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War Is Beautiful: An American Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil War
The newly discovered journal of an award-winning poet's experience on the front lines as a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade― All Quiet on the Western Front for the Spanish Civil War In 1937, James Neugass, a poet and novelist praised in the New York Times , joined 2,800 other passionate young Americans who traveled to Spain as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade―an unlikely mix of artists, journalists, industrial workers, and intellectuals united in their desire to combat European fascism. Although rumors persisted over the years that Neugass had written a memoir, the manuscript of War Is Beautiful , a nuanced and deeply poetic chronicle of his service as an ambulance driver, did not come to light for sixty years, until a bookseller discovered it among papers in a New England house once occupied by the radical critic and editor Max Eastman. The memoir combines fast-paced accounts of darting onto battlefields to pick up the wounded with elegiac renderings of days spent "on alert" in an ever-changing series of sharply observed Spanish towns, enduring that most difficult of wartime waiting. Published now for the first time, War Is Beautiful is poised to take its place alongside works by Erich Maria Remarque, Irène Némirovsky, Wilfred Owen, and George Orwell as a transcendent contemporaneous rendering of wartime life. It includes some of Neugass's own photos taken while in Spain.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published November 11, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 10, 2015
War Is Beautiful: An American Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil War Seventy-eight years ago, the young, idealistic, liberal, socialist, maybe even anarchistic youth did not sit around in their parents’ basements, living on social media and ‘bravely’ hashtagging their discontent with the world. The youth (and older folks too) of the world went to Spain and stood up to the fascist dictators, fighting for a ‘democratic’ Spain against the steel and iron of Franco and his buddies, Mussolini and Hitler. They fought, bled and often died for their ideals. This is a wonderfully written memoir/diary of a short part of the Spanish Civil War by a naïve, idealistic young American writer. A pacifist, he goes to war as an ambulance driver for republican Spain, fighting against Franco’s forces which include the air, naval and ground forces of the German Condor Legion and Italian fascists. I have a forest of paper scraps marking pages with wonderful prose, clearly meeting the standard for 5 Stars.
From his “afterword”:
Four shell-shocked infantrymen stood solemnly at the side of the road, powerless as mileposts, to dig for their comrades who had just been buried by a shell. Captain R. lost his hand-knotted winter socks when the laundress blew up in her home with her father, mother and two small brothers. We took the blood out of four asphyxiated cavalrymen, before they were cold and ran it into the arms of wounded. We did not talk of women, we did not dream of women, and there were no dirty jokes. Acorns, olives pulled off the trees by moonlight and wild onions taste good. No surgeon has amputated a hand so neatly as a bomb sheared the suede gloved wrist of a nurse. Lieutenant E. had his teeth fixed in Barcelona for ten packages of Lucky Strikes.
Was it really true that the English anti-tank company had cut a week’s firewood with explosive shells when there were no axes? How is it possible for a driver to keep on the road for sixty hours and why is it possible to sleep at the wheel without crashing? How had the Companies of Steel in the early days stopped tanks, planes and cavalry with their big hearts and bare hands? Why did the wounded lie so still and so seldom cry out? Why did the sight of an old woman at midnight far from any town hobbling her way towards the rear affect us more than rows of dead?
How could so little hatred have been possible? Quietly the newspapers in the cities talked of “the Invaders” or, more simply, of “Them.” No one read or spoke of “the enemy” or of “the fascists.”
We always had the feeling of having our hands held behind our backs. The Republic was flogged like a horse tied short at the head by enemies it could not reach.
We killed naturally and with constant gnawing desire to kill more, but we hated death and war and we could never manage to think of ourselves precisely as soldiers.
Being at war doesn’t stop him from seeing the humorous side of life in a socialist/communist/anarchist army:
I wanted to get this book done but it was just pack-jammed full of wonderfully descriptive prose that would make me stop and build a picture in my mind: “…the first planes had floated off into the vaporized gold of the winter sunlight… Neumann has a wry sense of humor and a rapier wit. He tells of the helplessness of being under air attack: Portable trenches would be extremely useful; and since the world’s best brains and research equipment are now preparing the solution of how simultaneously to destroy the world and save the world from destruction, I have no doubt that portable trenches will soon be invented.
The author does not paint himself in a heroic light. He tells it like it happened. Neumann takes cover from an air attack. He is one of these five:
Five men lie in a ditch listening to each plane as it flattens out of a power dive. Machine guns fire one thousand explosive bullets per minute from an altitude of a hundred feet at the road, at the car parked at its side and the five men in the ditch. One soldier shudders but does not move. The second ruins his trousers. Two others lie as limp as fresh-killed dead. The fifth runs out into the fields. What is fear? What is courage?
War is addictive. Just like the stories in War and American Sniper, Neumann misses the excitement and adrenaline rush of combat as soon as things quiet down:
The Spanish Civil War was the experimental laboratory for the coming world war. Terror bombing of civilians, mechanized warfare, new weapons, propaganda…Neumann brings it to life while maintaining his focus on the units and people around him. In the end, Franco wins and the communists, socialists, anarchists, republicans lose. It is likely whichever side won, a totalitarian government would have ruled in Spain. But if I had to fight there, I think Neumann’s side would have been preferable.
From his “afterword”:
Four shell-shocked infantrymen stood solemnly at the side of the road, powerless as mileposts, to dig for their comrades who had just been buried by a shell. Captain R. lost his hand-knotted winter socks when the laundress blew up in her home with her father, mother and two small brothers. We took the blood out of four asphyxiated cavalrymen, before they were cold and ran it into the arms of wounded. We did not talk of women, we did not dream of women, and there were no dirty jokes. Acorns, olives pulled off the trees by moonlight and wild onions taste good. No surgeon has amputated a hand so neatly as a bomb sheared the suede gloved wrist of a nurse. Lieutenant E. had his teeth fixed in Barcelona for ten packages of Lucky Strikes.
Was it really true that the English anti-tank company had cut a week’s firewood with explosive shells when there were no axes? How is it possible for a driver to keep on the road for sixty hours and why is it possible to sleep at the wheel without crashing? How had the Companies of Steel in the early days stopped tanks, planes and cavalry with their big hearts and bare hands? Why did the wounded lie so still and so seldom cry out? Why did the sight of an old woman at midnight far from any town hobbling her way towards the rear affect us more than rows of dead?
How could so little hatred have been possible? Quietly the newspapers in the cities talked of “the Invaders” or, more simply, of “Them.” No one read or spoke of “the enemy” or of “the fascists.”
We always had the feeling of having our hands held behind our backs. The Republic was flogged like a horse tied short at the head by enemies it could not reach.
We killed naturally and with constant gnawing desire to kill more, but we hated death and war and we could never manage to think of ourselves precisely as soldiers.
Being at war doesn’t stop him from seeing the humorous side of life in a socialist/communist/anarchist army:
I wanted to get this book done but it was just pack-jammed full of wonderfully descriptive prose that would make me stop and build a picture in my mind: “…the first planes had floated off into the vaporized gold of the winter sunlight… Neumann has a wry sense of humor and a rapier wit. He tells of the helplessness of being under air attack: Portable trenches would be extremely useful; and since the world’s best brains and research equipment are now preparing the solution of how simultaneously to destroy the world and save the world from destruction, I have no doubt that portable trenches will soon be invented.
The author does not paint himself in a heroic light. He tells it like it happened. Neumann takes cover from an air attack. He is one of these five:
Five men lie in a ditch listening to each plane as it flattens out of a power dive. Machine guns fire one thousand explosive bullets per minute from an altitude of a hundred feet at the road, at the car parked at its side and the five men in the ditch. One soldier shudders but does not move. The second ruins his trousers. Two others lie as limp as fresh-killed dead. The fifth runs out into the fields. What is fear? What is courage?
War is addictive. Just like the stories in War and American Sniper, Neumann misses the excitement and adrenaline rush of combat as soon as things quiet down:
The Spanish Civil War was the experimental laboratory for the coming world war. Terror bombing of civilians, mechanized warfare, new weapons, propaganda…Neumann brings it to life while maintaining his focus on the units and people around him. In the end, Franco wins and the communists, socialists, anarchists, republicans lose. It is likely whichever side won, a totalitarian government would have ruled in Spain. But if I had to fight there, I think Neumann’s side would have been preferable.
May 15, 2009
Though written in a previous era, I feel that this book belongs on the shelf next to Shake Hands with the Devil, Emma's War, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, and My War Gone By I Miss It So. Neugass in the 1930's shares so much with those real-life protagonists from '90's humanitarian memoir.
He's not simply the innocent abroad. Idealists have a hard time living up to their own big ideas and we get various shades of Neugass. He doesn't disguise the ugliness, even when it's his own.
I found this to be one of his more interesting, quizzical, and at the same time disturbing paragraphs...
"There seems to be nothing sacred about ambulances, after all. I've been an instinctive pacifist all my life; but I feel that if I catch the man who rolls rocks onto the Mas de las Matas road, I'd like to open him up little by little with my jackknife until I see if I can tell a fascist heart from a democratic heart. It's the actions you kill, not the man. Murder! Think of it."
Face to face with a reality as morally-charged, yet horrific as the Spanish Civil War, one's also bound to be faced with an unseen side of themselves. I still think Anthony Lloyd was right by saying that oftentimes the humanitarian impulse boils down to just wanting "a hit off the action."
He's not simply the innocent abroad. Idealists have a hard time living up to their own big ideas and we get various shades of Neugass. He doesn't disguise the ugliness, even when it's his own.
I found this to be one of his more interesting, quizzical, and at the same time disturbing paragraphs...
"There seems to be nothing sacred about ambulances, after all. I've been an instinctive pacifist all my life; but I feel that if I catch the man who rolls rocks onto the Mas de las Matas road, I'd like to open him up little by little with my jackknife until I see if I can tell a fascist heart from a democratic heart. It's the actions you kill, not the man. Murder! Think of it."
Face to face with a reality as morally-charged, yet horrific as the Spanish Civil War, one's also bound to be faced with an unseen side of themselves. I still think Anthony Lloyd was right by saying that oftentimes the humanitarian impulse boils down to just wanting "a hit off the action."
September 1, 2020
This is an excellent representation of personal experience in war. The scenes of transporting wounded, dealing with wounded men, and the general understanding that the one in the trenches is more worried about food, tobacco, and sleep more than what strategic objectives have been met is crystal clear.
Want to read
January 11, 2009Estuve en la presentación del libro en el Instituto Cervantes y en la NYU. Conocí al hijo del señor, muy majo. Es un diario de la guerra civil española en inglés. Estuvo perdido en un cajón hasta hace un año. Todavía no tiene edición en español. Lo comparan con George Orwell y Hemingway por su calidad. Una rareza.
Aprendí en la presentación que el autor era un poeta judío neoyorquino, además de conductor de ambulancias. Estuvo en el frente de Aragón. Su estilo es pulcro y cuidado.
En los momentos de mayor estrés o trauma, cambia de primera a tercera persona. Los presentadores del libro dijeron que era una forma de crear una distancia emocional de los hechos que le habían impactado de modo más duro.
Tengo un ejemplar, pero todavía pendiente de leer.
Aprendí en la presentación que el autor era un poeta judío neoyorquino, además de conductor de ambulancias. Estuvo en el frente de Aragón. Su estilo es pulcro y cuidado.
En los momentos de mayor estrés o trauma, cambia de primera a tercera persona. Los presentadores del libro dijeron que era una forma de crear una distancia emocional de los hechos que le habían impactado de modo más duro.
Tengo un ejemplar, pero todavía pendiente de leer.
Want to read
March 21, 2009Ok, so far I like it, but it might have to get returned to the library if someone else has a hold on it, since I'm just not moving through it that quickly. Maybe just not in the mood to read about war right now (although I am enjoying the other book I'm reading about toilets). If I do have to return it, I'll definitely get it out again and finish it.
Read
March 29, 2010Good
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews