The Middle Parts of Fortune: Enriched edition. A Poignant Portrayal of Trench Life and Battlefield Experiences

by Frederic Manning

Frederic Manning's literary masterpiece, The Middle Parts of Fortune, provides a poignant and realistic depiction of life in the trenches during World War I. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, the novel captures the raw emotions and vivid imagery of war, offering a stark contrast to other war literature of the time. Manning's choice to write under a pseudonym and his own experiences as a soldier in the war lend credibility to the authenticity of the narrative. The book is rich in detail and explores the psychological toll of war on the individual, making it a compelling read for those interested in historical fiction and war literature. Manning's vivid descriptions and lyrical prose paint a vivid and haunting portrait of the harsh realities of war, making it a timeless classic in the genre.

Genres: Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, World War I, Classics, Military Fiction, Novels

230 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Manning was born in 1882 in Sydney, Australia, and whose father was a one-time mayor. Educated privately, he was thereafter sent to England to complete his studies.

In the immediate pre-war years Manning established a reputation as a minor poet and critic among a small circle of intimates.

With the outbreak of war in August 1914 Manning enlisted as a Private with the 7th Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry, serving in the trenches in France among some of the more bloody battles of the war.

In 1929 Manning anonymously published in a private edition his novelised memoirs of the war, The Middle Parts of Fortune, in two volumes. In place of his name he simply listed his army serial number.

The following year, 1930, an expurgated edition of the book was commercially published as Her Privates We - without the strong language deemed likely to offend a wider readership.

Manning wrote no more fiction, retiring instead into scholarly seclusion. He died in London in 1935; it was a further eleven years before he was finally identified as the author of the war classic hailed by Hemingway as "the finest and noblest book of men in war I have ever read".

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) observed that "no praise could be too sheer for this book ... it justifies every heat of praise. Its virtues will be recognised more and more as time goes on."

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partly because of contemporary censorship, and partly because so many of the writers of the time were well-educated, middle-class boys, there is sometimes a tendency to imagine everyone from the First World War speaking in cut-glass Eton English. ‘Ready to give the Boche a damn good thrashing, Blodger?’ ‘Lumme, I should hope so old man,’ and so on. I mean you know logically that people still swore and cursed in the 1910s, but it's hard to take it on board instinctively when there's so little record of it. And then again, maybe people really were a bit more reserved in those days…?

I have fallen into that trap before; and linguistically speaking, The Middle Parts of Fortune has been a necessary corrective for me. Here, privates in the trenches are more direct:

‘Fuckin' slave drivers, that's what they are!’ said Minton, flinging himself on the ground. ‘What's the cunt want to come down 'ere buggerin' us about for, 'aven't we done enough bloody work in th' week?’

As soon as you read it, you think: ah. Yes. Of course that's how people spoke. I can hear people I know saying that.

Capturing this dialogue is one of Manning's key aims in this novel, and it was also one of the reasons the book got into trouble when it first came out (anonymously) in 1929. A year later it was bowdlerised and re-released as Her Privates We, the title under which it's still published by many modern editors, although it's not clear to me which version of the text is being used by who.

It's a great book anyway, and one that reminded me very much of Henri Barbusse's Le Feu. They have many incidents in common, but they also both depend stylistically on naturalistic slang, and they both spend the bulk of their time examining the interminable boredom that comprised ninety percent of soldiers' lives – the forced marches, billeting in tiny French villages in the rain, linguistic misunderstandings, trench philosophising, drinking binges in two-bit estaminets, the petty politics between different officers. All the time trying not to think about the next ‘show’: it was an existence based around rejecting the immediate future – what Manning describes as ‘their subterranean, furtive, twilight life, the limbo through which, with their obliterated humanity, they moved as so many unhouseled ghosts’.

As perhaps you can tell already, some of the prose is of quite an elevated register, especially compared with the speech. Manning is not averse to throwing in some rare archaisms like venusty to try and ratchet up the emotional effect of some scenes; I'm still not sure how I feel about that. I think the dialogue was more successful than many of the descriptive passages.

He does write very incisively, though, on many aspects of trench life, like its enforced masculinity. The lack of female interaction brings about all kinds of strange psychological symptoms – it instils a ‘sense of privation, which affected more or less consciously all these segregated males, so that they swung between the extremes of a sickly sentimentalism and a rank obscenity’, as demonstrated in several scenes.

I think ultimately Le Feu might be a better book. The Middle Parts of Fortune was very slightly let down for me by the central character, Bourne, who seems to move through a series of scenes that are designed to show off the excellence of his character: he is always the most level-headed, the most intelligent, the most judicious of his companions, and since he's a thinly veiled version of the author, this struck me as slightly off-putting. On the other hand, the portraits of other soldiers are very moving here, and I cared about some of them more than I cared about anyone in Barbusse.

They had nothing; not even their own bodies, which had become mere implements of warfare. They turned from the wreckage and misery of life to an empty heaven, and from an empty heaven to the silence of their own hearts. They had been brought to the last extremity of hope, and yet they put their hands on each other's shoulders and said with a passionate conviction that it would be all right, though they had faith in nothing, but in themselves and in each other.

The book ends with his company going over the top, and by this stage, after so much detailed uncertainty and procrastination, the effect is very powerful. My palms were sweating. Manning handles it perfectly: it feels as though you too, as a reader, have been waiting the whole time, with a sort of sick anxiety that can only be the tiniest shadow of its original, for this final, dreadful rush into hell.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Manning was born in Australia to an Irish Catholic family. He moved to England in 1898 at the age of sixteen with the Rev Arthur Galton (secretary to the Governor of New South Wales), with whom he had formed a close friendship. They had similar literary interests and tastes and Manning lived with Galton until his death in 1921. Galton became vicar of Edenham in Lincolnshire in 1898. Manning was essentially a man of letters and moved in literary circles, being friends with Beerbohm, Rothstein and Pound before the war. During the war he served throughout and took part in the battle of the Somme. He was in the trenches, becoming a sergeant and a lance corporal, although he had an uneasy relationship with his senior officers. After the war Manning continued to write articles and poetry and became friends with T E Lawrence. The Middle Parts of Fortune was written in the late 1920s. It was originally published as Her Privates We (both titles are quotes from Hamlet Act 2 scene 2 and there is a quote from Shakespeare at the start of every chapter). Authorship was initially credited to Private 19022. The novel uses vernacular language which you would expect soldiers to use; as a result the original text was not published until 1977. Earlier editions toned down the swear words.
The central character in the novel is Bourne (Manning lived near Bourne in Lincolnshire) who is strongly based on Manning himself. Bourne is one of the men, but also feels a sense of difference:
“He was not of their county, he was not even of their country… He felt like an alien among them.”
The novel is very well written and focuses on the day to day grind of the ordinary soldier, in the trenches, being moved around the countryside regularly, doing boring and menial tasks, parading, managing officers (commissioned and non-commissioned) and managing to get the occasional night out. Relationships with the local population are not neglected and are fascinating in themselves. The importance of food and drink stands out; an army marches on its stomach!
There is a lot of humour in the book as well as anger and some of the descriptions are vivid and powerful;
“Bourne, foundering in the viscous mud, was at once the most abject and the most exalted of God’s creatures. The effort and rage in him, the sense that others had left them to it, made him pant and sob, but there was some strange intoxication of joy in it, and again, all his mind seemed focused into one hard bright point of action. The extremities of pain and pleasure had met and coincided too.”
The novel has an emotional impact as the reader gets to know a small group of men and some of the lower rank officers. The men think of themselves as a “fuckin’ fine mob”, Bourne has his own assessment:
“The men … came from farms, and in a lesser measure, from mining villages of no great importance. The simplicity of their outlook on life gave them a certain dignity, because it was free from irrelevances. Certainly they had all the appetites of men, and, in the aggregate, probably embodied most of the vices to which flesh is prone; but they were not preoccupied with their vices and appetites, they could master them with rather a splendid indifference; and even sensuality has its aspect of tenderness. These apparently rude and brutal natures, comforted, encouraged and reconciled each other to fate with a tenderness and tact which was more moving than anything in life … They had been brought to the last extremity of hope, and yet they put their hands on each other’s shoulders and said with a passionate conviction that it would be all right, though they had faith in nothing, but in themselves and in each other,”
The bonds between the men are striking as is their awareness that they are pawns in a game being played by someone else;
“They don’t know what we’ve got to go through, that’s the truth of it,” said Weeper. “they measure the distance, an’ they count the men, an’ the guns, an’ think a battle’s no’ but a sum you can do wi’ a pencil an’ a bit of’ paper.”
A soldier named Pritchard sees the death of his bed chum, a close friend;
““E were dyin’ so quick you could see it …”elp me up”, ‘e sez, “elp me up.” – “You lie still, chum”, I sez to ‘im, “you’ll be all right presently.” An’ ‘e jes gives me one look, like ‘e were puzzled, an’ ‘e died.
…”Well, anyway”, said Martlow, desperately comforting; “e couldn’t ‘ave felt much, could ‘e, if ‘e said that?”
“I don’t know what ‘e felt” said Pritchard, with slowly filling bitterness, “I know what I felt.” “
There is brutality and tenderness here and the only real battle scene is towards the end of the book; the ending is powerful and very sad. I think this novel does capture the sense of how ordinary soldiers were feeling very well. Bourne is apart in some way with his complex interior life and ambivalence and his analysis of what was going on;
“One could not separate the desire from the dread which restrained it; the strength of one’s hope strove equal the despair which oppressed it; one’s determination could only be measured by the terrors and difficulties which it overcame. All the mean, piddling standards of ordinary life vanished in the collision of these warring opposites. Between them one could only attempt to maintain an equilibrium which every instant disturbed and made unstable.”
A well written and powerful novel, certainly one of the best in this genre.

[Chrissie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled through this book. At the halfway mark, I was about to dump it. Yet on completion, I had to admit two things. It does accurately depict war, at least the First World War, and those aspects of the book which I had disliked do make sense when you understand how the book ends. Bourne, the central protagonist, is at the book’s end to be promoted to officer. I never felt him to be one of the low rank soldiers; this had bothered me throughout the entire book. As an officer, he felt right. Nevertheless, my time spent with the book was not enjoyable. I thought I would come to feel the comradeship soldiers feel for one another. This I never felt.

The central character, private Bourne, is fictitious but the events are in fact based on the author’s own experiences fighting at the Somme in 1916. Bourne’s thoughts reflect the author’s thoughts and the critical views of many after the war’s end. The book has become known for the crudity of the characters’ language, the vernacular used by the common men on the battle fields, here put on display to the reading public. The book was meant to capture the reality of war. Sexual desire and mud and swearing and lice and the necessary numbing of one’s existence through drink are all here. The idiocy of officers’ commands too. All this must be here if war is to be properly depicted. I personally had no trouble reading about the filth and grime and idiotic commands, nor in deciphering the men’s crude vernacular. What I did have trouble with was Bourne’s philosophizing and elevated tone. I believe this was the author’s way of expressing his generation’s “criticism of war” after the war’s end.

Bourne’s detachment and superior attitude bothered me. He is consistently too good. He was a private like all the rest! I had a hard time seeing Bourne as one of the many, as part of a group of low rank soldiers. By making him a private the author could use him as their mouthpiece, but he is also used by the author to express educated, critical and thoughtful views. The two roles clash. It is interesting to note that the author, an Australian and well-educated, enlisted as a private and later rose in rank. Usually, the well-educated enlisted as officers from the start. Bourne’s fate does come to differ from the author’s. How I will not say. On completion of the book one is compelled to read about the author’s own life.

That this book has been praised by Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Arnold Bennett and T.E. Lawrence is easy to understand. They were of the generation that lived through the war and the censorship that had cloaked its realities. They are of their generation; I of mine. In the interim between their generation and mine, much has been written on the world wars.

What is revealed here about the war is accurate, albeit no longer startlingly new. Both war’s monotony and horror are drawn. The monotony, while accurate, does not make for an engaging read, and the vernacular did at times confuse. Rarely are we given officers’ clear instructions; they might have helped clarify events as they unfolded.

Every chapter begins with a quote from Shakespeare. I didn’t understand their relevance. The chapter lay ahead and I didn’t know what would happen. The audiobook narrator spoke quickly, and I had no time to think about what the words might signify.

I always rate a book’s content and the narration of the audiobook separately; I don’t think it is fair to judge a book by how an audiobook is narrated. In this case I have given both the book and the narration two stars. As I reached the end of the book I became less irritated by the narration performed by Stanley McGeagh, but for most of the book I detested it. He dramatizes, which explains why I underlined the word perform. Bourne’s detachment from those around him, his philosophizing and superior tone is enhanced by McGeagh’s performance. Likewise, he emphasizes the crude and often vulgar vernacular of the common privates, which further denigrates their status. One could claim that McGeagh simply captures what is intended by the author’s words. I do agree, but it annoyed me. In those sections separating dialogs, the narrator’s lilt, a peculiar rise in tone at the end of sentences, irritated me. McGeagh’s narration reminded me of Frederick Davidson’s (a.k.a. David Case) manner of narrating. I personally do not appreciate either narrator. McGeagh’s French is poor. For a book with French dialog and many town names, I found this hugely disappointing.

I do understand why many came to praise this book. It was first published anonymously in 1929. In 1930 an expurgated version came out; the title was changed to Her Privates We, and the author’s identity was revealed. However between then and now, many books have been written that reveal the reality of war.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Author's Prefatory Note (1929)

--The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, 1916

[Barksdale Penick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel set in the trenches in World War I. It provides a much more balanced view of the officer class in the British army than I have ususally read--they are often portrayed as witless elites who dined on fine food and wine while sending their troops off to certain death. The officers have some of that, and our hero, an intelligent enlisted man, certainly has moments of anger at his superiors, but often he recognizes the pressures on them and the care they take in leading the men. The book has lots of highly believable dialogue among the enlisted men, sometimes as they slog through the boredom of army life and sometimes as they prepare to go over the top of the trenches and head through no man's land. Our hero is an interesting fellow, not like the enlisted men and not like the officers, but he gets on well with most all of them. He is memorable. It isn't a book with an obvious plot, but is the sort of read that by the end you see the author's structure and design, which I found compelling. There is a fair amount of French spoken without translation, which could be frustrating if you have even less French than I do, but that would be the only caution I would offer. This is a great book, fully realized in its conception.

Second Reading. 2024

I read this book several years ago, and it immediately climbed onto my Shelf of Glory, a loosely defined group of 5 or 6 books that at any point seem to be the most memorable and well written books I have encountered. Our enigmatic hero is named Bourne, who appears in every scene. He is a private whose has the respect of officers and enlisted men alike. One of the recurring plot lines is that a promotion to a commissioned officer in the offing for Bourne, who resists as he likes to be with the troops. A superior eventually convinces Bourne to accept the promotion by explaining that regular discipline will not work properly if the men have more respect for Bourne than for their superiors, and that it is therefore incumbent on Bourne to accept a promotion. This is exemplified by a sergeant who decides to report of a German sniper to his superiors and insists that Bourne accompany him, since the officers will be more likely to believe his intelligence if confirmed by Bourne.
Bourne is often called up to interpret as his Fench is good—he can even plan a menu and make shopping plans with a French woman who has troops billeted in her house. Bourne receives far more letters and care packages than anyone, and he always shares the largesse. Amazing to think of mail delivery on the front lines in France. We learn so few details about Bourne through the book that when, near the end, he critiques some smart officer by saying other he had never smelled a dead horse on the South African veldt (or something like that) and I thought that was about the first clue about his --maybe he fought in the Boer Wars, but we never hear more about that. Then even later the book reveals that he has a wife and children—not mentioned once until very late. And finally, again near the end, a scene is described where Bourne is alone with an officer and the author describes the tension that arose when two men of the same social class are separated by military rank, suggesting that Bourne is some type of gentleman. He is with us on every page yet still remote.
When I read this the first time I was struck by the that unlike some classic movies about WWI, Manning presents the officer class as engaged and thoughtful about their men, and while that is true for officers with whom Bourne worked directly, this time I realized that Bourne is disdainful of the high brass on their well fed sleek horses. He notices key mistakes made by officers, although he generally keeps these observations to himself. And everybody realizes how silly it sounds when the top brass, in preparing the men for battle, says that no significant resistance is expected.
The author Fredrick Manning had served in WWI and his familiarity with military and battlefield terminology is effortless and he has knack for using jargon in manner understandable to the reader. The book opens in the wake of a huge, indecisive battle, with Bourne’s memories of that calamity filling his thoughts at first and then receding as the drudge of daily life on the front line and in reserve goes on. But all the while they are headed for another battle, and Bourne starts to show some cracks. He becomes nervous, and sleeps little. The tension builds as the reader sees the approaching battle and worries for Bourne. Then in action Bourne loses a friend and goes crazy with blood lust, eventually calming down when the battle once again proves indecisive and they are back in their lines. I can’t imagine the psychological pressure of trench warfare where death was so random and had nothing to do with doing a job properly or not. And I think that is why Manning presented Bourne as a supremely rational, reliable fellow—the prospect and fact of battle made even him a little crazy. I think this is nearly perfect book.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was in two minds about how to classify the authorship of this book. Wikipedia tells me that Frederic Manning (1882-1935) was an Australian poet and novelist, but in the introduction to Frederic Manning’s The Middle Parts of Fortune Simon Caterson tells us that Nettie Palmer rued that Australia could not really claim him. This was presumably because although he was born and educated in Sydney, Manning settled permanently in the UK in 1903 when he was 21, enlisted with British forces in WW1 and died in England in 1935. However, it does seem to me that he has an Australian sensibility. I suspect that no Englishman of his class in his era could have written with such authenticity about life in the ranks during the Great War.

The Middle Parts of Fortune was first published in an anonymous limited edition in 1929 under the authorship of ‘Private 19022′. Manning’s authenticity includes some lively dialogue in the … a-hem … vernacular , so much so that an expurgated edition entitled Her Privates We was published in 1930. Having read the reissued original published in the Text Classics series, I cannot imagine how this pruning could have been done without ruining the book, but it was apparently a runaway bestseller.

I suppose that’s because by then, people were reflecting on ‘the war to end all wars’, and wanted to try to understand what it was like. And this book is superbly written, conjuring the perfect balance between courage and fear; suffering and acceptance. Unlike Robert Graves (Goodbye to All That) and the poet Siegfried Sassoon, Manning’s perspective is not that of the English public school officer class; through his central character Bourne, he shows us a philosophically-detached participant-observer in the ranks.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/01/22/th...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

To a large extent, the popular British memory of the First World War is shaped by it's literature; the poems of Wilfred Owen, plays, notably Journey's End by R. C. Sherriff, and memoirs cum novels by the likes of Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, and Richard Aldington.

While these are all valuable documents, written as they were by men who served, there is a danger that they present an unrepresentative picture of life in the British army on the Western Front. Blunden, Graves, and Aldington, as well as Siegfried Sassoon, were all privately educated university men at a time when very few Brits could say that. As a result, the picture of Britain's war that emerges from the literature is disproportionately posh.

In it's unbowlderised form, The Middle Parts of Fortune goes some way towards re balancing that. The hero is a slightly irritating semi toff who is presented as a bit of an ideal, but lots of space is given to the rank and file, characters like Shem, Martlow and Smart. With their grim humour and determination, these men, as much as their well educated officers, were the raw material of Britain's military success in the First World War. This book takes a closer look at them than any other and, as a result, is perhaps the most enlightening piece of British literature to emerge from the trenches.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is as great a book as Hemingway, Eliot, T.E. Lawrence et al said it was. Perfectly structured and beautifully written (but never over-written), it invests the mundane with the same interest and significance as moments of great tension.
I do have a couple of criticisms of the Text Publishing edition I read. Firstly, they have a photograph of an Australian soldier, a digger, on the cover. Although Manning was an Australian of Irish descent, he spent his adult life in England and served in the British army. Australians, while mentioned a couple of times in passing, are not the subject of this book. Secondly: there are extensive exchanges in French. Whatever the linguistic skills of an English reader (who may have served in France) in 1929, most modern readers are unlikely to have the knowledge to comprehend these passages. A courteous publisher would have provided a translation, or at least a crib, as a footnote.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does the average bloke face the fate of being a tiny cog in a mindless war machine?

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, realistic, character based novel about a British army soldier’s World War I experiences in France. The story mainly focuses on Bourne, an individual who gets on with fellow officers and commanders. He is fairly truthful, resourceful and helpful.

The author was a British soldier and the novel represents some of his own experiences in 1916 at the Somme.

A good depiction of the realities of war and about a soldiers internal struggles. A little dull at times in its descriptions of the mundanities and discomfort of trench life. Nothing much happens for most of the book!

This book was first published in 1929.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

"War is waged by men, not by beasts or Gods. It is a peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half of its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime." Wise and interesting words from the Author's prefatory note, 1929. This is First World War from the trenches. Ordinary men, unvarnished and uncensored, trying to win the war, while dealing with officers, soldiers and the French locals and keeping a full belly and sane mind amidst the unspeakable horrors of that combat. Manning's alter ego is Bourne, a private, but with enough about him to be considered for promotion to Lance Corporal. Bourne is a survivor, or at least you wish he will be.

[Matt Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last quarter of this book blew me away. It was all good, but the last 80 pages or so were some of the best written war prose I’ve ever read.

[Ilina Jha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Basically just a duller, more misogynistic version of 'All Quiet On The Western Front'. Would not recommend - just read 'All Quiet' and be happy.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

"War is waged by men; not by beasts, or by gods. It is a peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance; it is also the punishment of a crime. That raises a moral question, the kind of problem with which the present age is disinclined to deal. Perhaps some future attempt to provide a solution for it may prove to be even more astonishing than the last."

[Val · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manning served in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry during WWI and this is a fictionalised memoir. It covers some major battles he took part in, but much of the time is spent behind the lines. The soldiers are transported in trains and lorries and marched down roads, without knowing where they are going or why. Their concerns are where they are billeted and whether they will get some decent food and a chance to wash. If it is a really excellent billet there might be women and a bar nearby, a building in good repair and no fleas.
A version of this book was published as Her Privates We with the swearing removed. I'm not keen on gratuitous swearing for effect, but this book certainly sounds more authentic with it put back in.
“They don’t care a fuck ‘ow us’ns live,” said little Martlow bitterly. “We’re just ‘umped an’ bumped an’ buggered about all over fuckin’ France, while them as made the war sit at ‘ome waggin’ their bloody chins, an’ sayin’ what they’d ‘ave done if they was twenty years younger. Wish to Christ they was, an’ us’ns might get some leaf an’ go ‘ome an’ see our own folk once in a while."
Manning was better educated and some years older than a lot of the men he served with. There are well written passages where he contemplates how soldiers think, how the experience of war changes people. The juxtaposition of these thoughts with the day to day concerns of feet, food, fleas and the fundamentals of living make this a powerful book. This, as the men go over the top, is a good example, "One could not separate the desire from the dread which restrained it; the strength of one's hope strove to equal the despair which oppressed it; one's determination could only be measured by the terrors and difficulties which it overcame. All the mean, piddling standards of ordinary life vanished in the collision of these warring opposites."

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read. I read it over once each year to remember how things really were so that I will never lie to myself nor to anyone else about them.’
Ernest Hemingway

‘A classic of enduring validity. I am glad he was an Australian, for this is a profoundly democratic book. I know of no story of the first world war which is so effectively written, not only from the ranks, but from the point of view of the ranks it remains, with Richard Mahony, almost alone among the products of Australian writers.’
Australian Book Review

‘No praise could be too sheer for this book. It justifies every heat of praise. Its virtues will be recognised more and more as time goes on.’
Lawrence of Arabia

‘A wise book among the most thoughtful novels of the war.’
New York Times Book Review

‘Frederic Manning’s novel of the first world war, The Middle Parts of Fortune, first appeared in London in 1929, in a limited edition intended for subscribers only. It was issued to the public the following year under the title Her Privates We, with some minor alterations made in concession to the conventions of the time. In rendering the everyday language of soldiers, for example, certain niceties were observed; “fuckin’s” were changed to “muckin’s,” and “buggers” to “beggars.” These transparent amendments did little to diminish the impact of the book, which struck its many readers, particularly those who had served in the war or witnessed its after-effects on their loved ones, as being true to the actual experience of modern warfare in ways that nothing else had managed to be. In the judgement of many of his admirers, Manning’s achievement has not really been surpassed even now, many decades and many wars later.’
Inside Story

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is singularly the finest novel I've read concerning the lives of combatants in WWI. Fighting or "going over the top" make up only a small portion of the narrative which deals primarily the minds of the common soldier; how they support one another; how the cope with inner and outer hardships; and often, how they find solace in one another and through simple events. The subtlety and sensitivity which Manning employs in dealing with the characters is remarkable. There are no stereotypes among them; they are all very real, down to the manner of their speech. I keep comparing this novel in my mind to "All Quite On The Western Front". Both are truly excellent works, but to me, the minds of the soldiers are better explored by Manning. Take these comments for what the are and draw your own conclusions, though I find it difficult to believe that one could read this book and not find it touching and captivating.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've read written by someone who was in the trenches. Superb in understanding, in character development, in revealing what life was like on The Somme both in battle and between "shows". The central character and his comrades meant as much to me as any I have read of in either factual or fictional accounts (though where the truth lies is a case for doctrinal study.) My grandfather was there. I never met him. Never knew much of him until standing before a memorial stone in his local village church. He survived the hostilities but struggled with life after he returned and died in his early thirties. I feel I know him better through reading this book. Hemingway read it every July to remind himself what it was like and to counsel himself against failing to tell it as it was. I will most certainly be reading it again. I have barely begun to absorb what this book has to tell me.

I'm not sure my mind is big enough to contain all I might learn from this.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Middle Parts of Fortune' is one of those novels that I've been aware of for decades, have wanted to read, and yet not tackled due to the prevarication all readers experience. As my recent reading habits have improved, and I have formulated a systematic approach that has formed the basis for this change, I had come to a point where I didn't want to put the book off any further. Generally speaking I am glad that I did so, and have now completed it.

There is no doubt that Manning wrote a truthful, insightful and valuable story about what it was like to serve as a British soldier in WWI. Therein lies one of the more intriguing challenges as well as a point in its favour. Much of the information about the book that I had garnered before reading it, as well as this edition's own editorial presentation stresses that Manning was an Australian, thus positing him and 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' as contributors to great Australian (war) literature. This is something that needs to be disputed; there is no unique Australian perspective or comment on what it means to be an Australian in this book. It may be of value to place Manning in the pantheon of great novelists who have an Australian heritage, having been born here or lived here for decades, however this is not a book defined by its Australian narrative, characters, themes etc.

This may deflect or detract from some readers' interest. However because Manning has disavowed his own national concerns and identity both in his real life and (by proxy) in this book, he has created a universal text. The experiences of his characters including Bourne, who serves as the protagonist in 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' and as an obvious fictional representation of the author are to be held in common with any soldier from any nation in WW1, and indeed perhaps in all history. Whilst there are obvious surface contrasts between this book and 'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Eric Maria Remarque (most notably that Remarque writes from a German perspective), the ethos of life as a soldier is described by both books in concentric similarity.

I can even vouch for the truthfulness and universality of Manning's novel from my own experiences, precluding the huge gap in years since he lived, in length and nature of military service, and in the absence of combat in my life contrasted with that seen by Manning. The private soldier's obsessions have not changed one iota since the story of 'The Middle Parts of Fortune'; food, sleep, promotion, officers, friends, women, alcohol, shirking work or taking up duties...what Manning writes about here remind me of my own far less significant exposure to being a soldier. It goes without saying that Manning himself is aware of this universality of experience; his quotes from Shakespeare are blatant signposts mapping his literary meaning in the book.

Turning aside from the overall value of 'The Middle Parts of Fortune', I would like to observe that it is a very good read, but it wasn't always one that I enjoyed. Perhaps because Manning was so good at producing a story that spoke of and to so many general aspects of soldiering he lost something in making the individual characters and narratives stand out. His main protagonist Bourne, modelled on himself, is hardly ever more than a mirror by which the war and those of his comrades fighting it are reflected. I don't want to give the impression that Manning has presented his characters and the story of his novel as a shallow and generic. However there is a blurred mundanity pervading the book that means one struggles to find an emotional entry point. Perhaps the most interesting element of the novel is Weeper, the character who has the most telling relationship with the war and being a soldier. Unlike Bourne and other characters in the novel, as well as the narrative itself, Weeper has not lost his detachment, his ordinariness. That it's Weeper who serves as the final actor in the story is no surprise; all the other characters have become imagos, lost in the mist of the trench warfare. It's through Weeper than Manning formulates the most engaging aspect of his story, and if one was to posit an argument for a 'likeable' appreciation of the book this character would be it.

Two important points need to be made about this specific edition. First of all, it is most appropriate that Manning's prose has not been censored, leaving in every expletive that has been excised in past bowdlerised versions. By keeping true to the swearing of the infantryman in the trench or behind the lines the quality of Manning's work would be definitely lessened by purging it of the occasional 'fuck' or 'cunt'. However, the second point I'd like to raise about this edition is that it does need a glossary or some notation for the jargon used in the book. For many people unfamiliar with the language of the soldier, or more specifically the terms of trench slang of WW1, there are times when the book's vocabulary is rendered obtuse or meaningless. It might be useful for either Text Publishing to reissue the novel with the appropriate definitions added.

In summary 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' is a very good novel that is both of its specific context (i.e. a personal fictitious account of fighting in WW1), and of the wider genre of the war story. Manning wrote a book that is certainly of significant literary value with the potential to be considered a classic of its type. The universality of its underpinning theme (i..e the life of the soldier) is well articulated and of much significance. However it is a somewhat emotionally detached work that arguably encourages a more intellectual appreciation of its worth than an emotional one. I would most stridently recommend 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' to anyone who has read other war literature, with specific comparison to the poets like Sassoon or Graves, or the German novelist Remarque.

[Deirdre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Portrayed very well the tedium of a soldier's life, the petty squabbling between officers, and the commitment to not imagine the future, but the problem with that is that it made the book tedious. The author did do a good job of capturing the vernacular of the common soldier, and I like the description of how in battle the differences between extremities of feelings are collapsed such that hope and despair, and determination and terror exist simultaneously. But mostly I found it meandering and sometimes clumsy.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was first published (in a private edition) in 1929, a good year for Great War literature seeing as it did the debuts of Goodbye to All That , All Quiet on the Western Front , A Subaltern’s War and A Farewell to Arms . That The Middle Parts of Fortune did not achieve the prominence of those better known works Niall Ferguson in the Introduction ascribes to the watering down of soldiers’ language in the book entitled Her Privates We that came out to a wider public a year later. The dilution of effect that bowdlerisation gave is highlighted by the extracts from that original edition which Ferguson quotes alongside the same passage in the more emphatic restored version of this Penguin Classics printing. Its relative obscurity is all the more disappointing to Ferguson as he notes that several commentators, including Hemingway himself, thought it the best (or, to military historian Sir Michael Howard, at least one of the greatest) book(s) about soldiers and war in western literature.

As its subtitle indicates it follows the fortunes of a small group of men between their last involvement in the Battle of the Somme to their later deployment at the Ancre in late 1916. The main character is a private named Bourne who, due to his education (he speaks French, though badly,) has a background more in common with the officers than his fellow soldiers. It is proposed to him by his battalion commander that he be put forward for a commission. At first he is reluctant but later accepts that it may be his duty.

Apart from the topping and tailing of the two battles there is very little depiction of actual fighting (as opposed to random shelling by the Germans.) The novel is mostly the depiction of life out of the front line, the interactions between the soldiers themselves and with the civilians with who they come in contact. (There is a moment of light relief in an incident where the Hindustani derived word ‘cushy’ is misheard by a Frenchwoman as a desire to coucher with her daughter.)

Bourne is closest to privates Martlow and Shem, and resents being separated from his platoon to undertake signals duty, even though the work there is less onerous. There are some diversions about a deserter, Miller, whom all the soldiers agree ought to have been shot, but is given another chance.
The setting gives Manning the opportunity to ruminate on the circumstances of life. “Civilisation is only the organisation of man’s appetites, for food or for women, the two fundamental necessities of his nature,” and of their situation, “French beer is enough to make any reasonable man pro-German.” On a march they pass an Australian cart driver who appeared to be slacking and was amazed to be told off by Bourne’s Colonel – at length and with fluent vigour – “in language to which no lady could take exception.”

That Bourne’s attitudes are of his time are illustrated by him saying about Shem, “‘To be a Jew and not to have money would be an unmitigated misfortune.’” Shem had had “‘a cushy job in the Pay Office, to which all his racial talent gave him every claim’” but had given it up to go soldiering. If the occasion demanded it though Shem would nevertheless be generous.

Shem himself remarks about staff officers, “‘They seem to go on from saying that losses are unavoidable, to thinking that they’re necessary, and, from that, to thinking that they don’t matter.’”

There is another amusing observation that “One insuperable bar to conversation with a Scotsman is, that is impossible to persuade him that an Englishman speaks English.” This, Ferguson’s introduction asserts, is anti-Scottish. Rather the opposite I would think.

[David Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sitting down to write a review of this book feels like I am writing its obituary for it signals that I am saying goodbye. I will miss these characters terribly. It has been said of this novel that it is plotless and I am in the camp that agrees. What we are presented instead of plot is a series of episodes wherein a collection of intriguing characters are gathered along the way. We begin near the end of a "show" (an attack). The survivours are taken out of the line and sent back to rest camp to recoup for the next attack. The bulk of the novel concerns the exploits of the weary soldiers at rest camp. But this is no romp, no laughing matter a la MASH. The war is always nearby and the risk of death is ever present. The men must go about their dull and pointless tasks knowing that they will be sent again into battle. Being wise in the ways of war, of this war anyway, they expect to be slain. That sense of imminent doom is what colours their characterizations and dialogue as they bond interact. It is the dialogue that leaps out first and attracts the readers attention. It is perhaps the one true genuine originality that this book has going for it. There isn't a lot of action, certainly not war action, going on otherwise. One can picture a version of this novel being performed on a stage (not by coincidence is each chapter introduced with a relevant quote from Shakespeare). Myself, I see it represented as a solid BBC series or better yet a Netflix series if it is done with the right emphasis. There is certainly no shortage of vulgar profanity which is very popular on streaming content. It is the flavour and the context of this profanity that gives the piece its unique identity. Think Mamet rewriting All Quiet On The Western Front with Katherine Mansfield editing. We'd get such memorable lines as "You take your fuckin' orders from Fritz!" and we'd get such moving scenes as the final handshake among the men as they share in one last tot of rum before going over the top. I found myself borrowing lines from the book in my everyday life when engaged in common chit-chat ("How was the drive in to work?". "Oh, it were cushy enough.")

I think those who complain that this book was hard to get into, or that it was hard to stick with because nothing seemed to happen, are not wrong. There is a strong heart beating beneath the constant sound of the distant guns and through the eternal fog and mud. You either hear it or you don't.

[NDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fine novelization of the writer’s wartime experiences. I like the way Frederick Manning sandwiches his story between his regiment’s having just finished participating in what we can guess was some of the early (July) fighting on the Somme—without giving any detail of that formative experience—and its getting ready for and participating in another Big Push around November. In between, while on billet (mostly), FM gives us delightful and fascinating glimpses of some of the characters and situations he encounters, French civilians as well as fellow military, and articulates a range of perspectives and opinions on the war as well as other weighty and not-so-weighty matters. I am gratified that FM’s view seems to be that of his character, Bourne, who seems to feel that “it was the right thing to do.” (I’m fed up with whining traitors like Sassoon and Brittain…) I suppose it’s a stretch to compare FM’s work to Canterbury Tales, but there is some similarity, probably intentional. In any case, Manning nicely builds the dramatic tension as we get closer to what we all know is going to happen. I suspect it is no exaggeration to say that for an enlisted man to make the leap to Commissioned Officer is kind of like death; as an officer, Bourne is presumably all but dead to his old pals in the old battalion.

Speaking of Bourne’s closest chums, Shem and Matlowe, and illuminated by FM’s opening of each chapter with a quote extracted from Shakespeare—I have to admit that I don’t know which play or plays the quotes are all from—and it’s not always clear why a particular quote heads up any particular chapter, the connection to Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (Shem is Jewish) is obvious, but, again, I’m not sure what the significance is. So Bourne is Manning is Hamlet, but I suppose I need to review my Shakespeare.

Manning also does an excellent job of capturing a variety of accents among the soldiers, from the almost-incomprehensible Scotsman to the Welsh who says “a” for “I” and uses thee and thou in everyday speech. I sense that the author was actually very fond of his fellow Brits of whatever background, unlike, for example, James Joyce who seems to have largely despised his fellow Dubliners. I prefer Manning’s approach.

In any case, it’s a nicely done novelization, and deserves greater appreciation than I am capable of giving it. I wish there were more by this author. He deserves more.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8 stars really.
I followed a train of thought via the internet a few weeks back and ended up reading about the Ottoman Empire in WWI and how it was one of four empires toppled by the war. I had never heard that before and it got me thinking about how little I knew about WWI. So, I went to my library and did a search. Along with histories of the war, Middle Parts of Fortune came up as a classic piece of WWI fiction, prized in part because of its realistic portrayal of the war from a soldier’s point of view.

“Middle Parts” follows Bourne, an English infantry man in France. Published in 1929 I can definitely see how it would have been a classic in the years between the wars. Now, however, it is a little dated and my mind wandered occasionally soI had to rewind and listen to parts again. Still, the book was well written enough that I didn’t mind rewinding.

This book could easily have been another generation’s MASH or Catch-22 as the war is always present but it is the actions and personalities of individuals that moves the book forward. For example, in one scene Bourne helps the corporals of his battalion secure food and wine for a special dinner because his battalion is off the line for a few days and Bourne speaks French and has a bit of a reputation as a scrounger. In another, Bourne and two others are assigned to a runner’s post in a barn but move to the basement of abandoned farmhouse because of German shelling. In that basement they find the previous runners had set up a fairly comfy bunk house because a soldiers first duty is always to his own comfort. Later, Bourne, who is generally level headed, arranges for someone to go into a PX to buy its best champagne because he is ticked off that the PX is excluding enlisted personnel. He doesn’t really want the champagne as much as he wants to keep it from the stuck up officers.

Bottom line, the characters are interesting, the setting compelling and writing good so, if you think you would enjoy an evenly paced WWI character driven novel then you will likely love this book.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little known tale of horror straight from the trenches of the Great War

The author published this fine work - his only novel - in 1929 , and it has had a much diminished impact on the world as for many years the language and content were censored for its presumed timid readership .

Make no mistake this is a very fine and very living account of life on the line during 1916-7 . The action opens as the hero Bourne completes a stint in the frontline and moves to spend a few weeks in reserve in and around north east France.

The author states that the characters are all invented but that the stories are true . This novel tells the story of these men moving from trench to billet around the French villages. Bourne has 2 mates - Martlow and Shem. The 3 of them hang out , drink eat and sleep together . There is great camaraderie . Martlow is a kid maybe 18 or so .

We get to meet many of the other men and NCOs also junior officers into whom this trio come into contact. Also we meet a number of the French farmers hosting them.

The novel is unsentimental : the action is very realistically told , understated . It contains some critique of the army and some of the rules - having parades which allow the Germans to target large body of men with a shell for example. But generally it is not anti army or a sending up of the officer class.

Eventually Bourne must go back into action and the front line and the last 40 pages are a slow building up to this , the fear and nerves slowly building up to this inevitable next action . . The reader is carried along - I found the final attack quite riveting to read .. the whole section of 4 companies goes over the top and attack the Hun. It is described very precisely and we feel we are there in the battle.

Then the attack ends and back to the line and then in the last few pages one final action. And the novel closes leaving the reader feeling dull and empty; but grateful that he doesn’t have to go through that himself

It is a great work of literature.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars!

This suffers from the unbearable pretentiousness of repeated passages of untranslated French. That’s the kind of snobby nonsense which gives literature a bad reputation and scares off those, who dare I say…(whisper it…think they can pick up a book in English but are not fluent in French!) How very daaaaaaahre they. Any other language and it would rightfully be translated. So shame on those lazy cheapskates at Penguin who can’t even get one of their interns to translate and stick in some footnotes for the reissue. I couldn’t help notice the repeated reference to Scottish whiskey, which of course is incorrect, there’s no e. If only they’d put as much time and effort into the English as the French.

Manning vaguely addresses themes of class, mortality and desertion though rarely do you feel that you are getting below the surface of the characters or gaining a convincing insight into their motivations, fears or mind-sets. In saying that, the final two battle scenes were well told and for the first time you felt you were getting to the heart of something, but then of course the story ended. The author may well have fought in the trenches, but he doesn’t consistently translate that effectively to the reader, many times this looks like we are getting on the threshold of something deeper, but it never fully develops and as a result this leaves you feeling a tad deflated and disappointed.

So this is an interesting read, but nowhere near classic status. There appears to be an unwritten rule where just because someone who fought in WWI has written about it, it's instantly granted "classic" status. And too often the word “old” is confused for “classic”, there is a huge distinction between the two. Junger’s “Storm of Steel” and Remarque’s “All Quiet On The Western Front” are classics, and Harrison’s “Generals Die In Bed” is of a better standard too. And of course we’re spoiled by some of the many modern takes on the conflict, with the likes of Barker’s “Regeneration Trilogy” and Faulks’s “Birdsong” really giving shape and impact to events.

[Mark Seemann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having already read Intet Nyt fra Vestfronten, A Farewell to Arms, and Når retsind fører ordet, I wasn't expecting this world war I novel to be particularly exciting. The only vaguely exciting book I recall reading about that conflict might be I stålstormen.

Still, nothing happens here.

Much is made of the relationships between the privates and their non-commissioned officers, but I found it faintly confusing trying to figure out what a regimental was, how, or if, a lance corporal differs from a corporal, or a colour sergeant from a sergeant major, etc.

Sometimes, someone is demoted or punished for infractions that were never clear to me.

The best part, if I had to identify it, comes towards the end of the book where they prepare to 'go over the top'. Here, the fear and apprehension comes through, but even so, I found myself to comparing that chapter to the ending of Blackadder Goes Forth, and finding the latter more moving and poignant.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the swearwords and all version of Frederic Manning's novel. There is a cleaned up version called 'Her Privates We'. I've read a lot of memoirs and novels from WW1 but this has to be amongst the best.

Manning was Irish-Australian and served himself. This story, it seems, is based on his own service and Bourne, the central character, would appear to be a version of him. Bourne is a Private, but there is a feeling he should be up for a commission. But he prefers being in amongst the men. There are several other characters who he is in regular conversation with. His two main friends - and friends might not be the right word - are Martlow and Shem.

The books makes you feel like you're getting a clear idea of the experience of being a soldier in WW1 whether it is in the line or out of it. You get to experience the dull stuff and the dangerous stuff. You get to see how important alcohol is. But perhaps the central point is how the men's relationships are perhaps key to how the British Army didn't break. That men didn't want to let their mates down. And that was more important than King, country or regiment.

Where I think the book steps up from four stars to five is the gradual build up to the attack and the attack itself. The way the tension builds and the way Manning writes about fear and terror prior to the attack and during it is astonishing. It is some of the best writing I've read on the subject and you feel it. You are absolutely pulled into their experiences.

I would put this up with David Jones's 'In Parenthesis' as one of the key books to read which has World War One at its centre.

[Norman Revill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic. A British 'All Quiet On The Western Front' and first published in the same year, 1929, though written by an Australian; a classical scholar and man of letters who came to England aged fifteen and served as a private on the Somme. Hemingway called it 'the finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read'. Its earthy language caused a minor sensation at the time and was originally cleaned up for general release under the title 'Her Privates We'. It sold 15,000 copies in three months, but the original text was not reprinted until 1977. Manning's protagonist Bourne, though educated and a 'gentleman', is a private, with no desire for the commission he is frequently urged to seek. We learn little about him and his background, but what we read on the page and experience through him is immense - action, observation and reflection, all clearly based on Manning's own experiences on the Somme in 1916. Its gripping depiction of a soldier's life and experiences in the trenches will probably never be matched. His writing is far less cynical than most of the WW1 poets; the attitude and language of the men helps us understand their ability to endure their predicament - Bourne's fellow privates see themselves as a 'fuckin' fine mob', convinced that 'it would be alright, though they had faith in nothing, but in themselves and in each other'. My Folio edition has some fine illustrations that make this a book to treasure and absolutely a classic.

[Sharon Albanese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Book Club, for giving me this amazing, mesmerising, unforgettable book I would never have otherwise read. Apparently this book has been lauded as a classic by notables such as TS Eliot, and now I know why. The book builds relationships, quietly draws the reader in, makes us care about these people in these extraordinary circumstances, then strikes. The horrors of war are always present, but lurking in the background. In the meantime the soldiers simply get on with their lives. The courage displayed by these men is told in a matter of fact way- everyone is a hero in their own way, because they are all being asked to perform tasks that seem so surreal and horrific The side characters- the deserter who is captured and escapes, the pessimist loner who comes up trumps when needed- all these characters are there for a reason. I really loved this book- the writing is beautiful, the story is simple but unforgettable. As all great books do, this book will stay with me.