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The Long Weekend/The Reader Over Your Shoulder
This contemporary edition makes available two of Graves's pieces of non-fiction that haave not been widely available since their original printing during the 1940s. In addition to the original text, this volume includes a substantial introduction that provides background information and literary criticism. The volume will be of use to students studying Graves as well as to scholars seeking both clean and durable editions of these previously obscure texts and analytical commentary from a literary scholar. As a companion piece to Graves's famous autobiography Goodbye to All That, this volume gives a broader perspective on the writer's understanding of WWI, its impact on English culture and his views on contemporary writing in England.
440 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2006
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29 people want to read
About the author
Robert Graves
642 books2,071 followersRobert von Ranke Graves was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. Born in Wimbledon, he received his early education at King's College School and Copthorne Prep School, Wimbledon & Charterhouse School and won a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford. While at Charterhouse in 1912, he fell in love with G.H. Johnstone, a boy of fourteen ("Dick" in Goodbye to All That) When challenged by the headmaster he defended himself by citing Plato, Greek poets, Michelangelo & Shakespeare, "who had felt as I did".
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
At the outbreak of WWI, Graves enlisted almost immediately, taking a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He published his first volume of poems, Over the Brazier, in 1916. He developed an early reputation as a war poet and was one of the first to write realistic poems about his experience of front line conflict. In later years he omitted war poems from his collections, on the grounds that they were too obviously "part of the war poetry boom". At the Battle of the Somme he was so badly wounded by a shell-fragment through the lung that he was expected to die, and indeed was officially reported as 'died of wounds'. He gradually recovered. Apart from a brief spell back in France, he spent the rest of the war in England.
One of Graves's closest friends at this time was the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who was also an officer in the RWF. In 1917 Sassoon tried to rebel against the war by making a public anti-war statement. Graves, who feared Sassoon could face a court martial, intervened with the military authorities and persuaded them that he was suffering from shell shock, and to treat him accordingly. Graves also suffered from shell shock, or neurasthenia as it is sometimes called, although he was never hospitalised for it.
Biographers document the story well. It is fictionalised in Pat Barker's novel Regeneration. The intensity of their early relationship is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in Graves's collection Fairies & Fusiliers (1917), which contains a plethora of poems celebrating their friendship. Through Sassoon, he also became friends with Wilfred Owen, whose talent he recognised. Owen attended Graves's wedding to Nancy Nicholson in 1918, presenting him with, as Graves recalled, "a set of 12 Apostle spoons".
Following his marriage and the end of the war, Graves belatedly took up his place at St John's College, Oxford. He later attempted to make a living by running a small shop, but the business failed. In 1926 he took up a post at Cairo University, accompanied by his wife, their children and the poet Laura Riding. He returned to London briefly, where he split with his wife under highly emotional circumstances before leaving to live with Riding in Deià, Majorca. There they continued to publish letterpress books under the rubric of the Seizin Press, founded and edited the literary journal Epilogue, and wrote two successful academic books together: A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927) and A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928).
In 1927, he published Lawrence and the Arabs, a commercially successful biography of T.E. Lawrence. Good-bye to All That (1929, revised and republished in 1957) proved a success but cost him many of his friends, notably Sassoon. In 1934 he published his most commercially successful work, I, Claudius. Using classical sources he constructed a complexly compelling tale of the life of the Roman emperor Claudius, a tale extended in Claudius the God (1935). Another historical novel by Graves, Count Belisarius (1938), recounts the career of the Byzantine general Belisarius.
During the early 1970s Graves began to suffer from increasingly severe memory loss, and by his eightieth birthday in 1975 he had come to the end of his working life. By 1975 he had published more than 140 works. He survived for ten more years in an increasingly dependent condition until he died from heart
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 10, 2012
Finding a good book is a study in serendipity. I have a bookish pen pal who loves travel books and who introduced me to Patrick Leigh Fermor, the polymath author of the trilogy about a 1938 walk from England to Constantinople (A Time of Gifts, etc). Fermor lead us to thoughts of the years between the WWI and WWII. [Side note: Fermor is more than a little fascinating both as a intellectual and an adventurer, a pal of Nancy Mitford and a very handsome devil.] I lean towards history and my pal leans towards travel. The two interests intersect more than a little. I am especially lucky because my correspondent is very well read, demanding of his authors and our senses of humor usually coincide.
He highly recommended A Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron--a 1933 trip through (then) Persia and Afghanistan. In cruising the net to find a source for Oxiana, I stumbled across Bright Young Things--an episodic telling of those British children of privilege (financial and lineal) who made an art of outrageousness and still managed often enough to to produce work of literary merit and usefulness. [Imagine today's celebrity press, then add an Oxford education.] It turns out that Robert Byron was a Bright Young Thing. Oxiana was intended to be a survey of ancient architecture but ends up being, at times, a hilarious view of the Shah's fumbled efforts at modernization and the terrors of travel, and, at times, a highly opinionated view of architecture. But while looking around, I found The Long Week-End.
It is a social history of Great Britain 1918-1939. Robert Graves is poet, author (I Claudius) and another polymath, a fairly major figure of British letters. I hadn't heard of Alan Hodge, his co-author, except that Graves ended up taking Hodge's wife as his own third wife. [Thanks, Wikipedia]. This book is deft discussion of the political ferment, labor at rest and unrest, social trends, books and plays, new technologies and their impact on the country, as well as a survey of philosophical and religious eruptions. The book overall is a survey with odd little digressions. (I couldn't understand the extended discussion of TE Lawrence until I found out elsewhere the Graves had written a book about his friend. Lawrence turns out to be more than Lawrence of Arabia.) It is a fascinating overview. The Long Weekend does give what feels like an authentic accounting of the 'life and times' -- and every time I put it down and pick up the newspaper [that is, cruise the net for news], parallels leap out. The book is historical, but it is the reader, not the authors, that bring a sense of foreboding. The preface tells us the book was finished as the Dunkirk evacuation was taking place (June 1940) and their sources generally newspapers, but it is impossible to imagine their own impressions and experiences are not reflected. It is smoothly assembled, and a comfortable read. It also has lots of little discoveries ("Dame" --equivalent to being a Knight, e.g., Dame Judi Dench --was invented during WWI or so to allow honors to be given to women. Insert dry comment here.)
Traditionally, historians failed to give sufficient weight to the 'mood of the nation' or the seemingly minor events that shape a nation and its eventual political actions. Social psychology and influences of the times do much -- if not everything -- to influence the choices and determine the outcome of the events set in motion by political leadership. This view has increasingly gained credence in the treatment and assessment of history. The Long Weekend should go on the shelf of the next author attempting a treatment of 20th century western history.
So I meant to read a travel book but now find myself looking forward to the next two chapters: 'The Depression' and then 'Pacifism, Nudism, Hiking'. How can I not be hooked?
He highly recommended A Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron--a 1933 trip through (then) Persia and Afghanistan. In cruising the net to find a source for Oxiana, I stumbled across Bright Young Things--an episodic telling of those British children of privilege (financial and lineal) who made an art of outrageousness and still managed often enough to to produce work of literary merit and usefulness. [Imagine today's celebrity press, then add an Oxford education.] It turns out that Robert Byron was a Bright Young Thing. Oxiana was intended to be a survey of ancient architecture but ends up being, at times, a hilarious view of the Shah's fumbled efforts at modernization and the terrors of travel, and, at times, a highly opinionated view of architecture. But while looking around, I found The Long Week-End.
It is a social history of Great Britain 1918-1939. Robert Graves is poet, author (I Claudius) and another polymath, a fairly major figure of British letters. I hadn't heard of Alan Hodge, his co-author, except that Graves ended up taking Hodge's wife as his own third wife. [Thanks, Wikipedia]. This book is deft discussion of the political ferment, labor at rest and unrest, social trends, books and plays, new technologies and their impact on the country, as well as a survey of philosophical and religious eruptions. The book overall is a survey with odd little digressions. (I couldn't understand the extended discussion of TE Lawrence until I found out elsewhere the Graves had written a book about his friend. Lawrence turns out to be more than Lawrence of Arabia.) It is a fascinating overview. The Long Weekend does give what feels like an authentic accounting of the 'life and times' -- and every time I put it down and pick up the newspaper [that is, cruise the net for news], parallels leap out. The book is historical, but it is the reader, not the authors, that bring a sense of foreboding. The preface tells us the book was finished as the Dunkirk evacuation was taking place (June 1940) and their sources generally newspapers, but it is impossible to imagine their own impressions and experiences are not reflected. It is smoothly assembled, and a comfortable read. It also has lots of little discoveries ("Dame" --equivalent to being a Knight, e.g., Dame Judi Dench --was invented during WWI or so to allow honors to be given to women. Insert dry comment here.)
Traditionally, historians failed to give sufficient weight to the 'mood of the nation' or the seemingly minor events that shape a nation and its eventual political actions. Social psychology and influences of the times do much -- if not everything -- to influence the choices and determine the outcome of the events set in motion by political leadership. This view has increasingly gained credence in the treatment and assessment of history. The Long Weekend should go on the shelf of the next author attempting a treatment of 20th century western history.
So I meant to read a travel book but now find myself looking forward to the next two chapters: 'The Depression' and then 'Pacifism, Nudism, Hiking'. How can I not be hooked?
April 11, 2018
A brilliant account of life between the wars from almost an everyday perspective. You learn how newspapers such as the Daily Mail significantly influenced society a hundred years ago and how social trends were just as pervasive in the 1920s as they are in the 2010s (yoga/mindfulness). It makes the study of history painless and the watching of dramas such as Downton Abbey more meaningful.
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