women and features two female artists. Plus another female character who works, since her husband is unable to, due to his experiences of WW1. Great stuff!

[Erin]

Thanks Roisin, I will look out for those.

[Jill]

Since Sasoon and WWI poetry is mentioned in the book, I felt moved to add my favorite and one of the saddest poems of the Great War. It is by Wilfred Gibson and is simple and very moving.

Back
They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

[Barbara]

Thanks Jill. Very powerful.

[Nigeyb]

^ wonderful

[Roisin]

Wilford Gibson? Not sure that I know of his poetry. Thanks for sharing this.

[Judy]

Great poem, Jill, thanks for sharing. Seems he was mainly known as Wilfrid Wilson Gibson and there are quite a number of books by him listed under that name - I've just been taking a peek inside one or two at Amazon, and he definitely wrote a lot of great war poems. I love his poem 'Breakfast' which is included in the anthology we read for the challenge, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, but would like to get to know more of his work.

I also found this site about him - he was a friend of Rupert Brooke, which makes me wonder again what Brooke's poetry would have been like if he had lived longer.

[Jill]

Thanks, Judy. So many of the young poets died in the trenches or as a result of the war that it makes you wonder how they would have fared if they had lived. Would they keep their reputation or have they become almost mythical because they died so young in the great conflagration? But we will never know and I'm glad we are left with their war poetry which stirs the emotions.

[Barbara]

When Jill posted this wonderful poem, I looked up Wilfrid Wilson Gibson to get a little background info on him. While he was in the military during the war, he was never actually in the trenches or out of England. His deep understanding of the feelings of the fighting men came from talking to them and from his own imagination. "Back" and "Breakfast" really captured the spirit perfectly I think.

[Barbara]

Hmm, now I'm confused. Some websites say he remained in England during the war, others say he was in the infantry on the Western Front. Anyone know for sure?

[Jill]

I don't think he was actually at the front although he did serve in the BEF. His poetry would lead one to believe that he was in the trenches since it is so representative of the emotions/fears of those who were.

[Val]

He was born in 1878 so he would have been too old to serve at the front, unless he had already been in the army before the outbreak of war (Reservists could be older).
He was quite well known for going around talking to working class people: rural workers and urban poor in the East End of London before the war, and soldiers during it.

[Roisin]

He was in the army after being rejected 4 times, but was never at the front. This is a detailed and interesting article about him.

http://www.gwlmagazine.com/?tag=wilfr...

[Barbara]

Thanks, Roisin.

[Judy]

Thanks, Roisin - just realised I failed to post the link to the site I'd found above, so sorry about that! It's this one:

http://www.warpoets.org/poets/wilfrid...

[Barbara]

Thanks, Judy. Interesting to read that his book, Battle, was so influential on the better-known poets, Sassoon, Graves, and Owen, among others. He should be better known today!